In response to wildfires, Direct Relief provides N95 respirators, prescription medicines, medical supplies, hygiene kits, and financial assistance to local community health centers, free and charitable clinics, other safety-net organizations, and first responders in communities across California.

Philanthropy has responded to a range of extreme natural events over the past few years, from wildfires to earthquakes to floods to hurricanes and to heatwaves.

Over the last several years, communities across California have experienced a whiplash of disaster impacts from catastrophic wildfires, to record snow, to extreme heat and drought, to severe flooding. The seemingly continuous cycle of climate threat in vulnerable communities, coupled with a focus by funders on immediate response, leaves communities with next to no resources to build broad long-term, equity-driven resilience to recurring natural hazards and humanitarian disasters.

Last year, Philanthropy California hosted a conversation titled: California Disaster Philanthropy Briefing: From Episodic Relief to Transformative Resilience where we uplifted the need for philanthropy to resource transformative resilience and shift away from ineffective models of funding disasters only in the immediate aftermath of a specific event. Public and private funding should move towards long-term investments in building the capacity of communities to respond, recover, and build resilience to all types of hazards. In light of recent events across the state, we are uplifting the need for immediate response and renewing our call for a significant shift in the way funders across California approach climate and disaster grantmaking. 

In the face of COVID-19 outbreaks in California and across the world, philanthropy has an important role to play in supporting community preparedness and response.

This fund helps donors make intelligent and impactful investments for communities in need.

United Way of Santa Barbara County, the Santa Barbara Foundation, and Hutton Parker Foundation are leading a countywide collaborative with members of the Foundation Roundtable to provide assistance to individuals and families as well as organizations actively engaged in assistance efforts for mem

First Nations Development Institute is responding to American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian community emergency needs related to the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize the risk of Native communities becoming collateral damage.