Rapid Response Fund
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In partnership with 
The sudden suspension of U.S. foreign aid in January 2025 created an unprecedented funding crisis, putting millions of lives at risk as essential global health and development programs faced immediate closure.
The Rapid Response Fund provided a swift solution, raising over $12 million in six months. Together, we estimate we were able to save over 4,000 lives, helping critical programs continue during a time of global disruption.
Working in partnership with Founders Pledge and former USAID leaders at Project Resource Optimization (PRO), we identified critical gaps caused by U.S. foreign aid cuts and moved quickly to fill them.
What initially appeared to be a temporary disruption became the permanent new reality for foreign aid, and we determined that the most effective way forward was to integrate this critical work into the core funding strategies of The Life You Can Save, where it can operate with greater scale and long-term impact.
Fund launched: Feb 17, 2025
Grants Made
| Date | Recipient | Grant | Amount | |
| Aug 2025 | Hellen Keller Intl | To deliver nutrition services across four Nigerian states, focusing on treating children with severe and moderate acute malnutrition while also training health workers. Over the course of one year, it is expected to provide treatment to 23,000 children and save more than 1,600 lives. | US$1,500,000 | COMMITTED |
| June 2025 | Catholic Relief Services (CRS) | To deliver emergency healthcare services to displaced communities in Sudan, This grant will allow CSR to deliver antibiotics, acute malnutrition treatment, food assistance, antenatal care, ORS and iron supplementation to communities in need | US$2,500,000 | COMMITTED |
| June 2025 | JSI (2nd tranche) | To deliver lifesaving vaccines to children in Mozambique. This grant will allow JSI to support the distribution of vaccines to 790,000 children | US$1,000,000 | COMMITTED |
| June 2025 | JSI (1st tranche) | To deliver lifesaving vaccines to children in Mozambique. This grant will allow JSI to support the distribution of vaccines to 790,000 children | US$1,000,000 | |
| May 2025 | Undisclosed | US$600,000 | ||
| April 2025 | Catholic Relief Services (CRS) | To support the distribution of antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV in Zambia. This grant is expected to provide approximately 450 years of healthy life for HIV patients. | US$300,000 | |
| March 2025 | Catholic Relief Services (CRS) | To pay for five monthly household door-to-door distributions of antimalarial medication to at least 40,000 children aged 3 to 59 months. This preventive treatment is one of the most cost-effective interventions in malaria control. | US$300,000 | |
| March 2025 | Population Services International (PSI) | To directly support 240 community health workers (CHWs) for 9 months across two Angolan provinces where malaria is considered hyperendemic. This grant will allow CHWs to provide primary healthcare and treatment to around 2,400 households, representing 96,000 people at risk of malaria. | US$300,000 | |
| March 2025 | Sanku-PHC | To buy dosifier machines for 150 mills in Ethiopia, with the potential to reach 10 million people with fortified flour by the end of 2025. Through these mills, Sanku provides fortified flour for people affected by malnutrition at a cost of $0.12 per person. | US$250,000 | |
| March 2025 | GOAL 3 – IMPALA | To implement 150 vital signs monitors across multiple hospitals in Malawi, cover one year of maintenance costs, and maintain financial stability while securing follow-up funding. Without support, 450-750 preventable deaths could occur annually in pediatric and neonatal wards across Malawi, where several implementation projects were canceled. | US$300,000 | |
| March 2025 | Iodine Global Network | To cover the needs of the suspended UNICEF program in Madagascar other activities associated with monitoring, including analysis of survey results in Mongolia, lab costs for monitoring in some countries, and a visit by IGN’s Regional Coordinator to South Sudan to assist the country in designing a national policy on iodine nutrition. | US$50,000 | |
| February 2025 | International Rescue Committee | Acute Child Malnutrition program, helping close 5% of their $2M funding gap and providing life-saving treatment for 800 children. | US$100,000 |
Why Was the Rapid Response Fund Created?
The Rapid Response Fund was created to fill critical time-sensitive funding gaps created by the suspension of US foreign aid in 2025. We worked with Founders Pledge and former USAID leaders at Project Resource Optimization (PRO) to ensure that high-impact organizations continue to deliver lifesaving interventions in global health, extreme poverty, and humanitarian aid.
