According to Candid.org, $11.9 billion of philanthropic funds were donated to coronavirus-related causes in the first half of 2020. And remember that the full effect of the pandemic wasn’t being felt until March, so the rate of donation was even bigger than it appears from that headline statistic.

This amount is massively bigger than donations to any other disaster, and other reports have suggested that those donations have appeared faster and with fewer strings attached than is normal for large-scale philanthropic contributions.

Maybe this is just a blip, a reflection of the unprecedented situation and the need for large-scale funds to fuel research into treatments and vaccines. But I have to believe that at least some of the changes happening within philanthropic organizations and among corporate donors are here to stay.

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