The State of Disaster Relief and Response

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the philanthropic sector saw a significant shift in giving patterns. Donors and grantmakers increasingly directed their contributions toward disaster-related charities and initiatives. Reports indicate that disaster-related funding surged from $110.7 million in 2019 to $2.1 billion in 2020. CAF America played a major role in funding the global COVID-19 response during this period.

Just a few years later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marked another crisis requiring immediate attention. In the first year of the invasion, CAF America and its donors granted $37 million to response efforts, highlighting a shift in our partners’ grantmaking programs.

Since these two events, many more large-scale disasters and emergencies have occurred, including earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, and floods. CAF America donors and partners have expanded their focus, seeking ways to support not only pandemic relief efforts but also broader global disaster and emergency relief. This shift mirrors a sector-wide trend, with disaster relief funding increasing significantly. Fortune 1000 companies contributed just over $100 million to disaster relief in 2014, a figure that surged to nearly $3 billion by 2023.

The Problem

Disasters and crises are increasing in both intensity and frequency. Over the past five years, from COVID-19 to earthquakes and floods, we’ve witnessed donors’ need for timely information about organizations responding to crises and a streamlined way to support affected areas across borders. However, international giving involves navigating complex regulations, which can delay critical funding during emergencies. The Global Relief Navigator was created to address the following challenges and ensure faster, more effective support:

• Highlighting Underserved Regions/Communities: CAF America found that in recent fiscal years, 75-80% of our grants were disbursed to organizations in the Global North, even though some of the greatest needs are in the Global South. The Global Relief Navigator highlights charities already operating in the area when a disaster strikes. When a disaster happens in the Global South, local charities will obtain more visibility, and hopefully, support.
• Elevating Responding Charities: Compiling lists of disaster response charities often left donor clients waiting for the most up-to-date responding charities, potentially delaying critical funding to vulnerable communities. We aimed to develop a system that would allow us to quickly gather and share responses with donors.

It was through these challenges that the vision for the Global Relief Navigator was born.

What Is the Global Relief Navigator and How Does it Work?

The Global Relief Navigator is a one-of-a-kind, innovative grantmaking solution that enables donors to make safe, compliant grants to validated disaster response and relief organizations. This can be done via the DonorView Portal for our fund holders or directly through the map for one-time gifts. This tool leverages CAF America’s global database of validated disaster-responding charities and presents it on an interactive world map. This allows users to track where disasters are occurring worldwide and identify which charities are responding. The Global Relief Navigator not only facilitates disaster grantmaking to eligible and responding charities, but also provides a more equitable approach to disaster response by showing donors the extent of disaster-related needs around the world. 

How It Works

When a disaster occurs, our team identifies and confirms the responding organizations. Once verified, only these specific charities are listed on the Navigator. Donors can then choose to contribute in one of two ways:

1. Advise a Grant

Fundholders can make a grant through their Fund Manager or via the DonorView portal to eligible responding charities. More information about donor advised funds at CAF America is available here.

2. Make a Single Gift:

New or guest donors wishing to make a one-time gift can do so through our online donations gateway. Learn more about CAF America’s single gifts here.

For each disaster listed on the map, viewers can access detailed information and lists about the responding charities and their work within affected communities. These lists are categorized into groups of “in-country response”’ for organizations located within the impacted country, province, or locale and “cross-border response” for organizations responding from abroad. This feature allows donors to tailor their grantmaking to their own goals while maximizing the impact of charities both domestically and internationally.

Framework for the Global Relief Navigator

When adding disasters to the map, we consider the nature of the disaster, its impact, the response capacity of local authorities and civil society, and donor interest. We also consider humanitarian and ecological impacts at a scale from the community level to the global level, but not at a family or individual level. Other monitoring criteria include, but are not limited to the following:

1. Secondary and tertiary impacts beyond primary impact

2. Number of potential and actualized casualties

3. Level of existing, local infrastructure and disaster response mechanisms

4. Potential length of recovery

We have prepared a detailed FAQ list available in the resources link below to address these and other questions.

Conclusion

One of CAF America’s core tenets is to work with our donor clients and help deliver philanthropic impact to our charity partners and the communities they serve. This is especially prevalent in the face of disasters and crises and is the core reason the Global Relief Navigator was built. Check out the Global Relief Navigator today at relief.cafamerica.org.