Disaster Grantmaking
Responding to Specific Disasters
Use these resources for tailored responses to specific disasters:
- 2024 US Storms
- Taiwan Earthquake
- Haiti Humanitarian Crisis
- California 2024 Winter Storms
- Chile Wildfires
- Israel-Hamas War 2023
- Afghanistan Earthquake
- Libya Flooding
- Morocco Earthquake
- Hawaiʻi Wildfires
- 2023 Sudan Conflict
- Southeast Tornadoes
- Turkey and Syria Earthquake
- California's Storms
- Hurricane Ian
- Hurricane Fiona
- Jackson Water Crisis
- Pakistan Floods
- Kentucky Floods
- 2022 Afghanistan Earthquake
- New Mexico Wildfires
- Gun Violence and Mass Shootings
- Russian Invasion of Ukraine
- Coronavirus Outbreak
Foundations often play an essential role in disaster relief and recovery. In addition to funding, grantmakers can offer support in other ways by leveraging their experience and expertise to help organizations and civic leaders in all three stages of the post disaster environment:
- Immediate Relief: In the initial aftermath of a disaster, foundations, government agencies, nonprofit service organizations and volunteers rally to provide food, shelter, water, medical care, and clothing to survivors, and to account for the deceased.
- Short-term Recovery: Press coverage and donations peak during the immediate relief stage. However, just when public attention begins to wane, critical recovery work begins. Philanthropic investments help provide continued health and social services, including provision of safe drinking water, temporary or transitional shelter, sanitation facilities, and other services for survivors and their dependents.
- Long-term Rebuilding: In many communities hit by disaster, it takes several years to rebuild physical infrastructure, restore the natural environment, and rehabilitate the lives of those who are among the hardest hit. In this stage, funders play a key role by making strategic investments that can address chronic social and environmental challenges in the impacted community.
The Council provides resources to help members effectively respond to domestic and international disasters.
Providing Relief in Times of Disaster - Matching Gifts
Legal Compliance Guidance
Public foundations, community foundations and corporate giving programs may establish a matching gifts program that will match disaster relief gifts made by employees or other donors living in the U.S. or anywhere in the world, provided the grantees are public charities based in the U.S., and gifts…
Providing Relief in Times of Disaster - Direct Corporate Giving
Legal Compliance Guidance
Grants to Public Charities from a Corporate Giving Program
Businesses can make disaster relief grants directly from the corporation, or from its corporate giving program, to any section 501(c)(3)public charity. An added plus is that such gifts are eligible as charitable deductions for the…
Employer Disaster Relief Funds Are Not Donor-Advised
Legal Compliance Guidance
Responding to requests from the Council on Foundations and Independent Sector, the Internal Revenue Service on December 4, 2006 issued interim guidance on several of the donor-advised fund issues arising from the Pension Protection Act of 2006. The IRS notice is available at http://www.irs.gov/pub/…
Providing Relief in Times of Disaster - Grants to New Charities
Legal Compliance Guidance
Ideally, grantmakers will work with an existing charity or other well-established organization to provide disaster relief. But in the months after a disaster, it is not uncommon to see new charities cropping up in efforts to meet the immense and diverse needs of the affected communities. The…