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    GiveIndia supports 56 lakh Indians in response to the Covid-19 crisis

    Synopsis

    For the flagship mission — Support Covid-19 Hit Families — GiveIndia partnered with 250+ nonprofits across the country to help daily wagers and migrant workers who had lost their means of earning. Underpinned by a due diligence framework to verify and identify beneficiaries, a Steering Committee was established for approving the allocation of funds on a weekly basis.

    Untitled-3Agencies
    Among 3.5 lakh citizen contributors to this fund, were almost 20,000 donors who gave on Facebook during I For India, a one-of-a-kind celebrity fundraising concert in collaboration with the social media platform.
    Kolkata: GiveIndia has helped to support 56 lakh Indians during the pandemic, using the Rs 220 crore contributed to the nonprofit's India Covid Response Fund (ICRF) by a collective of individuals and organisations. This has been the most impactful intervention executed by the platform in its 20-year history.

    Formed on April 10, 2020, the ICRF collective comprises corporates, foundations, digital platforms, government bodies, philanthropists, high networth individuals, and citizens at large. The fund has supported three key areas of intervention - providing monetary relief to cash-strapped families, humanitarian aid to communities in need, and addressing gaps in the healthcare system in protecting frontline workers in COVID-designated hospitals.

    For the flagship mission — Support Covid-19 Hit Families — GiveIndia partnered with 250+ nonprofits across the country to help daily wagers and migrant workers who had lost their means of earning. Underpinned by a due diligence framework to verify and identify beneficiaries, a Steering Committee was established for approving the allocation of funds on a weekly basis. Over Rs 49 crore was disbursed to provide support to more than 5.6 lakh Indians, with cash relief reaching approved beneficiaries within two weeks.

    Atul Satija, Founder 2.0 and CEO of GiveIndia, said in a release: “The coronavirus pandemic has taken a heavy toll on poor, disadvantaged communities. We realized early on that dealing with a pandemic as daunting as COVID-19 required broad collaboration and participation from a variety of people and organizations, a collaboration that would make it easy for everyone to chip in. The response has been quite staggering. But of course, the pandemic is far from over and the months ahead will present more challenges which we will have to overcome.”

    For the humanitarian aid effort for which Rs 57 crore-plus has been disbursed, GiveIndia’s partner nonprofits have served over 40 lakh cooked meals to migrant laborers stranded at urban hubs, the homeless, sexual minorities, people living with terminal conditions and disabilities, and children. It has also funded the distribution of 8 lakh hygiene and ration kits to impoverished families.

    The healthcare mission was launched after identifying the most pressing needs of medical workers dealing with the crisis. GiveIndia, along with its non-profit partners, set out to solve the challenge of last-mile availability of PPE kits, N95 masks and other protective gear at COVID-designated hospitals. The ICRF fund also supported the running costs of six Mobile Medical Units in a couple of Mumbai’s densely populated slums, where 71,000 people were screened for COVID-19 symptoms, 6,000 were referred for testing, 665 COVID +ve patients were identified.

    Among 3.5 lakh citizen contributors to this fund, were almost 20,000 donors who gave on Facebook during I For India, a one-of-a-kind celebrity fundraising concert in collaboration with the social media platform.

    More than 50 corporates, 15+ philanthropy foundations and over 25 HNIs and 10+ platform partners including Flipkart and PhonePe and their customers also gave generously. Some of the early donors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google.org, HSBC India, Omidyar Network India, UBS Optimus Foundation, Marico, and A.T.E. Chandra Foundation.


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