Historically, both The Life You Can Save and Founders Pledge had emphasized long-term, strategic initiatives over reactive crisis interventions. However, the depth and immediacy of the cuts and their impact on programs that operate below the public radar demanded an immediate response to prevent years of development progress from being lost.
What began as a temporary freeze has now become the new baseline. More than 80 percent of USAID programs were closed in 2025, with much of the funding shifted to the State Department.
The Rapid Response Fund is now closed to new donations. From here, this work will be fully integrated into the core funding strategies of The Life You Can Save and Founders Pledge.
If you want to continue supporting high impact organizations fighting extreme poverty, we invite you to donate to The Life You Can Save’s Maximize Your Impact Fund, which prioritizes high impact organizations fighting extreme poverty while actively directing resources where they are needed the most.
How Did the Rapid Response Fund Work?
The Rapid Response Fund was designed as a targeted response to sustain high-impact programs run primarily by organizations we had already vetted for their effectiveness in health, poverty alleviation, and development.
Our approach followed a data-driven methodology to identify the most urgent funding gaps, with primary focus on maternal and child health, community health worker programs, and endemic disease prevention – key areas impacted by the U.S. foreign aid freeze and USAID stop-work orders.
To strengthen our efforts, we worked with Project Resource Optimization (PRO), led by former USAID leaders who maintained a curated list of programs at risk due to USAID cuts. PRO helped spotlight programs that urgently needed support, enhancing our ability to respond quickly and effectively as funding gaps emerged.
The fund operated through a streamlined process designed for rapid deployment. We prioritized funding for our vetted organizations while identifying and supporting new organizations that met our strict evaluation criteria where gaps remained. Each funding decision was assessed based on effectiveness, human impact, room for more funding, and potential for outsized impact.
By keeping critical programs operational, the fund helped organizations retain skilled personnel, sustain essential health services, and prevent setbacks in disease prevention and treatment while strengthening local health systems during the transition.
FAQs
The Life You Can Save and Founders Pledge share a commitment to evidence-based philanthropy focusing on directing philanthropic dollars to where they can do the most good, making this a natural partnership. By working together, we combine deep research expertise, a complementary network of high-impact funding opportunities, and strategic allocation approaches to ensure the Rapid Response Fund is as effective as possible.
The Fund will support high-impact, evidence-based organizations that have undergone rigorous vetting through Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save’s due diligence process. These organizations meet strict cost-effectiveness, transparency & accountability standards, have a proven track record of creating measurable impact and have been directly affected by recent cuts to U.S. federal aid funding.
We will prioritize funding based on urgency, impact, and unmet needs. Our focus is on organizations where funding gaps threaten critical progress in disease prevention, evidence generation, and life-saving interventions not covered by the U.S. Government’s waiver.
No, none of the funds will go directly to USAID. All funds raised will support registered charities or charitable equivalents facing existential funding crises due to shifts in U.S. federal funding.
Given the urgency of the funding gaps we are addressing, we aim to deploy funds as quickly as possible. Our close relationships with recipient organizations and pre-existing due diligence and vetting allow us to assess needs in real-time and move rapidly to prevent disruptions in critical services.
We continuously assess funding gaps so recipients may change based on real-time needs. Though, we’re happy to share our approach and example organizations. All grants will be publicly disclosed.
We are not accepting funding requests at this time.
The Fund will make grants based on the most effective funding opportunities. Some grants may be restricted to ensure support goes to an organization’s highest-impact intervention, while others may be unrestricted to provide flexibility where it’s most needed.
Donors entrust grantmaking to Founders Pledge and The Life You Can Save experts, who focus on maximizing impact and accessing opportunities unavailable to individual givers. In some cases, major donors may have options to contribute directly to affected organizations. For more information on direct donations for major donors, please contact info@thelifeyoucansave.org.
Donors in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States will receive tax receipts. If you’re based elsewhere and have questions about the tax relief for your major gift, contact info@thelifeyoucansave.org for guidance on in-country partners or transnational giving options.
The federal funding freeze has left billions in unmet needs for organizations worldwide. The Life You Can Save and Founders Pledge recommended charities alone have nearly $100M in immediate funding needs, with more emerging as the landscape evolves. Any additional funds raised will be directed to high-impact opportunities as they arise. For transformational donations over $1M, please contact info@thelifeyoucansave.org.
