CDC Foundation Launches Crush Covid-19 Campaign to Meet Urgent Needs Caused by Pandemic

As the coronavirus pandemic accelerates, the CDC Foundation today announced it is redoubling its response efforts through the official launch of the “Crush COVID” campaign. This campaign aims to raise support and advance work targeted to end the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in America alone and shaken the global economy.

Responding to unprecedented emergency response needs

The CDC Foundation activated its emergency response fund in January to meet critical public health protection needs for the COVID-19 response. Donors large and small stepped up enabling the CDC Foundation to:

• distribute over 7.3 million pieces of personal protective equipment for frontline workers,
• provide urgently needed laboratory and medical equipment,
• hire more than 1,000 surge staff for state, local and territorial health departments,
• support and expand COVID-19 testing,
• advance data solutions for contact tracing and near-real time data for schools,
• sponsor national behavior change communication campaigns,
• aid long-term care facilities and community-based organizations serving at-risk populations,
• support much-needed research, and
• other critical response activities (learn more about our impact with our donors).

The COVID-19 pandemic represents the greatest threat to health and the global economy in more than 100 years, and it spares no one. With the pandemic rapidly spreading in America and globally, the CDC Foundation is ramping up its emergency response to support urgent public health protection needs identified by CDC and state and local health departments. To be able to continue to respond to the immense needs and crush COVID-19, the CDC Foundation is intensifying its fundraising efforts, including its highly successful crowdfunding campaign. The CDC Foundation is calling on individuals, corporations and the philanthropic community to step forward again and support the emergency response at this crucial time.

Crushing COVID in three key areas

The CDC Foundation is seeking immediate, significant resources to support the most critical COVID-19 response needs during this phase of the pandemic. The Foundation is focused on stopping the spread of COVID-19 both by promoting protective and proactive health behaviors and by mobilizing resources to create impact in three core areas:

• Health equity: Longstanding systemic health and social inequities have put Black, Latinx, and American Indian/Alaska Native and other communities at a higher risk for COVID-19. The CDC Foundation is working with partners to better understand and address health inequity issues brought forward by COVID-19, as well as provide on-the-ground support to meet crucial needs such as housing, clean water, handwashing stations, food and medical necessities.
   
• Frontline support:Public health departments, healthcare and long-term care facilities are working around the clock to fight the pandemic. Frontline responders need personal protective equipment, surge staff, laboratory support, infection prevention control and communications support. Health departments are also working with schools and businesses to help them safely re-open. Once available, health departments also face the daunting task of supporting roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine where philanthropic support is desperately needed to bolster efforts through educational materials, supplies and additional personnel.
   
• Health protection campaigns: If all of us model the four Ws—wearing a mask, watching our distance (social distancing), washing hands and being wary of crowds—we can help control the spread of COVID-19 and protect millions of lives. The CDC Foundation is working with partners on campaigns to educate and promote protective behaviors. In addition, immunization communications campaigns are needed to build vaccine confidence and ensure enough people accept a COVID-19 vaccine to develop herd immunity, allowing us to get back to normal life.

All of us must work together

“The CDC Foundation is in a unique position to swiftly deploy resources to state and local public health departments and other key organizations that desperately need support now to battle COVID-19,” said Judy Monroe, MD, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation. “We can greatly reduce the spread of COVID-19 before a vaccine is available, but it takes all of us to engage together. Now is the time for us all to redouble our efforts to crush COVID.”

To date, individuals, philanthropies, organizations, corporations and government funders have committed $206 million for the CDC Foundation’s COVID-19 response, and the Foundation has deployed those funds in over 83 U.S. states, tribes and territories, as well as other countries. The need is urgent to deploy more resources now as the cases escalate and we prepare for the rollout of vaccines. While everyone is experiencing pandemic fatigue, frontline public health and healthcare workers and community-based organizations are fighting exhaustion to serve our country. They need our support now more than ever.

Donor support of the CDC Foundation is critical to provide essential resources and flexibility where government support is not available or available rapidly enough. Importantly, donations are leveraged against investments by the federal government and coordinated with local leaders and nonprofits on the ground.

Contributions to the CDC Foundation’s Crush COVID campaign are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law and can be made at give4cdcf.org. If you would like more information about ways to give to support CRUSH COVID please contact give@cdcfoundation.org.