COVID-19 Response
Supporting our communities in crisis
We are committed to doing everything we can — in collaboration with generous donors and with local, state and national partners — to help see our communities through this crisis.
“New Hampshire’s nonprofits have met this moment with grace and ferocity and an unwavering commitment to our communities. I really do not know where our communities would be right now without the nonprofit sector.”
– Richard Ober, president and CEO, NH Charitable Foundation
From the start of this public health crisis, the Foundation has focused on supporting nonprofits to reduce the pain and hardship on our most vulnerable neighbors — struggling families, hungry children, seniors, underserved people in every community; and working with public and private partners to reduce the impact on critical health care and social service systems.
- The Foundation opened the Community Crisis Action Fund in March of 2020, and every dollar of that fund is going into our communities.
- We increased Foundation grantmaking and maximized flexibility for grantees, awarding $48 million in grants and $6.4 million in scholarships in 2020.
- We worked with the state to administer the Nonprofit Emergency Relief Fund, helping to move $40 million in federal CARES Act money to nonprofits in communities across New Hampshire.
- We partnered with the NH Center for Nonprofits to help create a record-breaking year for the one-day giving event known as NH Gives.
- To help address continuing needs in our communities, the Foundation’s Board of Directors has increased our Charitable Disbursement Rate to 5 percent for 2021, increasing the amount available for grantmaking.
Learn more about our response to COVID-19 in the stories and updates below.
Stories and Updates
Everyday superheroes showed up when their communities needed them most
It was April of 2020. Everyone who could was working from home, going to school from home, grocery shopping curbside and staying away from crowds. Annie Day decided to take a new job: She would manage the Families In Transition Adult Emergency Shelter.
Early childhood care is critical infrastructure
Devon and Morgan Phillips could do their work in emergency medicine during the height of the pandemic in 2020 because their children's early childhood center was there to care for their kids. Early childhood education is critical infrastructure that benefits everyone in our communities.
Showing up on the side of justice
In an era of new complexities, tensions and awareness, the New Hampshire program of the American Friends Service Committee has been unwavering and expansive in its dedication to mission, working on a towering array of issues — from racial equity to immigrants’ rights to economic justice.
Gifts and Grants
People came together and gave: to support nonprofits, to see our communities through, and to help rebuild and recover. The Foundation increased grantmaking and maximized flexibility for grantees.
Community Crisis Action Fund
To support critical work being done in our communities, the Foundation opened the Community Crisis Action Fund in March of 2020. The fund supported a strategic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Every penny given into the fund has gone out into the community.