Crisis relief

20+ charities on the frontlines of the COVID-19 battle

Photo: Samaritan’s Purse

As we all endure the global COVID-19 pandemic, charities of all kinds are responding to critical needs, filling gaps, and innovating on the fly to find new solutions to unprecedented problems. But their work doesn’t come without a cost. Funding is always an issue. 

If financial support isn’t consistent, it doesn’t just hurt the nonprofit; it can have both immediate and eventual devastating consequences for the people they serve.

With this in mind, we’ve compiled this list of U.S.-based charities that are working on the frontlines ​across the U.S. or internationally. For charities in your own area, check with your local NCF office. All the charities on the list below are already approved to receive NCF grants right away. If you already have a Giving Fund at NCF, log in today to recommend a grant. If you don’t have a Giving Fund, you can open one in just minutes


American Red Cross

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As the coronavirus pandemic has grown here in the U.S., blood drive cancellations have grown at an alarming rate. Nearly, 2,700 Red Cross blood drives have been canceled across the country due to concerns about congregating in small spaces during the coronavirus outbreak. Many people don’t know that Red Cross not only provides blood to hospitals, but they also provide disaster relief faster than any other organization. Feel free to donate from your Giving Fund to the Red Cross, but you may also want to consider contacting them to give your blood. Log in to your Giving Fund to donate to your local Red Cross.

Americares

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Working with a global network of health care partners and in their own free clinics, Americares is providing resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re sending critical supplies and providing education, training, and other support for their staff and partners.

CDC Foundation

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Donations made to the CDC Foundation’s COVID-19 response support deploying emergency staffing to U.S. public health agencies, funding medical supplies, increasing lab capacity, providing support to vulnerable communities, and much more. And thanks to Facebook’s generous support, your donation will go even further.

Convoy of Hope

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Through local partners in multiple states, Convoy of Hope is delivering food (including supplies for school lunches), water, hygiene kits, cleaning supplies, and other relief materials. So far, more than 540,100 pounds of resources are either on their way or already delivered to 22 locations around the country.

Crisis Aid International

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Crisis Aid International is focusing their COVID-19 response on St. Louis, Missouri, an area where they have served for 30 years. In response to the urgent needs created by the coronavirus the are providing food for families experiencing food shortages and working with local churches to identify elderly shut-ins and families in need.

Direct Relief

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Direct Relief is coordinating with public health authorities, nonprofit organizations, and businesses in the U.S., China, and globally to provide personal protective equipment and essential medical items to health workers responding to COVID-19. They are staging personal protective equipment with regional response agencies across the world, including in the Caribbean and South America through the Pan American Health Organization.

Giving Children Hope

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In order to provide supplies to Southern Californian clinics that are responding to the disaster, Giving Children Hope is mobilizing to supply n-95 masks, gloves, isolation gowns, and more. Professionals who are testing for the virus rely on the isolation gowns to safely test individuals without getting sick themselves. They are also providing food to low-income students throughout Southern California. This is especially necessary at this time because many will be losing the free and reduced meals they typically receive at their school each day. 

Global Giving

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Global Giving is sending doctors, nurses, and other frontline responders to communities in need. They’re providing masks, ventilators and other life-saving medical supplies to hospitals and clinics, delivering essential items to struggling families and older individuals, feeding children who rely on school meals and helping to educate about hygiene to prevent the spread of the virus. Over the long-term, they plan to help with recovery and education efforts to keep such a widespread outbreak from happening again.

Heart to Heart International

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In their local community (Kansas) and around the world, Heart to Heart International is operating a mobile medical unit, providing drive-through COVID-19 testing, and delivering hygiene kits for distribution to those who are unable to get to stores. They are also work with local, domestic, and international organizations to ship critical medicines around the world.

HOPE International

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HOPE International is responding to the devastating global economic fallout related to COVID-19. HOPE empowers approximately a million men and women in 16 countries with tools like discipleship, training, savings, and business capital, knowing doing so helps families outlast financial crisis. HOPE will be offering creative support to global entrepreneurs experiencing business collapse and providing relief to local churches in communities where (unlike in the U.S.) families can expect little or no support from public safety nets.

Lutheran World Relief

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Working against the crisis, Lutheran World Relief is rushing equipment and supplies to health facilities. They are equipping churches, schools and communities to educate families about coronavirus prevention, symptoms, and treatment. They are also helping in efforts to trace those who have come in contacted with the disease to prevent its spread and to support government data collection.

MAP International

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MAP International is a global Christian health and relief organization that partners with people living in conditions of poverty to save lives and develop healthier families and communities. In January, Back in January, they helped China, by airlifting more than 3 million masks, 300,000 pairs of nitrile gloves and more than 10,000 protective suits to Chinese partner organizations. They are now working to provide for the needs of partner organizations in the U.S. and abroad.

