Under the guidance of public health officials to slow the spread of COVID-19, all Minnesota schools were closed beginning Tuesday, March 17, 2020. Recognizing that this action would disproportionately affect marginalized communities, as does crisis in all forms, GHR has made two grants through our Catholic Schools initiative to support those students, and their families, for whom school closures will prove especially challenging.

Both grants have been made to new grantees, who are best suited to address pressing needs at this time:

• Minnesota Independent School Forum, a membership organization that connects and strengthens Minnesota’s independent schools through exceptional training, resources, and advocacy. This grant will enable our Mission schools to access funding for urgent needs, including technology support for distance learning, childcare, and deep cleaning. This grant also supports MISF to become a central resource for all 450 independent schools in the state to access current and future resources. Within 24 hours of school closures, there were requests made for over $192,488, with 50 schools having applied in that same time frame, of which GHR is responding to 37. The average school need is about $2238. 

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• The Sheridan Story, an organization equipped to serve food insecure families with take-home backpacks of food. Recommended by our partners at City Connects, The Sheridan Story has a unique and impressive capacity to ramp up service quickly and effectively, to alleviate some of the strain school closures will have on families who rely on food bags to feed children at night and on weekends. In addition to providing two weeks’ worth of food to our students and their families at a time, the organization has adapted swiftly to the evolving situation to keep its volunteers safe and develop new distribution networks.

These have been rapid response grants, aimed at addressing the most immediate needs. As GHR looks ahead to anticipate other emerging requirements and adapt to these unique and unprecedented circumstances in the longer term, we continue to learn about how we might partner boldly to best support our partners and communities.  

As the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, GHR is centering on the needs of our partners. Solidarity has always been the driver of our work and, as a globally-focused foundation, our community – and thus, our attention – extends across those we support in Africa, Asia and in the United States. 
 
Beginning Monday, March 16, 2020, GHR’s physical offices in Minneapolis closed to honor the guidance of public health professionals in slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus. Our staff continues to operate remotely as we work closely with partners to mobilize resources towards marginalized communities, who are disproportionally affected by crisis in all its forms. We are currently responding to the immediate needs of our partners, both local and global, and are enabling additional flexibility in our grantmaking while anticipating and planning for longer-term needs.
                                                                                                                         
In this urgent and dynamic situation, we are continuing to learn how best to forge ahead and be of service to those in vulnerable situations. In learning what it truly means to partner boldly, GHR is expanding our COVID-19 response outside of our current grants, to ensure we are effectively addressing the widespread impacts of the disease.
 
While these are unprecedented circumstances, the effects of which will be long lasting, we are inspired by the abundance of creativity and love we have seen around us in response. We are reminded of our interconnectedness as a global community and the deep need for national and international solidarity, empathy, and compassion. As we collectively navigate this immense challenge, all of us at GHR will continue to learn how we might lead with love in every aspect of our efforts. 

From The Independent:
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"Amy Goldman, a philanthropist and chief executive and chair of the GHR Foundation, believes innovation combined with some optimism and solidarity can contribute to solving at least some of the greatest social issues facing our world today.
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“There’s an overarching problem that spans across various areas we work on. It’s a lack of solidarity in the world, a lack of understanding that we are all one human family,” she told The Independent. “I think optimism is key for this work to be effective. It’s because of the quality of our internal team and our partners that we are continuing to reimagine what’s possible and not just going for the status quo.”"

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From The New York Times:

"The study aimed to show that Alzheimer’s disease could be stopped if treatment began before symptoms emerged. The participants were the best candidates that scientists could find: still healthy, but with a rare genetic mutation that guaranteed they would develop dementia.

Now, the verdict is in: The drugs did nothing to slow or stop cognitive decline in these subjects, dashing the hopes of scientists.
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The results are a deep disappointment, scientists said — but not a knockout punch. The drugs did not work, but the problems may be fixable: perhaps the doses were too low, or they should have been given to patients much younger."

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GHR has a commitment to prioritizing care for vulnerable persons, whether they are children separated from the nurturing care of their families, or Alzheimer’s patients marginalized by the disease’s debilitating effects.

As we reaffirm and formalize our commitment to care, we have adopted enhanced safeguarding policies and developing a holistic safeguarding organizational structure and practices that will be integral to our everyday work. GHR’s new policies include our:

• Child and Vulnerable Persons Protection Policy, informed by international best practice that sets out clear expectations for our Board, Committee members, Officers and all staff; and
• Code of Conduct, that prioritizes organizational integrity and the care and protection of the communities we serve and has a zero-tolerance approach to violations.

​GHR has also supported the development of the FADICA Funder Safeguarding Pledge [download .pdf], and became a signatory to the Pledge in January 2020. Our adoption of the Pledge underscores our ongoing commitments to the protection of vulnerable persons and will help guide our ongoing efforts to strengthen and maintain a culture of proactive, holistic safeguarding across GHR.  As a signatory to the pledge, GHR will be able to leverage key resources, trainings, and consultation from national abuse prevention experts to strengthen our safeguarding efforts and align ourselves with other funders. 

Furthermore, GHR is partnering with Keeping Children Safe, the world’s leading global network committed to safeguarding vulnerable children from exploitation and abuse. KCS will conduct an internal audit of our policies, practices, systems; as well as assist GHR in building a roadmap for establishing a holistic safeguarding organizational structure and explore new ways to bring training and support to our partners.

True safeguarding demands that each of us as funders and service providers critically consider how we might best care for all the lives that our internal and external work impacts — from our own staff to the individuals among our partner organizations, and the lives of those we hope to benefit at the community level.

GHR encourages our peers and partners to join us in every effort to bring greater accountability, transparency, and comprehensive safeguarding to working in service of all children and vulnerable persons everywhere.

From Forbes:

"There are more than 70 million displaced people—refugees—around the world. A social impact and innovation contest called the BridgeBuilder Challenge identified five social enterprises around the world making a difference for that huge population.
The challenge was organized by OpenIDEO, the open innovation practice at IDEO, in partnership with the GHR Foundation, which focuses on design-build models for philanthropy."

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From La Noticia: 

"Estamos profundamente agradecidos con todo nuestro personal extraordinario, voluntarios, socios de la comunidad, donantes y participantes que han creído y contribuido al programa FaithAction ID a lo largo de los años. Es sorprendente ver cómo este pequeño proyecto piloto que comenzó en Greensboro ahora resuena como una solución innovadora para servir, amar y proteger mejor a las personas en movimiento en todo el mundo", agregó Fraccaro.

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From The Guardian: 

"Where was the Upside?
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At the BridgeBuilder Awards, which doled out $1m in seed funding for ideas to help refugees and displaced people." 

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