Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis

Note: On April 24, Jeff Skoll announced a new $100 million gift to the Skoll Foundation, which it will use to fight the COVID-19 pandemic globally. Learn more here: skoll.wf/covid-19/

A message from CEO Don Gips

The pandemic and economic crisis that has spread across the globe has been swift and devastating, particularly for marginalized communities everywhere. It’s painful to witness so many people grapple with loss and an uncertain future, but it’s also galvanizing—an acute reminder of our responsibility to respond swiftly and a call to act collaboratively.

Last week I had the opportunity to speak directly with Skoll Awardees during the Virtual Skoll World Forum. The support, advice, resources, and ideas shared in those sessions highlighted the very best of our community—a bright spot of true collective strength during these challenging times.

In those conversations, we previewed our COVID-19 response plans directly with our Awardees and benefited from their immediate feedback. We’ve finalized these plans, and now I’d like to like to share them with you—our larger community of funders, partners, and change leaders.

Running a Sprint and a Marathon

Jeff Skoll has spent more than a decade supporting pandemic research and preparedness through the Skoll Global Threats Fund. While our commitment to this issue is not new, we are ramping up our response, running a sprint and a marathon at the same time to respond to the immediate as well as longer-term challenges faced by social entrepreneurs, change leaders, and communities around the world.

The sprint part of our response is focused on investing in solutions to help curb the impact of COVID-19 today. We have committed more than $9 million so far and expect to do more. Much of that has gone to support strengthening health systems in Africa, in response to gaps in capacity relative to anticipated need. We are also supporting Ending Pandemics, which helped launch “COVID Near You” to use population-based data to track the spread of the disease, and ONE, which is looking at the different policy levers to ensure greater funding for global health system strengthening.

None of us has a crystal ball to know where and how the tsunami-like effects of this global pandemic will hit. But we do know that it will magnify issues of inequity, injustice, and insecurity—all of which disproportionately affect marginalized and vulnerable populations.

The marathon part of the Foundation’s response will be looking for catalytic investments that respond to the devastation wreaked by COVID-19. As we heard from many of you during Virtual Skoll World Forum week, we have a unique opportunity to reimagine global health, economic, and social systems. As we witness the closing of democratic spaces and severe economic dislocation around the world, let us challenge ourselves to come together to recast those systems in more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable ways.

Supporting Our Community

In order to run a simultaneous sprint and marathon, the Skoll Foundation is committed to doubling our grant funding this year.* In addition to our ongoing funding of systemic solutions, much of this payout increase will be targeted and strategic to respond to COVID-19 directly and to support Skoll Awardees.

We are making targeted emergency funding grants to Awardee organizations most in need of support to pivot their models and to ensure the safety of their teams and the people they serve.

We have also introduced measures to help our Awardees and grantees through this period and to reduce grant-related burdens on them.

We are loosening or eliminating the restrictions and terms of current grants. As much as possible, we lean into providing unrestricted support. For those grants that are currently restricted, we will convert project-based grants to unrestricted support as legally permissible. We offer no-cost extensions and consider accelerating payments upon request. We are also suspending all grant reporting requirements through the end of 2020.

Looking at the Road Ahead

While we are continuing full force ahead with our sprint to respond to the current moment, we are also running the marathon, alongside our partners and other change leaders, to identify new solutions to tomorrow’s challenges. We know what’s needed tomorrow will likely be different than what’s needed today and are trying to remain as agile and responsive as possible.

The impact of this pandemic will be felt around the world. We know that many of the organizations in our community will need support during this time. We invite all of you to continue to be in conversation with us as we move forward. Please share your challenges, opportunities, and ideas here as we navigate this new and uncharted journey together.

We are now in a defining moment as a community that requires nothing less than a rapid shoring up of our collective strength—to both reimagine and work together toward a more peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.