Medshare

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Since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global health emergency, MedShare has donated more than $1.3 million worth of aid, including more than 2.8 million masks and nearly 200,000 isolation gowns to hospitals and clinics to help medical personnel working on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak. The objective of MedShare’s disaster relief program is to provide medical supplies and equipment to communities where there are gaps in the infrastructure or lack of access to crucial supplies needed to support recovery.

Medical Teams International

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Medical Teams International began fighting COVID-19 in their own backyard: the Pacific Northwest, one of the first and hardest-hit areas in the country. They were able to shift quickly, converting their drive-through dental clinics into COVID-19 screening sites. They’re also providing thousands of gowns, face masks, exam gloves, and safety glasses to local hospitals and first responders, and their field staff around the world are being trained on WHO guidelines to contain the virus in refugee camps.

Partners in Health

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COVID-19 will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and hit countries with weak health systems the hardest, especially where the population suffers from conditions such as malnutrition, HIV, and tuberculosis. Mortality is anticipated to be far worse in the places where Partners in Health works. So they are launching a comprehensive effort to support the countries in their network around the world to contain and control the spread of the virus, ensure the patients are provided with dignified care, and demonstrate to the world what aggressive action in vulnerable settings can achieve.

Project Hope

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Project HOPE has been working to fight COVID-19 since January, and they have already delivered millions of masks and other protective equipment to health workers at the forefront of the pandemic in China. They’ve begun scaling up work in other countries – all while continuing to deliver aid and training in the aftermath of deadly natural disasters in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.

Samaritan’s Purse

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Samaritan’s purse specializes in meeting critical needs for victims of conflict, disaster, famine, and epidemics throughout the world, often working through ministry partners on the ground, providing food, water, shelter, medicine, and hope in the Name of Jesus Christ. Last week, they air-lifted an entire 68-bed Emergency Field Hospital to Cremoa, Italy, to provide care for those sickened by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Save the Children

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The earliest years are most important for a child’s development, and missing out on learning now could have devastating impact on their future growth. As national leaders in early childhood education, Save the Children is committed to help children and families during this uncertain time by providing food and learning resources for our nation’s youngest learners.

Wateraid

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Working in more than 30 countries, WaterAid is providing lifesaving clean water and teaching water hygiene programs to prevent the spread of disease.

Water Mission

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With their history of responding to health crises such as the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa, Water Mission’s staff is well-equipped to help counter the spread of viruses in developing countries. During health crises, the need for safe water solutions become magnified. Without safe water, clinics and hospitals could not safely and effectively care for patients. The spread of viruses and rise of complications from non-COVID-19 diseases become significant. So they are working around the world to provide water safe for drinking, hand washing, and disinfecting, helping medical staff store and transport water in a safe manner, and promoting coronavirus-specific hygiene information to medical staff and communities where they are working.

World Vision Warehouse Manager Max Bowden moves pallets of medical protective equipment for distribution.

World Hope International

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As a primary responder to the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, World Hope International has worked alongside communities to address and stem infectious disease outbreaks. Now, they’re developing a support tool to provide faith-based and community organizations with the ability to quickly, securely, and safely respond to needs from those in quarantine, lightening the workload of community and faith leaders by automating the volunteering process and encouraging community members to help one another. They’re also providing water and sanitation facilities and medical and hygiene supplies to hospitals and clinics in Haiti, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cambodia and the Philippines as well as COVID-19 testing equipment to hospitals in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

World Relief

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In response to COVID-19, World Relief is providing direct cash assistance, food and supplies and an emergency rent assistance fund for the most vulnerable in the U.S. Internationally, they are allocating health and nutrition emergency funds for the areas expected to be hit hardest by the pandemic. Deliveries of food in bulk, hygiene kits, and seeds are underway. In areas not yet severely affected, World Relief is disseminating health information focused on preventing exposure, recognizing symptoms of COVID-19, and averting its spread through their existing network and programs, as well as equipping community health workers on the frontlines with personal protective equipment.”

World Vision

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As a Christian humanitarian organization, World Vision is focused on protecting children and the most vulnerable in the nearly 100 countries where they work. In the United States, the aid agency is aiming to provide 650,000 people with food, protective items like hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes, and other essentials through a Family Emergency Kit. Globally, its more than 37,000 global staff and some of the 220,000 community health workers are scaling interventions to limit the spread of this killer disease and its impact on families. Teams are on the ground are promoting prevention behaviors, offering essential health advice and psychosocial support, and engaging government health authorities.


(Note: If you would like to support charities based outside the U.S., NCF works with the TrustBridge Global Foundation to help you give safely, easily, and efficiently to international charities. Visit them online at TrustBridgeglobal.com, or learn more about international granting at NCF.)

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