GiveIndia Relaunches India COVID Response Fund To Address Deepening Health Crisis
Learning about the urgent need to respond from its large network of NGO partners, online donation platform GiveIndia has relaunched its India COVID Response Fund which raised over Rs 220 crore last year. ICRF-2 aims to galvanize funds to alleviate the escalating health crisis in several ways and for humanitarian aid such as cash relief for low-income families of the deceased and food for the hungry.
Launched last week, ICRF-2 is currently focusing on supporting five key interventions to ease the suffering caused by a brutal second wave of COVID-19 sweeping the country. GiveIndia has started raising funds to Boost oxygen supply, donate food to families struggling with hunger in COVID's second wave, give cash support to families of COVID deceased, save critical patients from fighting corona at home and donate reusable pads to women who have access to none.
GiveIndia’s mission aimed at boosting oxygen supply has so far raised the most funds in individual donations, now almost Rs 35 crore. The funds will go towards setting up oxygen generation plants in hospitals and COVID care centres, providing oxygen concentrators and cylinders and facilitating the refilling of cylinders. All this will be done in partnership with municipal corporations, state governments, hospitals and doctors, and select NGO networks. Funds will be disbursed only after GiveIndia’s strict due diligence and verification of all demand and supply channels are completed.
CEO and Founder 2.0 of GiveIndia Atul Satija said, “We have launched India COVID Response Fund-2 to bring our collective humanity together and raise funds for the most pressing needs caused by the current situation. This time it is the runaway disease that is causing the primary distress, rather than the measures to control it, like the humanitarian crisis caused by the national lockdown last year. We are fairly confident that people from all walks of life will be driven by compassion to come forward and contribute to this collective.”
Some of the early donors include Google who has donated cash aid for struggling families of the deceased from COVID. Other brands to have partnered with the nonprofit are PhonePe, Flipkart, Myntra, Xiaomi, Swiggy, Dream 11, Walmart, Salesforce and PayPal. GiveIndia has also received support from Vinod Khosla, Jay Shetty, Ray Dalio among others.
India COVID Response Fund-2 has been kickstarted with support from a Steering Committee and 16-member Advisory Board to provide complete transparency. ICRF is a collective of individuals and organizations. It comprises corporates, foundations, digital platforms, government bodies, philanthropists, high net worth individuals and citizens at large.
