GiveIndia starts India COVID Response Fund with Rs 75 cr in initial donations

Donation platform GiveIndia on Tuesday said it has launched the 'India COVID Response Fund' (ICRF) with initial donations worth Rs 75 crore to support the on-ground COVID relief efforts being carried out by its network of verified non-profits.

Some of the early donors to the fund include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google.org, HSBC India, Omidyar Network India, UBS Optimus Foundation, Marico, Uber India (through Uber Care driver fund), Binny Bansal and A.T.E. Chandra Foundation.

The fund will use a data-backed approach to identify the most critical areas of intervention and scale the relief efforts pan India, a statement said.

The donation platform is aiming at creation of a larger corpus that can support up to 10 million people nationally, it added.

"Since we started fundraising for COVID relief work on March 22, we have received donations from more than 2 lakh people globally, raised Rs 75 crores, partnered with over 40 organisations, onboarded more than 100 non-profits, and these initial efforts will impact one million people," GiveIndia Director and ICRF Advisor Govind Iyer said.

However, the on-ground requirement is much larger and the fund is an open platform for all to come together and support the most critical need of the hour, he added.

Other partners in the collective are CSIP (Centre for Social Impact and Philanthropy) from Ashoka University, Bridgespan, Indiaspora, Sattva, Dasra and IIFL Wealth, the statement said.

An expert advisory group has been set up to guide fundraise and allocations, including Dr Devi Shetty, (Chairman, Narayana Health), Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (Chairman, Biocon), Sanjiv Mehta (Chairman, HUL), Surendra Rosha (CEO, HSBC India), Binny Bansal (Co-founder, Flipkart), Manoj Kohli (Country Head, Softbank) and Amitabh Chaudhry (CEO, Axis Bank).

Shilpa Kumar (Investment Partner, Omidyar Network India), Ingrid Srinath (Director, CSIP, Ashoka University), Arun Seth (former Chairman-BT), Amita Chauhan (Chairperson, SVP Mumbai), Shailesh Haribhakti (CA), Haigreve Khaitan (Managing Partner, Khaitan & Co), V Vaidyanathan (MD & CEO, IDFC First Bank), Neeraj Aggarwal (Head APAC, BCG) and Karan Bhagat (MD & CEO, IIFL Wealth) are also part of the effort.

"ICRF will focus on preventing the spread of the coronavirus, providing humanitarian aid, supporting our health workers and enabling the COVID-hit families to rebuild their livelihoods. GiveIndia will be working with and supporting non-profits across health, disaster relief, rural livelihoods, etc including Akshaya Patra, Goonj, HelpAge India, ActionAid, Oxfam, CRY, Srijan and many others through this fund," the statement said.