Pursuing an equitable recovery through new investments and welcoming new leaders to Blue Meridian
As we enter the seventh month of a pandemic that has upended all our lives, Blue Meridian Partners remains focused on the health and economic security of our most vulnerable communities. This ongoing crisis has fueled Blue Meridian’s continued commitment to emergency response efforts, channeling direct cash assistance and expanding access to public benefits for millions of people struggling to stay afloat.
Immediately following the outbreak of the virus in America, we moved rapidly to give nearly $90 million to organizations providing relief. We’ve built on these efforts by supporting other leading groups that supply cash assistance and leverage critical systems to expand benefit access, such as federal nutrition programs and state unemployment insurance benefits, to reach the hardest-hit among us — from immigrant farmworkers on the front lines to families with kids cut off from school meals.
To date, Blue Meridian has deployed more than $150 million in COVID-19 funding. Since May, we have supported the additional groups below, along with a dozen other organizations, to help millions in America — including a focus on Black, Latinx, and Native American people who have suffered disproportionate harm — avoid financial catastrophe.
Direct Cash Assistance
Hispanics in Philanthropy
The newly-launched Essential Fund and Farmworkers’ Relief Fund improves Latinx essential workers’ and farmworkers’ access to public benefits and direct cash relief.
Mission Asset Fund
The Immigrant Families Fund reaches populations experiencing financial hardship who typically won’t receive Economic Impact Payments, including the 6 million immigrants on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.
The Native American Community Response Fund
The Fund distributes direct cash assistance to Native Americans living in the Navajo Nation and in the 13 metropolitan areas with the highest Native populations.
Expanded Access to Benefits
Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation
The Beeck Center is working with a group of states to transform how governments deliver benefits by scaling technology tools and sharing innovations.
Food Research & Action Center
The Center is leveraging local, state, and national partners to facilitate nationwide adoption of Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) and extension of the program into 2021.
No Kid Hungry
Share Our Strength’s national campaign educates eligible families on how to access public nutrition benefits and promotes expanding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and P-EBT for vulnerable Americans.
National Employment Law Project (NELP)
NELP helps states improve their unemployment insurance delivery systems and encourages those who qualify for unemployment insurance to apply.
Prosperity Now
Prosperity Now helps eligible individuals access free tax preparation services, Economic Impact Payments, and Earned Income Tax Credits.
The Education Trust
The Education Trust is pushing to expand the P-EBT for children ages 0 to 4 and extend the program through the next school year.
Working America
Working America is conducting research and outreach among Black workers to help those eligible receive unemployment benefits.
With gratitude to our partners and investees for providing this needed emergency relief, we will learn from this work in our efforts to advance an equitable recovery that ensures all people — regardless of their skin color or where they live — can access the resources they need to build back stronger.
We are seeing the meaningful difference these organizations have made for families struggling to stay afloat. Two testimonials underscore how crucial their support has been:
Mission Asset Fund
“This economic support is very important because my family and I don’t qualify for the federal economic stimulus because we are a mixed-status family. The situation is very frustrating because my wife and daughter are citizens and don’t deserve to be excluded from a policy that should protect them.”
— Abraham from California, on the Mission Asset Fund
Food Research & Action Center
“P-EBT has helped our household tremendously and we are so extremely grateful for it. We have high school boys and the extra money we received for them was used at a time when it would have been either food or bills. So thank you, thank you, thank you.”
— Melanie from Colorado, on the Food Research & Action Center