Rising to the Challenge of a Global Pandemic

At the end of August 2020, Ms. P* arrived at Samaritan House South in East Palo Alto in crisis. She was on a fixed income and hadn’t been able to pay her rent in two months. Ms. P had been sending money to her family in Peru to help relatives who had been diagnosed with the coronavirus. Now, she faced an impossible question: Should she pay her rent or care for her family?

Ms. P worked with her Samaritan House case manager to develop a plan centered on sustainable solutions. Thanks to funding from SVCF’s Regional Response Fund, Samaritan House was able to provide direct assistance to San Mateo County residents, like Ms. P, who were most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Samaritan House paid her back rent through September 2020 and enrolled her in the organization’s food and nutritional program so that she was able to receive groceries each week. This support helped Ms. P stay in her home — exactly the kind of result SVCF intended to achieve with its response fund.

As the pandemic persisted, SVCF focused on bringing relief to those most deeply and disproportionately affected — low-income people and communities of color.

The Pandemic Shines a Light on Existing Disparities

SVCF’s COVID-19 response came together quickly — though in some ways, it felt as though the team had been preparing to meet the community’s urgent needs for months. SVCF had spent the latter part of 2019 and the first few months of 2020 crafting a new strategic plan that put equity at the core of its work. Specifically, the strategic plan includes four key goals: reduce systemic disparities; create a strong and engaged community; create a culture and practice of effective philanthropy; and become a trusted and enduring institution in the community. The team had wrapped up planning by the end of March, right as the coronavirus pandemic began wreaking havoc in the Bay Area and beyond.

“When COVID-19 hit in March, it gave us the opportunity to immediately lean in on all four of our goals because we had done the hard work of strategic planning,” says Nicole Taylor, president and CEO of SVCF. “We were able to proactively respond with purpose to serve our community. The crisis allowed us to shine a light on the inequities that exist in this region, specifically on who was disproportionately impacted by COVID — communities of color, undocumented people and low-income communities.”

Only a few short weeks into the coronavirus pandemic, it was clear which populations in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties would be hit the hardest. The disproportionate impact of the virus on people of color and undocumented immigrants was, and continues to be, dramatic. In November 2020, the Latinx population in Santa Clara County accounted for 59% of all COVID-19 infections, despite representing 26% of the population.

In addition to experiencing the highest infection rates, immigrants, communities of color and undocumented workers often work in jobs that provide no paid sick leave, healthcare benefits or job security. Many were also ineligible to receive the federal aid package that was distributed in spring 2020.

As coronavirus spread both as a public health crisis and an economic one, dollars from SVCF’s Regional Response Fund went to organizations in each of the 10 Bay Area counties to directly support the low-income individuals and families that were most severely affected. Then came the Regional Nonprofit Emergency Fund to help the nonprofit organizations that provide vital services to the community and were struggling to keep up with demand for services. As the unemployment rate climbed under the shelter-in-place order and small businesses faced the daunting prospect of closing their doors for good, SVCF launched the Small Business Relief Fund in partnership with Accion Opportunity Fund to provide loan payment relief, expert technical assistance and grants to self-employed individuals and small business owners.

The need was so great that it required bold action from both the foundation and its donors. In an unprecedented move, Taylor reached out to donors in April 2020 to request that they donate an additional 1 to 5% of their charitable assets to coronavirus relief in the region. She issued a similar appeal in October 2020, but this time asking for an additional 5%. “In the past we may have approached a donor about a specific project of their interest, but nothing like this where there was a wholesale need and everyone needed to step up,” she says. “We made it easy for them. Whether they wanted to support small businesses, vaccine and treatment research, individuals and families, nonprofits, education — all of these major issues that were coming up because of COVID. The donors went above and beyond.”

One such example: a $5.2 million grant established in May 2020 by SVCF philanthropic partner John A. Sobrato of The Sobrato Organization to seed an immigrant relief fund for San Mateo County. The fund launched with a total of $8.9 million in public and private investments to support the nearly 60,000 undocumented people in San Mateo County who were suffering from the coronavirus pandemic and excluded from other funding.

A Recovery for Most Isn’t a Recovery for All

After a year filled with a multitude of crises, developing a plan for recovery was absolutely necessary, if a daunting task. But any recovery plan aimed at returning Silicon Valley life to “normal” would grossly miss the mark, in the minds of SVCF leaders. The previous normal had not been working for so many within the community.

The Silicon Valley Recovery Roundtable was formed to lead these planning efforts. Organized by San José Mayor Sam Liccardo, the roundtable consisted of 59 community, corporate, public sector and nonprofit leaders that represented various industries across the region. Taylor served as one of five co-chairs, and the coalition spent about 100 days proposing policy recommendations and practical strategies to help get people back to work, provide support for small businesses and ensure that residents facing the most vulnerable circumstances were able to fully participate in the post-pandemic recovery.

The result was the 74-page “Building a Better Normal” report released at the end of August, filled with strategies to drive job creation, support small and medium-size businesses, expand digital inclusion for the community, increase the affordable housing supply and keep people at risk of losing their housing in their current places of residence. The report is only a start on the long road to recovery but serves as a viable structure to create a more just, equitable and sustainable future. SVCF’s grantmaking opportunities and initiatives for 2021 and beyond — in line with its strategic priorities — will advance the recommendations in the report.

“2020 brought out the worst in humanity and the best in humanity,” Taylor says. “Whenever I get stopped in my tracks because of negative rhetoric or attitudes, something inevitably happens that restores my faith and my belief in my fellow human beings. I’ve learned that the great work that our team has done at SVCF shows that we can build on that sense of good and offer it to more people than we ever thought we could.”

*Note: Name withheld to protect privacy