Curt Detjen is President and CEO of Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. Peter Kelly is President and CEO of United Way Fox Cities. The two organizations created the COVID-19 Community Response Fund. Learn more about the response fund at the Community Foundation or United Way.

Now is the time to keep giving: By Curt Detjen and Peter Kelly

In a little more than a week’s time, the world turned upside down. COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Market volatility dwarfs that of the global financial crisis and the 1987 crash. Our favorite local establishments are closed. And, we are practicing social distancing to protect one another and to help flatten the curve of new infections. We’re in uncharted territory.

This is the moment for which modern philanthropy was built. The Fox Valley and surrounding area is filled with individuals, corporations and foundations that do good in our community. We are a top charitable region in the country and now is our time to show it. The funding community — including individual givers — must come together to meet this unprecedented moment with unprecedented generosity and flexibility. Basic human needs are on the line. Let’s give our local nonprofit organizations the critical, yet flexible, resources they need to serve our community and protect the most vulnerable among us. Nonprofit organizations: We are listening and want you to know this community is 100% behind you!

While there’s no playbook for this situation, there are several things individuals, foundations and corporations can do now:

• Make gifts across the nonprofit sector. Many organizations are doing critical work that shapes our quality of life.
• Individual donors: consider monthly or sustaining gifts to provide organizations with long-range support.
• Foundations and corporations: convert existing grants to general operating support to give nonprofit partners the flexibility they need in this moment.
• Mobilize new funding, suspend burdensome application processes, and make new general operating gifts to your most trusted partners.

We can do this, Fox Valley region. Our innovation, collaborative spirit and generosity have prepared us for this moment. Be bold. Be generous. Be flexible.

Join us in being a part of this incredible effort in the Fox Valley. Visit How You Can Help and donate to the COVID-19 Community Response Fund!