Disaster Relief - Global Impact

Crisis Alert: Our charities are responding to the catastrophic earthquakes that hit Turkey, Syria and surrounding areas. Provide urgent funding to support their work.

Disaster Relief

From tsunamis and wildfires to global pandemics and civil unrest –more than ever, we know that no person or community is immune to the effects of hard-hitting disasters. From 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events.

-In 2020, damages totaling $210 billion were caused by natural disasters.

-Disasters affect those in poverty most heavily: high death tolls occur in low- and middle-income countries without the infrastructure to protect and respond to disasters.

-Natural disasters kill an average of 45,000 people per year, globally.

The good news is our charity partners listed below are on the ground coordinating with all involved parties to respond immediately, and they also provide long-term relief for affected communities. Their programs include setting up safe spaces for children, delivering critical supplies and medical support, preparing communities to reduce the impact of a disaster, rebuilding houses, providing economic opportunities for resilience, and more.

Explore the resources below to see the impact of their work.

Feeling inspired? Be a global champion and help assure disaster relief by supporting Global Impact charities through your employee giving campaign. Learn more about active emergency response efforts.


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First aid responders
Florida. Pakistan. The Horn of Africa. Ukraine. Afghanistan. If you’re keeping up with the news cycle, it seems like there’s a new emergency popping up at the forefront faster than we can even process the emergency that occurred before it. And with so many disasters happening around the world, it can feel flustering to decide when and where your gift can make the most impact. Investing in disaster preparation, recovery and resilience goes hand-in-hand with advancing other global causes such as health, education, economic development and more. Our charity partners Americares, Direct Relief, International Medical Corps, Matthew 25: Ministries, Mercy…
A hand holding a globe
Let’s be honest. In recent years, it has often felt like the bad news just keeps coming. As soon as one heartbreaking event works its way through the news cycle, another devastating headline pulls our attention to the next pressing issue. Wow, what a positive way to introduce this topic, right? Take a moment to reframe your thinking and acknowledge at least one silver lining to the historical events of the past few years. I like to think that we have become more compassionate. I know I have, and the giving data agrees – overall giving has increased by 11%…
Food for the Poor delivers food and supplies by boat
Resilience: the ability of individuals to bounce back from adversity stronger than before. We have seen this concept working overtime for a year and a half as the world builds a path to recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and other global emergencies. In 2020 alone, a number of overwhelming disasters affected over 98 million people. Natural and man-made disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, civil unrest, tornadoes and more have devastated communities. For our cause of the month, we’re focusing on Disaster Relief. Emergency response, conflict intervention and preventing climate emergencies are all important aspects of countering crisis situations. Disaster…
A girl smiles at the camera.
As we heard from our campaign partners last year, there was an uptick in interest around virtual volunteering opportunities. This change was in large part due to COVID-19 – employees found themselves working from home and missing the opportunity to give back on local, national and international levels with their team members. While many charities excelled in offering group and individual in-person volunteer projects pre-pandemic, converting these to virtual opportunities in order to meet demand was a challenge. And it showed – in 2020, volunteer hours decreased by 20% year-over-year. However, this challenge also presented an opportunity for charities and…
A girl facing away from the camera holding a Playstation controller sitting in front of a screen displaying a game and cheering with her arms in the air.
Like many kids growing up in the ‘90s, plenty of my time was spent out-of-doors – countless hours riding my bike with friends, playing catch with my dad and brother, even just taking walks. However, I also played a lot of games. With the help of my siblings and dad, I was fed a steady diet of different games, both console and PC alike – Sonic the Hedgehog, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and, yes, ALL of the Marios. My favorite, though, was the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – I logged hour after hour on the Nintendo64 console,…
An adult holding a child patient's hand
When I left college nine years ago, like many, I was suddenly confronted with the big question – what’s next? With no set plan or vision for what I wanted to do, I decided to start my job search with one of my favorite hobbies – I began working in the museums that I loved to visit. It wasn’t long after that I found myself kicking off a career in fundraising. Fast forward to the present day, and I am so grateful that this is where life led me. Working in fundraising has allowed me to follow causes that I…

Images

  • Title: Providing Clean Water
  • Charity: Action Against Hunger
  • Country: Ethiopia
  • Photo Credit: Peter Caton for Action Against Hunger

  • Title: Livelihoods Support in Bangladesh
  • Charity: Action Against Hunger
  • Country: Bangladesh
  • Photo Credit: Fabeha Monir for Action Against Hunger

  • Title: Emergency Response
  • Charity: Action Against Hunger
  • Country: South Sudan
  • Photo Credit: Peter Caton

  • Title: Emergency Drought Response
  • Charity: Action Against Hunger
  • Country: Madagascar
  • Photo Credit: Stéphane Rakotomalala

Droughts in Grand Sud, Madagascar, have sharply increased in both frequency and intensity in recent years. Bearing the full brunt of the effects of climate change, families who live in this region have seen drastic impacts on their livelihoods and health. In 2020, there were virtually no rains and this trend continued in 2021. Historically low rainfall levels depleted the few sources of clean water that existed in this chronically dry region. As a result, water-borne illnesses such as diarrhea have increased sharply. And, without rain, there could be no harvests. Food insecurity and malnutrition have increased dramatically. Action Against Hunger’s teams are on the ground, treating malnutrition and helping farmers adapt.

  • Title: Providing Emergency Nutrition Support
  • Charity: Action Against Hunger
  • Country: Yemen
  • Photo Credit: Nada Al-Saqaf

Now almost three years old, Watheek was born in displacement. His family fled their home when the war in Yemen worsened. With six children living in a small one-room house, his parents struggle to get by. Watheek suffered from malnutrition in 2021, and received treatment from Action Against Hunger.

