The last few weeks have brought so much change to our lives and businesses. We wanted to shift the spotlight and share good news about companies that are focusing on their customers, employees, and are continuing to bring The Magic of Human Connection® to Southern California. Our team wanted to take this opportunity to shine a light on some of our clients who are persevering through the challenges of Coronavirus. Think of this newsletter as our version of New York City’s clapping at 7 PM for the Healthcare workers. We are clapping for all of you!
GO Campaign Quickly Steps Up in a Pandemic
GO Campaign is a 14 year old non-profit organization located in Southern California. The organization works to provide vulnerable children the opportunity to receive education, medical care, shelter, clean water, and food. What started as helping 20 children in Africa has grown exponentially to helping children in communities from East Africa to East LA and so many places in between: Cambodia, India, Tanzania, and Haiti, to name a few.
GO Campaign began as a grassroots organization matching donors to projects they are passionate about. “There are many people who are touched by stories of how poverty, lack of clean water, or basics like shelter and food are impacting children around the world. They want to help but are not sure what non-profit organization will take their donation and funnel it directly to the area that the donor desires,” said Founder and CEO Scott Fifer.
Fifer worked to create a network of what he calls “Local Heroes” throughout the globe who work to take the specific donation and match it to where the donor wanted their gift to go, whether it is helping children in the aftermath of an earthquake or helping victims of human trafficking. Donors choose their passion, and when they work with GO Campaign, they are “plugged into campaigns” that will make an impact at the community level of the biggest problems that children are facing.
When we chatted with Scott we asked how this pandemic has affected his business. He explained that GO Campaign is unique in that it focuses on the immediate needs of children and their model has feet on the street to help where necessary. They were able to pivot to the areas of most need quickly.
“Within the first week of the ordered COVID-19 shut down in Southern California, we were able to give small grants to help feed families in the Watts area of Los Angeles. All of a sudden, you had children who rely on the meal they received from school to not having a meal to eat. Parents now had children at home, and to make matters worse, they can’t get to the grocery store because they have to take public transportation, and they were trying not to expose their families to this virus. In just a few days, our network of local heroes arranged distribution centers for these families to receive some groceries, hand sanitizer, and school supplies since most of these families did not have the supplies for their children to complete schoolwork at home,” said Fifer.
The dynamics of this pandemic have disrupted many lives so quickly it is like a tidal wave rolled through countries. In India, GO Campaign partners fed 6,000 meals to families of day laborers who were locked down with less than 24 hours’ notice and were unable to leave their house to get food. In Tanzania, they are working to help a leper colony get sanitation supplies, including filtration kits for water. According to Fifer, “we were in a unique position to help. We had $50,000 in critical grants allocated the first week as our teams had become the emergency response team for so many people. Since our organization relies on Local Heroes, we knew where the greatest needs were immediately and worked to respond quickly and effectively to aid children facing compounded problems during this pandemic.”
“We talk to our partners every day because what is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow. Thank goodness for Zoom. Our team works remotely, and now we are working harder than ever to stay informed on where the greatest needs are. Thankfully we have always been a nimble organization as part of our culture, and that has allowed us to respond quickly in the areas where children have the most need,” concluded Fifer.
GO Campaign has focused all its energy and resources on being able to jump in and help children with the greatest immediate need for the COVID-19 crisis. If you want more information about this incredible organization visit: https://www.gocampaign.org/ or if you are interested in assisting them with their COVID-19 relief efforts, please
visit: https://www.gocampaign.org/covid-19/
Thank you to GO Campaign for all the support they are giving to communities impacted by the Coronavirus. We appreciate all you do.