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Direct Relief

Grantmaker Profiles
Posted November 16, 2021
gf_nov21-tighe
Morgan-Hynd

Address: 6100 Wallace Becknell Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93117
Phone: 805.964.4767
Web: www.directrelief.org
Email: info@directrelief.org

Direct Relief was founded in 1948 by an Estonian immigrant who had amassed significant wealth in prewar Europe, relocated to California, and began sending relief parcels to people who were rebuilding their lives in the aftermath of World War II. By the early 1960s, Direct Relief began to focus its efforts on health — specifically on serving disadvantaged populations living in medically under-served communities throughout the world.

Since its inception, Direct Relief has provided medical aid in response to emergencies and to refugee populations. Today, Direct Relief provides appropriate and specifically requested medical resources to healthcare facilities throughout the world and across the United States. Over the past decade, it has also become a resource for financial assistance to help these organizations establish vital capacities, rebuild following emergencies, and expand programming to address social determinants of health.

In recent years, Direct Relief has expanded grantmaking, from support for organizations in its international partner network, to those involved in its emergency response, to community health based innovation awards, to the largest philanthropic infusion of financial support in the history of the nation’s community health centers at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2020, Direct Relief launched the Fund for Health Equity to affect the underlying issues that cause communities to remain medically vulnerable and exacerbate the need for affordable and quality healthcare services throughout the United States. Direct Relief’s mission is to improve the health and lives of people affected by poverty or emergencies without regard to politics, religion, or ability to pay. It provides medical resource support and financial assistance to organizations directly providing care to medically vulnerable populations in 100 countries. It engages with organizations that serve as bedrocks to their communities in the provision of care and addressing social determinants of health, both through its longstanding efforts and its Fund for Health Equity.

Program Information: 

Direct Relief awards health-focused grants that provide immediate assistance for people affected by a disaster; bolster medical services to disaster affected areas, displaced communities, and medically underserved areas; rebuild, repair, or re-equip health facilities; support resiliency planning and emergency preparedness activities to help minimize the effects of future disasters; or invest in organizations working to eliminate disparities in their communities.

Financial Information:

Total Assets: $1,060,794,069 (FY21)
Amount Dedicated to Health-Related Grants: $56.5 million (FY21)

Special Initiatives and/or Representative Health and Human Services Grants

COVID-19 Response Fund for Community Health —To protect health care workers and the essential services they provide at America’s safety-net community health centers and clinics. The funds were disbursed to over 600 community health centers, free and charitable clinics and pharmacies, and other non-profit health providers that were facing unexpected costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also supported the protection and safety of health workers, telehealth service expansion, COVID-19 screening and testing, and expanding support to people who are extremely vulnerable including the homeless and elderly. Additionally, operating support grants assisted the initial group of health centers across the country who participated in federal COVID-19 vaccine program to help them administer the vaccine. ($35,000,000)

Fund for Health Equity —To provide financial support to community health centers, free and charitable clinics, community-based organizations, and educational institutions. Grants focus on diversifying the health care workforce; the elimination of health disparities: focused on health, wellness, prevention of noncommunicable diseases, social determinants of health and behavioral health; and/or innovations in or with digital health. ($10,103,923)

COVID-19 International Emergency Response Fund —To provide emergency, flexible support to international healthcare organizations in order to procure PPE, vaccine storage, or recover revenue lost because of the COVID-19 pandemic. ($2,000,000)

Helping Build Healthy Communities — To expand health care access and improve the quality of care for underserved and vulnerable populations throughout the United States. This is a multi-year initiative in partnership with BD and the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). The initiative identifies, awards, and amplifies successful community health centers’ unique abilities to address community health care needs. ($1,700,000 for FY 2021 award cycle)

Direct Relief and GIH

Direct Relief joined GIH mid-year after great initial conversations with GIH staff at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. GIH leaders have welcomed Direct Relief with open arms and offered fantastic insights especially related to grantmaking for health equity. Direct Relief is excited to become part of a broader nationwide network of philanthropists and to leverage learnings from peers at an inflection point in the scaling of the organization’s grantmaking activities.

Quote from Direct Relief

“In both the U.S. and internationally, Direct Relief’s support mobilizes private philanthropic resources to address chronic gaps in access to quality health services for people who have the fewest resources, face heightened health risks with highly limited options, rank highest on social vulnerability indices, and experience poor health and outcomes disproportionately.  The inequitable effects of COVID being experienced in these communities present an urgent challenge immediately and for the near term, but COVID’s effects have also led to a worsening of the chronic pressing issues that existed before.  This presents a two-track, simultaneous challenge to bolster the frontline facilities with regard to COVID-specific efforts and ensure that they sustain to address the significant pre-COVID challenges that have been exacerbated”

– Thomas Tighe, President & CEO

Focus Area(s): Philanthropic Growth and Impact

Related Topic(s): Governance and Operations, Housing
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