  • Title: Gaza Emergency Relief Kit Distribution
  • Charity: Anera
  • Country: Palestine, State of
  • Photo Credit: Ibrahim Zaanoun

Following the bombardment on Gaza in May of 2021, Anera delivered emergency relief in the form of hygiene kits, water, food and medical supplies immediately following the ceasefire. To learn more about Anera’s emergency response in Gaza, you can visit this page on our website: https://www.anera.org/blog/delivering-emergency-medical-aid-and-supplies-to-gaza/.

  • Title: Americares Free Clinic team conducts telehealth visits
  • Charity: Americares
  • Country: United States of America
  • Photo Credit: Jeff Kennel/Americares

There’s more to telehealth appointments than a phone call. Americares Free Clinics have managed telehealth appointments since March 2020—and now, patients at all four clinics can access a robust audiovisual telehealth platform through AthenaNet, Americares electronic health record platform.

  • Title: Americares responds to Haiti earthquake
  • Charity: Americares
  • Country: Haiti
  • Photo Credit: Orlando Barria/Americares

Americares responds to more than 30 natural disasters and humanitarian crises worldwide each year, establishes long-term recovery projects and brings preparedness programs to communities vulnerable to disasters. When a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck the southwest region of Haiti in August 2021, Americares responded immediately—with medical teams, medicines and medical supplies.

  • Title: Portrait of Keila and her daughter
  • Charity: Americares
  • Country: United States of America
  • Photo Credit: Mike Demas / Americares

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Success Stories

Disaster Relief After Hurricane Dorian
2020 was the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record, with 30 named storms. In the span of about two months, the Gulf Coast was hit by 4 major hurricanes: Laura, Sally, Delta, and Zeta. These storms caused widespread destruction throughout multiple states. In response to these storms, Matthew 25: Ministries shipped 38 truckloads of aid throughout the impacted region, containing more than 850,000 pounds of disaster relief supplies. In November, Hurricanes Eta and Iota made back-to-back landfall in Central America, hitting only two weeks apart. These storms swept through multiple countries, causing widespread flooding and devastating mudslides. Matthew 25: Ministries shipped aid throughout the region, including over 375,000 pounds of personal care items, household and cleaning products, disaster blankets, and more. Additionally, Matthew 25: Ministries responded to catastrophic flooding in Michigan–described as a 500-year flood event–and Mississippi, tornadoes in Tennessee and other areas across the South and eastern United…
unicef logo
On 16 September 2020, a student stands in an empty classroom in Panama City, Panama. A generation of children in Latin America and the Caribbean are missing out on schooling because of COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, 97 per cent of the region’s students have been deprived of their normal schooling. More than seven months into the pandemic, COVID-19 is putting education on hold for more than 137 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is according to a new UNICEF report about the devastating impacts of COVID-19 on education. Since the start of the pandemic, children in Latin American and the Caribbean have already lost on average four times more days of schooling (174) compared to the rest of the world. In a region with over 11 million cases of COVID-19 to date, most students are now at risk of missing out on an entire school year. While schools are gradually reopening in several parts of the world, the vast majority of classrooms are still closed across the region. Almost half of all countries in Latin…
Patients wash their hands at the hospital in Aquin
When a massive earthquake rocked Haiti on August 14, more than 650,000 people were left in need of emergency humanitarian assistance, while more than half of healthcare facilities were damaged or destroyed. At the request of the Haitian government, International Medical Corps staff and volunteers deployed our Emergency Medical Team (EMT) Fixed Type 1 facility—a multi-tent field hospital, accompanied by a team of clinical and emergency response experts—to Aquin, on Haiti’s southwest coast, in early September. This is the story of how a team of medical volunteers worked with two local nurses, our security and logistics teams, and one local hospital to save a 16-day-old baby. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimates that 22,000 women in Haiti will give birth in the next three months. Thanks to the earthquake and the damage it caused to healthcare infrastructure in the country, thousands of women have already gone without prenatal and…
New Mother in Venezuela Receives Pre-and-Post-Natal Support
Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…
Racing against the spread of hunger in East Africa
A fight against the spread of hunger is underway across East Africa, where 32.9 million people are experiencing a complex hunger crisis driven by conflict, the economic impacts of the global pandemic, swarms of desert locusts, and extreme weather conditions. According to the United Nations, at least 5.3 million people in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan are living under “emergency” conditions, with the threat of acute malnutrition and death. In South Sudan, 105,000 are living under “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity. By air, land, and sea, World Vision teams are delivering emergency food supplies across the region—an area so vast it equates to more than half the size of the United States—in a race to feed hungry families living in some of the most dangerous and isolated places on earth. “We are marshaling resources to support vulnerable communities across East Africa to avert the catastrophic effects of hunger and loss…
Rebuilding for the Future
Collapsed classrooms. Crumbled rooves. Terrified children. The earthquake that strucksouthern Haiti in August 2021 caused widespread damage and left behind a lot of questions. With more than 70% of schools in the region affected, the new school year, set to start in October,was seriously compromised. Most schools were severely damaged or destroyed—and even those not so badly affected were in no position to open their classroom doors.Parents were afraid their children might not be able to return to school or meetin Compassion’scenters.In Haiti, many schools meet at local churchesand use the same facilities as the child development center. “Helping kids going back to school after the earthquake was an emergency,” said Marc-Henry, a Compassion projectfacilitator. In the mayhem and uncertainty, urgent,concrete responses were necessary. Local workers’immediate priority was to ensure the well-being of families through healthcare, psychological support, economic assistance and food supplies.But education is also a key to allow…