Candid began tracking philanthropic gifts for COVID-19 on February 3, 2020—two weeks after the Centers for Disease Control confirmed the first U.S. case and as evidence of the pandemic’s disastrous scale was mounting. Recently, in partnership with the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, we documented $11.9 billion in global philanthropy for COVID-19 in the first half of the year.

Funding for the pandemic is larger than anything we’ve seen since we began collecting real-time data about disasters and humanitarian crises. And yet we know that there’s more global COVID-19 philanthropy we haven’t captured.

We hope that sharing real-time data about where funding is going will allow funders to put their grantmaking in context, coordinate their responses with others, and ensure impacted communities are not inadvertently left behind. This information also helps those who are doing crucial work on the ground understand what other efforts are underway and identify potential partners for their work.

We don’t know which organizations have received the vast majority of funding captured by our tracking efforts. The two largest recipients of coronavirus funding in Candid’s database are “Unknown Recipient” and “Multiple Recipients.” We simply lack enough information to be more specific.

Having better information means organizations don’t have to make important decisions about where their resources are needed most in a vacuum, and that the sum of their efforts can add up to more than the parts. Dealing with the health, economic, and social consequences of this pandemic will require that every dollar spent has maximum impact. As a funder, the time you take to share information about your work makes a difference. Learn more about how you can contribute to the global database of philanthropy for COVID-19.

Read the full article about COVID-19 funding information by Grace Sato at PEAK Grantmaking.