GreenLight Fund’s Response to COVID-19

Updates as of May 11, 2020

Read about ways our portfolio organizations are continuing to do amazing work: Inspiring Work in Our Communities.

Find more about how GreenLight is Adapting and Innovating During COVID-19.

Original post from March 23, 2020

As an organization, the safety of our employees and stakeholders is our priority. We are also committed to doing what we can to support the broader, all-important effort to stop the spread of the virus, protect our community members and recover as a nation as quickly as possible.

We recognize that with so much uncertainty, we must remain flexible, re-visit decisions regularly, and enable our local sites to adjust as needed based on developments in their communities.

For our staff, we have put the following policies in place. We will share updates as the situation evolves.

• All GreenLight staff are working from home
• Meetings, both internal and external, no matter the size, will be held virtually or rescheduled
• Staff will not attend any in-person meetings scheduled by other individuals or organizations

We have established an internal task force comprised of GreenLight’s senior management along with cross-functional and cross-site representation to monitor the ongoing, fluid situation, determine when actions and decisions need to be made, and provide resources to support the health and safety of our team.

There have been and will continue to be an impact on scheduled, local GreenLight celebratory and launch events. The events scheduled during the next couple of months have already been canceled or postponed. We will continue to review the implications on late spring and summer events as they get closer.

During this time, with all staff working remotely, donations to GreenLight Fund are being accepted via wire transfer and online. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

Supporting our portfolio organizations. Our site executive directors have been reaching out to portfolio organizations offering thought partnership and support as they continue to navigate the challenges of this health crisis. Each organization is faced with decisions related to how best to continue running their programs as well as anticipated impact to raising the funds needed to meet their budgets.

As we continue to be rooted in our community-centered work, our site teams share perspectives on the impact of COVID-19 in these articles:

In the San Francisco Bay Area, A Call to Action: What nonprofits want you to know right now
In Detroit, During coronavirus crisis, don’t forget social impact organizations

The work of our portfolio organizations and the critical unmet needs we set out to address in our selection cycles feel even more urgent as we imagine the impact this global pandemic is having and will have moving forward. We continue to be guided by our mission and values as we respond to the challenges of these times.