Humanitarian Aid

Despite people giving $400 billion most Americans are only half as charitable as they intend. To help bridge that gap, progressive and purpose-driven brands are adopting new strategies to engage their people in more social impact.

Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today a new effort to support cities across the country to help women have a healthy pregnancy and safe childbirth. The “Safer Childbirth Cities” initiative is intended to reduce the number of maternal deaths and life-threatening childbirth events and narrow disparities in maternal health outcomes in the U.S.

The global health world periodically has rude awakenings that expose vulnerabilities in countries’ preparedness to handle health crises. The outbreaks of Ebola and Zika in recent years are a glaring example of this weakness, exposing how poorly prepared areas like West Africa were for threats of that magnitude. Governments, civil society, and the private sector leapt into action with the resources to help, but their aid arrived late and was not completely organized, rendering their relationships and resources underutilized. The next global emergency is always lurking around the corner, making advance preparation of key resources all that much more important.

We are honored to be recognized by @Philanthropy as the largest cash donor and 4th overall when including product donations in this year’s list of America’s Big Corporate Givers.

Survey data has revealed that not everyone is aware of the greater purpose of the census or understands how the data is used.

Visa and the Visa Foundation today announced a commitment to help the people impacted by Hurricane Florence in the United States and Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines. In response to these events, Visa is taking several actions to support relief efforts, including:

Everyone at PayPal offers our emotional support to the victims of the hurricane, and together with PayPal Giving Fund we have launched a disaster relief campaign. PayPal is covering all processing costs, ensuring that 100% of your donation will support relief and recovery efforts. Through the PayPal Gives program, PayPal will also match donations made by a PayPal employee, according to terms of the program.

UPS today announced an initial $1 million commitment through The UPS Foundation in support of recovery efforts following the devastating flooding, infrastructure damage and utility outages caused by Hurricane Florence.

With a catastrophic storm, flooding and power outages hitting the Eastern Seaboard, Walmart and Sam’s Club are launching a customer campaign to assist impacted communities with hurricane relief. The Walmart 2018 Hurricane Relief Fund at Foundation For The Carolinas will match customer donations two-to-one with cash donations up to $5 million for disaster response and recovery.

Arrow Electronics today announced that it is joining the Call for Code initiative with Founding Partner IBM, an effort designed to inspire new technology to address pressing social challenges. IBM’s five-year, $30 million USD commitment to the initiative is focusing its efforts this year on encouraging software developers around the world to create applications for natural disaster preparedness and relief.