Immediate Needs and Systemic Solutions: Harnessing a Collective Crisis Response by Regional Philanthropy Alongside Systemic Change

Abstract

The first days of the COVID-19 pandemic are ones we are all unlikely to forget. We watched as public health reports on the news shifted ever closer to our own communities, uncertain how a new virus would affect livelihoods, daily routines, and access to health care and safe spaces. As businesses, nonprofits, schools, and community centers closed their doors in an effort to flatten the curve, the pandemic severed precarious lifelines that kept the most vulnerable among us afloat. In western New York (WNY), across communities known for their resilience and good neighbors, this global crisis spurred not only a collective philanthropic response to local emergency needs, but also the development of systemic solutions that will leave our communities stronger as we face the future