COVID-19 Donation List

This list is designed to help people give money in a time of COVID-19. There are many many many great projects out there helping people. Sometimes they need people to help with specific skills or equipment but all also need money. For each category listed below, there are some recommended charitable organizations. There are also some writeups, many of which were sources of recommendations. Please give generously.

This list is somewhat long so to help you find something that resonates with you. BUT, if you don’t have the time or inclination to look through the whole list, you can donate to the World Health Organization fund or Feeding America easily (just click & donate) or choose a local community foundation fund from this map. If you have an extra second, please tweet or otherwise share that you donated (feel free to tag me and I’ll retweet). Being vocal about donating will encourage others to do the same and increase the value of your donation.

One other note specifically for those of you (like me) who are privileged to have a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). You may have funded that DAF a while ago with the intention of figuring out how to give away the money over time. You may not have given much away because: life. Now is a very good time to use your DAF to help. You put money in to give it away, not to watch it grow. Your money NOW can make a big difference. Please consider choosing a goal that meets the urgency of this crisis and pushing yourself to give that goal away. Each recommendation below includes the organizations’ EIN so that you can easily give from your DAF (I generally give unrestricted funds, but you can also specify programs when you submit). I have also included recommendations from some DAFs and community foundations at the end. [If you don’t know what a Donor Advised Fund is, don’t worry, you are normal! You don’t have to know about them but if you’d like to, here are some resources: explainer from Wikipedia, explainer from Fidelity (a provider of them), and a critical take from the NYT.]

Finally, this is an evolving draft. If you have suggestions or questions, shoot me a note. I’m @amac on Twitter.

Categories

Hospitals, Doctors, Nurses & the Front Line
This is a large fund (>$100M so far) that is run through the UN Foundation.
EIN: 58-2368165 (UN Foundation)

EIN: 58-2106707

Developing country care & testing.
EIN: 04-3567502

Supplies to medical professionals to help them protect themselves.
EIN: 95-1831116

Logistics and shipping for front line supplies.

EIN: 13-3433452

EIN: 56-2273242

Resources for health systems focusing on resolving inequity.
EIN: 45-0484533

Meals from local restaurants to health workers.
EIN: 27-3521132  (through World Central Kitchen)

Food & Other Relief For Economically Disadvantaged
Community Foundations have a history of local giving and the staff to review potential grantees and get the money quickly in times of crisis. Consider giving to your local one (found via the map above) and/or one in a community that you care about. For example, for me that’s the Maine Community Foundation (donate EIN: 01-0391479), they have already given a wave of money to good local institutions.

They also run the very good Find Your Local Food Bank resource, which allows you to give locally.
EIN: 36-3673599

Many seniors use this program.
EIN: 23-7447812

Keeping children fed.
EIN: 06-0726487

EIN: 52-1367538

They also fund Frontline Foods (see above).
EIN: 27-3521132

Gives cash to people who need it.
EIN: 27-1661997

“Emergency financial relief for students, immigrants, and workers left out”
EIN: 20-8993652

Update: @mredshirtshaw has a good thread on a number of South Dakota Tribes' COVID-19 funds. She points to South Dakota because of the lack of a shelter-in-place order there.

Refugees and Displaced People
Consider directing your donation to the Matamoros Project.
EIN: 81-5163032

Sidewalk School [donate]
EIN: 80-3405530


Update: A friend who knows more than I do about refugee issues points to the following two orgs:
International Rescue Committee, Signpost Project [donate]
EIN: 13-5660870
Signpost is designed to help refugees get good information during the crisis which the IRC's president says is one of the most pressing problems.

Refugee Advocacy Lab at Refugees International + International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)[donate: Refugees International or IRAP]
EINs: 52-1224516 (Refugees International) or 82-2167556 (IRAP)
Matching refugees with healthcare experiences with states that need healthcare workers and the certifications they need to practice, thereby helping both.


I have a friend who works specifically with communities on the El Paso / Juarez border. There they recommend:
The ACLU also has a good article about donating in this category.

I don't have a perfect recommendation to directly help those in prisons and jails but Civil Rights Corps [donate] and Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection [donate] are fighting some of the legal battles around this. Please ping me if you have others.
Update: The Reform Alliance has a special COVID-19 action page to attempt to get governmental attention to this problem. Thanks @rklau.

Domestic Abuse
RAINN runs the US National Sexual Assault Hotline.
EIN: 52-1886511

EIN: 91-1081344

EIN: 77-0155782

Children
EIN: 13-1760110

Keeping children fed (also in Food above).
EIN: 06-0726487

Also in Food above.
EIN: 52-1367538

EIN: 13-3468427

US Focus on learning.
EIN: 52-1779606

Miscellaneous and Support
Creative Commons provides the licensing infrastructure for a lot of the open content being relied on in this crisis and was part of creating the Open COVID Pledge to help ensure that people fighting COVID can worry less about patent lawsuits. Disclaimer: I am a Board Member.
EIN: 04-3585301

Tech is becoming even more important now. Data & Society studies and critically unpacks the social implications of data-centric technologies & automation so that their impact is less harmful / more beneficial. Disclaimer: I am a Board Member.
EIN: 46-2904827

Good information is critical to combating COVID and journalists are risking their lives to get it to us. 
EIN: 13-3081500

Support their just launched fund to give legal support to local and regional reporters.
EIN: 52-0972043

Other Good Writeups & Resources
Community Foundations have expertise to help get money to local charities in times of crisis. This map will help you find one in an area that you care about.

Amelia Nierenberg, Don’t Need That $1,200 Stimulus Check? Here Are Places to Donate It, New York Times, March 27, 2020 but updated as well.
Great round up and source of a bunch of the above.

Before COVID-19 was the focus but still very relevant.

Denise Hearn, COVID-19 — where to give money now, April 2, 2020.
Bloomberg Beta, Schmidt Futures, and The Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society put this together.

Update: Isaac Chotiner, The Danger of COVID-19 for Refugees, April 10, 2020.
Q&A with David Miliband, the president and C.E.O. of the International Rescue Committee about the specific issues raised by COVID-19 in refugee communities where he highlights disinformation as an important issue.

Disaster Philanthropy, COVID-19 Coronavirus, April 13, 2020.

Fidelity Charitable, How to help: Novel Coronavirus.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is a great blog post - hits all the high points of encouraging those who can to give! Thank you for mentioning Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. We really appreciate that you shared our information here. We are certainly busy responding to the legal challenges that journalists are running into across this nation. And the contributions would be very, very helpful!

All the best to you, Jennifer Pelton, (Director of Development, Reporters Committee)