Giving Compass' Take:

• The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the cancellation of key fundraising events and galas, cutting off revenue streams and funding for scientific research. 

• How can donors and organizations work together to secure necessary funding during this time? 

• Read more on how you can help nonprofits during COVID-19. 

Early this year, University of Colorado, Denver, cancer researcher Patricia Ernst was thrilled when her postdoc Therese Vu won a grant from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, a nonprofit that has pumped more than $1.2 billion into blood cancer research since its founding in 1949. The funding would allow the scientists to launch studies using a technique to generate malignant leukemia from immature blood cells—an approach that Ernst had been eager to try for more than a decade. To hit the ground running, they journeyed to Vancouver, Canada, for 1 week to learn the technique, and developed a pipeline for novel reagents through a University of Michigan lab. Then, last month, the pair got bad news: The philanthropy organization canceled the grant, citing “unprecedented” revenue losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I did anticipate there would be cutbacks,” Ernst says. “But I didn’t think it would be that serious, and I didn’t think it would happen to us.”

Many researchers are having similar experiences. Foundations that fund biomedical research in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere are reporting record revenue drops because of the pandemic. One major factor: It has forced them to cancel key fundraising events, including glitzy galas, sponsored walks, Broadway partnerships, and even an event that sends thousands of U.S. firefighters into the streets, asking passersby to support medical research by dropping donations into a rubber boot. Many groups are trying to stem the losses by cutting staff and delaying, trimming, or outright canceling grants to researchers.

The chaos imperils a small, but pivotal, part of the scientific ecosystem. Although nonprofits provide just 5% of overall U.S. research funding, they often support small, high-risk pilot studies that later enable researchers to attract larger grants from government funders—what Ross Levine, chair of leukemia research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, calls “training wheels grants.” And many of the grants go to young researchers, helping them launch their careers. “If you’re in a room with researchers of vascular disease, almost all of them will say their first grant came from [us],” says Mariell Jessup, chief science and medical officer at the American Heart Association (AHA).

Read the full article about cancelling charity events by  Eli Cahan at Science.