User:ChauSVCF/sandbox

Below is content on the Foundation’s COVID-19 involvement along with formatted sources. A review and feedback is appreciated. I invite you to take a look, User:Cristiano Tomás. Best ChauSVCF (talk) 21:45, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 Response
When COVID-19 hit the Bay Area in March 2020, SVCF set up a COVID-19 Regional Response Fund to raise financial donations for organizations that provide housing, food and financial aid to low-income residents across the Bay Area region.

In Santa Clara County, SVCF partnered with local nonprofit Destination: Home, which worked with other area organizations to provide temporary shelter for those at risk of homelessness due to the virus. Through its COVID-19 Regional Response Fund, SVCF awarded The Solano Community Foundation with a grant that allowed the organization to help smaller nonprofits with basic needs grants to provide shelter, food, rent and utility support to Solano County residents. SVCF worked with the City of San Jose and the County of Santa Clara to set up a fund to raise financial donations as part of Silicon Valley Strong. The purpose of the fund is to support local small businesses facing closure, and residents dealing with displacement due to the outbreak. This fund also supports Silicon Valley-area nonprofit organizations.

The Foundation provided $3.5 million to local nonprofit Opportunity Fund to provide micro loans to small minority- and women-owned businesses throughout California.

In early 2020, SVCF CEO, Nicole Taylor, shifted the foundation’s typical fundraising strategy to increase giving for COVID relief. Staff began calling its donors asking them to immediately contribute an additional five percent of their assets to pandemic relief, the first time the foundation had ever asked for a specific amount for a specific cause. By August of 2020, SVCF had distributed more than $194 million in coronavirus-related aid, $30 million of which went to nonprofit organizations in the nine-county Bay Area.

In February of 2021, SVCF donated to San Mateo County for its grants to restaurants, breweries, and wineries.