Since foreign aid cuts disrupted global health and humanitarian programs in January 2025, the last six months have been marked by unprecedented challenges. Many of our recommended charities have faced ongoing disruptions that continue to evolve.
Malnutrition centers have closed their doors. Malaria prevention programs serving millions lost their lifeline. Health clinics halted treatments mid-course. Community health workers packed up and left. Long-standing prevention programs that had taken years to build simply ceased to exist.
“That evening, we received our first suspension notices,” said Ciarán Donnelly of the International Rescue Committee, capturing the sudden reality that hit organizations across the globe in those early days of the crisis.
Created Out of Necessity
Two weeks after the funding crisis began in January, The Life You Can Save and Founders Pledge launched the Rapid Response Fund—a fund to fill critical gaps and support programs that had lost funding.
What followed over the subsequent months exceeded all expectations.
The First 100 Days
The numbers tell a powerful story:
- Nearly $10 million raised from thousands of donors worldwide
- $1.6 million deployed across strategic grants
- $3.5 million committed in grants to be deployed in the coming weeks
- Millions of lives directly protected from immediate harm
But the full scope of the crisis is yet to be entirely clear. Amongst the network of high-impact organizations recommended by The Life You Can Save and Founders pledge alone, the funding gap totaled over $100 million. The Against Malaria Foundation lost $27 million in funding. GiveDirectly faced a $2 million gap. Teaching at the Right Level Africa needed $1.5 million to continue operations in Uganda.
How This Fund Was Different
The Rapid Response Fund is leveraging years of combined expertise between The Life You Can Save and Founders Pledge. For several years, these organizations have built a body of knowledge and criteria to evaluate organizations to identify those with proven track records of impact, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability.
The Rapid Response Fund initially focused on evaluating grants for their respective pre-vetted organizations, but in the past two months have broadened its scope.
“We’re focused on marginal cost-effectiveness,” explains Matt Lerner, Managing Director of Research at Founders Pledge. “It’s about what a dollar can achieve that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.”
The Power of Strategic Partnership
Approximately two months after the creation of the fund, the collaboration expanded further to enable even greater impact as the crisis worsened.
The fund is now also collaborating with Project Resource Optimization (PRO), formed by former USAID employees, implementing an innovative 70/30 matching model that enables larger grants that otherwise wouldn’t be fully funded: large individual donors fund 70%, while the Rapid Response Fund provides the final 30%, preventing the fragmentation that often kills promising initiatives.
Stories of Impact
Keeping Malaria Programs Alive in Angola
When USAID withdrew from Angola, Population Services International’s malaria program faced complete collapse. The Rapid Response Fund’s $300,000 grant became a lifeline, keeping 240 community health workers employed for nine months and providing healthcare for 96,000 people at risk of malaria across 2,400 households.
“It came at such a good time, when everything was down and everyone was demotivated. It felt like $3 million,” said Anya Fedorova, PSI’s Angola Country Representative. These health workers are the frontline of malaria prevention, diagnosing and treating up to 98% of cases on the spot. In Lunda Sul alone, workers detected 16,500 cases in children under five and nearly 100,000 cases overall.
Building Food Security in Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, Sanku lost an $800,000 investment for food fortification just as mandatory nutritional standards were being enforced nationwide. The RRF’s $250,000 grant enabled them to resume operations at their premix blending factory in Addis Ababa, with plans to reach 500,000 to 1 million more people with fortified flour.
The impact was swift and measurable. In just six months, Sanku equipped nearly 100 millers, reaching 3.8 million Ethiopians with fortified flour at a cost of only $0.12 per person—building the foundation of a sustainable food system that could withstand future shocks.
Protecting Cognitive Development Worldwide
A $50,000 grant to the Iodine Global Network helped cover the needs of a suspended UNICEF program, supporting critical monitoring and policy work in Madagascar, Mongolia, and South Sudan. Salt iodization prevents cognitive impairment in children—what Dr. Werner Schultink calls “a humble intervention, but its impact is enormous.”
The stakes couldn’t be higher. “In 2022, most households in Madagascar accessed well-iodized salt,” Dr. Schultink noted, “but with U.S. support cut, there’s a risk of regression to 2014 conditions when women suffered from severe iodine deficiency and about 43% of school-age children had goiters.”
Critical Interventions
Beyond these charities, the Rapid Response Fund deployed grants across multiple interventions:
Emergency Healthcare in Sudan ($2.5 million to Catholic Relief Services)
This grant enabled CRS to deliver antibiotics, acute malnutrition treatment, food assistance, antenatal care, and essential supplements to displaced communities caught in conflict.
