"[9] The purpose of Relief Society reads, “Relief Society helps prepare women for the blessings of eternal life as they increase faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and His Atonement; strengthen individuals, families, and homes through ordinances and covenants; and work in unity to help those in need.”[9][10] In the spring of 1842 Sarah Granger Kimball and her seamstress, Margaret A. Cook, discussed combining their efforts to sew clothing for workers constructing the Latter Day Saints' Nauvoo Temple.

Kimball asked Eliza R. Snow to write a constitution and by-laws for the organization for submission to President of the Church Joseph Smith for review.

[13] At the meeting Joseph Smith stated "the object of the Society—that the Society of Sisters might provoke the brethren to good works in looking to the wants of the poor—searching after objects of charity, and in administering to their wants—to assist; by correcting the morals and strengthening the virtues of the female community, and save the Elders the trouble of rebuking; that they may give their time to other duties, &c., in their public teaching.

Desiring to continue plural marriage, Young disbanded the Relief Society before leaving Nauvoo for the Salt Lake Valley.

[25] As Saints established homes in the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding settlements, formal meetings for women gradually emerged.

Records are limited but show that by 1858 over two dozen organizations had formed in some twelve Salt Lake City wards and in other outlying settlements such as Ogden, Provo, Spanish Fork, and Manti, Utah.

Ward societies were not interconnected by central women's leadership, though many of them engaged in similar activities such as sewing clothing for Indians, caring for the poor, especially emigrants, and weaving carpets for local meetinghouses.

[29] Interrupted by the 1858 Utah War, no more than three or four of these independent ward organizations survived the temporary move of much of the Latter-day Saint population south of Salt Lake County.

[30] In December 1867 church president Brigham Young publicly called for the reorganization of Relief Society in every ward.

Eliza R. Snow was assigned to assist local bishops in organizing permanent branches of the Relief Society.

Using the minutes recorded in the early Nauvoo meetings as a Constitution, Snow created a standard model for all local wards that united women in purpose and provided a permanent name and structure to their organization.

The Relief Society sent women to medical school, trained nurses, opened the Deseret Hospital, operated cooperative stores, promoted silk manufacture, saved wheat, and built granaries.

[34] In June 1945, the General Board changed the organization's official name to "Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints".

[35] These changes assisted in preparing the Relief Society for an era of a worldwide church; correlated lessons and materials were easier to translate and applicable to a broader audience.

[36] Additionally, unwed teenage mothers who are seventeen or older and who choose to keep the child are advanced into Relief Society.

During these meetings, an educational lesson is presented by a member of the Relief Society presidency or another woman who has been asked to serve as the instructor.

The Relief Society also leads the LDS Church's efforts to teach basic literacy skills to those members and non-members that lack them.

[41] From the 1970s to 2013, the Relief Society held a general meeting in Salt Lake City, annually in late September, which was broadcast around the world via television and radio, and later the Internet.

[43] Beginning in 2018, the annual Women's Session of the church's general conference is held in October, in the evening, as part of the regular Saturday schedule.

While the Quorum of the Seventy had a building in Nauvoo in the 1840s, the Relief Society is the only auxiliary organization in the LDS Church today which has a completely separate facility.

On April 1, 2018, during the church's general conference, church president Russell M. Nelson announced that the similar program of visiting teaching, along with the priesthood's home teaching, would be retired, to be replaced with the "ministering"-brethren-and-sisters program, with its dual components under the direction of the ward's elders quorum and Relief Society's respective leaderships.

The Relief Society Presidency is responsible for helping the women of the congregation learn welfare principles such as work, self-reliance, provident living, personal and family preparedness, and compassionate service of others.