Just over a year ago as news of a novel virus swept the headlines, supply chain shortages and sudden remote work policies became the new reality. In the panicked months that followed, systems from  industry to healthcare continually and consistently failed, falling short in arenas from diagnostics to drug trials. Just when weak points in biomedical infrastructure were starting to truly play out, the world’s eyes were forced to see the systemic injustices that BIPOC citizens experience every day. As such, the past year has begged the question: how can we design systems that will respond in the future? And, in responding, how can we ensure they do so in an equitable way?

Philanthropy’s Unique Role 
To put it bluntly, a pandemic inherently affects too many people, therefore it simply doesn’t make sense for philanthropic investments to be anything less than strategic moving forward. To mitigate the next pandemic (which, experts say, is bound to happen) more resilient, thoughtful systems must be built from the ground up. So what can philanthropists do now to ensure this never happens again?

The Milken Institute’s Center for Strategic Philanthropy (CSP) consulted with 20+ experts across the biomedical space to ask this very question. The undeniable conclusion is that for philanthropic capital to have the biggest payoff, high-level, long-term investments are necessary. Immediate, responsive philanthropic funding has certainly saved lives. According to Candid.org, philanthropic funding for COVID-19 outpaced other recent disasters many times over, but it hasn’t been enough. Rather than reactively thinking "how can we fix this?" philanthropic capital has the flexibility and impact to ask "what if we could avoid this in the first place?" 

Accomplishing this goal is no easy task. It requires a number of dynamic, deeply integrated investments across a number of biomedical domains. CSP's latest guide outlines  recommendations for tangible, infrastructural investments that philanthropists are best positioned to make. These types of investments are proactive in that they are deployed long before a pathogenic threat emerges, and they will lead to resilient systems, ready to be activated effectively and seamlessly when the time comes.

Case Study: When Proactive Investments Pay Off 
To be sure, there have been some major successes throughout the past 12 months. The most critical of them all is the fast-paced development of not one, but three vaccine candidates that, at the time of this publication, have been authorized for widespread distribution. The accelerated speed at which these vaccines came to market was made possible by groundwork laid long before the word coronavirus occupied an outsized space in our minds. mRNA-based vaccines were developed utilizing platform technology, which builds on an existing framework that uses information specific to the current virus to customize a solution, which in this case was a vaccine compound. Due to prior investment in this technology, the disease-agnostic framework was already squarely and reliably in place before the SARS-COV-2 genome was ever made publicly available. As a result of this proactive, infrastructural investment, the vaccine was able to go to clinical trials in only 62 days, surpassing any expectation of experts themselves.

Applying This Mindset to Future Philanthropic Investments 
More than anything, the past year has highlighted which major biomedical pillars are ripe for rethinking and redesign. To have lasting impact, philanthropists must consider proactive, systems-based investments. And, when the time comes, these investments will translate into an immediate-term impact due to the groundwork laid far before the system was threatened.

Just like mRNA platforms developed pre-pandemic had an immediate and outsized impact on our ability to address the pandemic at hand, CSP's report examines a myriad of other ways philanthropy is uniquely situated to make smart investments now that will pay off exponentially in the future.

For example, philanthropic capital can close the gap between supply and demand in the early days of a pandemic by developing intuitive supply chains and equitable distribution protocols before they are ever acutely needed. By acting as a coordinating body, philanthropic coalitions have the power to lay the groundwork for a clinical trial network that maximizes resources, patients, and results. Philanthropy has a role to play in hosting data platforms that aim to democratize information when it’s needed most, and aid in scientific communication that is both accurate and friendly to the general public. Most importantly, philanthropy has the potential to be a powerful force creating strong systems that work for more than the lucky few.

More than anything, the pandemic has highlighted just how crucial of a role strong systems and infrastructure play. Broken systems led to countless tragic outcomes. Philanthropic capital can fill these gaps in ways that build systems which can respond to future crises in inclusive, intuitive, and resilient ways.

Visit the Center for Strategic Philanthropy's website for more on how philanthropy can act to rebuild in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.