Vaccine Distribution in Mozambique ($1 million to JSI, Inc.)
This grant supported the distribution of life-saving vaccines to 790,000 children across Mozambique, ensuring that routine immunizations continued despite funding disruptions that threatened to leave an entire generation vulnerable to preventable diseases.
HIV Treatment Continuity in Zambia ($300,000 to Catholic Relief Services)
This grant supported antiretroviral drug distribution, providing approximately 450 years of healthy life for HIV patients who would otherwise face treatment interruption—a scenario that can quickly become life-threatening.
Malaria Prevention for Children ($300,000 to Catholic Relief Services)
Funding five monthly household door-to-door distributions of antimalarial medication to over 40,000 children aged 3-59 months, this grant supported one of the most cost-effective interventions in malaria control.
Pediatric Care in Malawi ($300,000 to GOAL 3)
This grant enabled the implementation of 150 vital signs monitors across multiple hospitals, with one year of maintenance costs covered. Without this support, 450-750 preventable deaths could occur annually in pediatric and neonatal wards across the country.
Acute Malnutrition Treatment ($100,000 to International Rescue Committee)
This grant provided life-saving treatment for 800 children suffering from acute malnutrition, closing 5% of IRC’s $2 million funding gap for this critical program.
Broader Economic Impact
The funding cuts have created ripple effects that extend far beyond individual health programs. In Malawi, Niek Versteegde of GOAL 3 observed devastating economic consequences: “It has impacts way beyond the health system. We see a depreciation of the kwacha of 50% because aid is pulling back and a lot of their forex is coming from U.S. organizations.”
This economic destabilization threatens to reverse years of progress in health systems and economies that have become dependent on U.S. foreign exchange, creating a vicious cycle where health crises fuel economic instability.
Innovation Born from Crisis
Unexpectedly, this funding crisis is driving innovation in humanitarian delivery. Ciarán Donnelly of IRC sees an opportunity to fundamentally transform malnutrition programming: “We see an opportunity here to drive real reform in how malnutrition treatment is administered in humanitarian settings.”
IRC has developed “a treatment protocol that is 21% more cost-effective than the standard of care today” while simultaneously addressing supply chain breakdowns in therapeutic feeding products.
Organizations like GOAL 3 have designed their interventions with sustainability as a core principle. “Our whole model was designed to achieve sustainable change,” explained Versteegde. “You use grant funding to start and then there’s a local service model for hospitals to continue.”
The Human Cost
The organizational impact has been staggering. IRC alone will be 30-35% smaller next year, having laid off over 4,000 staff members with additional cuts still coming. They’re closing operations in seven countries where they’ve built institutional presence and relationships over many years.
Yet leaders maintain ambitious visions for the future. Donnelly set a bold challenge: “I’m setting my teams a challenge of how we can reach 50 million people a year by 2033, our 100th anniversary.”
Moving Forward
Jessica La Mesa emphasized the critical importance of coordination: “With a challenge of this magnitude, doing it alone isn’t optimal because there’s so much coordination needed, particularly with other funders. The last thing the ecosystem needs is everyone funneling money to the same organization. We need to coordinate and ensure as many programs and organizations as possible are sustained.”
The Rapid Response Fund has demonstrated the power of coordinated, evidence-based philanthropy in crisis response. In just over 100 days, nearly $10 million was raised and $6.2 million strategically deployed to protect millions of lives worldwide.
These grants represent more than emergency funding—they’re proof that when donors, researchers, and implementers collaborate with urgency and precision, we can save lives at unprecedented scale.
From treating malnutrition in children to delivering vaccines to nearly 800,000 kids in Mozambique, each dollar has been strategically deployed where it can achieve maximum impact.
However, significant funding gaps remain, and the work of rebuilding sustainable systems will take considerable time and resources.
“Best case is that within the sector we don’t waste the crisis opportunity to drive real reform,” reflects Donnelly. “Worst case is continuing business as usual, thinking nothing needs to change, while political winds squeeze funding and conflicts continue to escalate.”
Take Action
The Rapid Response Fund continues to accept donations, with 100% going directly to high-impact interventions in global health, poverty alleviation, and humanitarian aid.
Your support can make an immediate difference in the lives of vulnerable communities worldwide. Every donation helps fill critical funding gaps and builds more resilient systems for the future.
Curious about how your support makes a difference? Explore the stories of impacted communities, dive into the fund’s mission, and see the impact of your generosity. Visit The Rapid Response Fund page here.
Take Action Now: Join the fight against the global health crisis. Your donation can save lives and create lasting change today. Make a donation here, and be part of the solution.
