Helping Communities in Need

In response to sudden, unexpected crises, Griffin Catalyst is prepared to provide the kind of fast, decisive and nimble action that communities need.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, hundreds of volunteers at the Greater Chicago Food Depository helped to ensure that struggling families in Chicago would not go hungry, distributing nearly 100 million meals in 2021 alone.
800
Americans safely repatriated from Wuhan, China, at the start of COVID-19 in 2020
4.5M+
meals provided to Chicago families facing food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic
15,000
disaster kits created in the first six months by the Miami Disaster Resilience Fund to enhance hurricane preparedness

Through their compassionate, personalized care and groundbreaking research, NYU Langone’s medical professionals are leading the way in advancing women’s health and wellness, I am honored to join the Mignone family in expanding access to cutting-edge programs for women in important areas such as physical vitality, movement science, and mental and emotional health—helping people live longer, healthier lives.

Introduction

The arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 signaled the arrival of a global health and human crisis that would soon affect every country around the world. Griffin Catalyst and Ken Griffin would respond to the pandemic in a variety of ways, including early support for Operation Warp Speed, which accelerated the development of safe and affordable vaccines that, in 2021, began bringing the pandemic under control.

As that crucial work was proceeding, Ken Griffin and Griffin Catalyst was also responding to the urgent, immediate challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, from evacuating Americans at risk in Wuhan to putting meals on the table for families in Chicago to providing desperately needed oxygen cylinders and generating plants in India. And, to prepare for potential disasters still to come, Griffin Catalyst is supporting a special disaster resilience fund in Miami, to help the city and its population plan for and provide with every phase of a future crisis.

“Very Fast and Very Effective”: Evacuating Wuhan

In February 2020, when COVID-19 still remained a remote threat for many Americans, Ken Griffin learned that one of his Citadel colleagues and her family were unable to leave Wuhan—the city where the outbreak had begun—as the Chinese government moved to lock the city down. Upon reaching out to then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for advice, Griffin learned that hundreds of other Americans were in the same predicament.

With confusion and anxiety about the virus growing through much of the world, international travel shutting down almost overnight and the Chinese government starting to close Wuhan, it seemed impossible to bring back the hundreds of Americans who remained. Indeed, at that moment only a single commercial flight was scheduled to leave the city—far from what was needed to bring the remaining Americans home.

Photo Credit: Skorzewiak / Pond5

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ken Griffin helped 800 Americans escape Wuhan and be reunited with their families.

“Goodness knows how long it was going to take to get them out. We didn’t want our team locked in there. We wanted to make sure we helped Americans—any Americans—to get out.”

As Pompeo later recalled, Griffin’s response was swift. “Ken said, ‘I have some resources. I have access to some airplanes.’ And that began a conversation that was very fast and very effective.”

Working out a plan with State Department officials, Griffin and his colleagues quietly funded four passenger aircrafts, secured qualified pilots and crew, and made the necessary public health, quarantine, and security arrangements to bring Americans home. Within a few days, the team safely transported 800 people back to the United States—the entire diplomatic staff as well as hundreds of other American citizens.

COVID Impacts Near and Far

But the COVID-19 pandemic was only beginning, and Griffin Catalyst’s efforts soon turned closer to home.

By March 2020, it was becoming clear that widespread job loss due to impending lockdowns—and the impact of COVID-19 itself—would likely threaten the ability of hundreds of thousands of families in cities like Chicago to put meals on the table. And with the city’s public schools closed, hundreds of thousands of children would no longer be able to count on school breakfast or lunch.

Griffin Catalyst sprang into action, mobilizing $2.5 million to help Chicago’s public schools and the Greater Chicago Food Depository address the crisis of food insecurity in the city. Part of the funding helped establish food distribution sites at more than 350 Chicago schools, providing the city’s 355,000 students and their families regular access to food in their neighborhoods. Additional support enabled the expansion of a citywide emergency food distribution plan, providing 4.5 million meals to Chicagoans most at risk.

Quickly ramping up operations, the Food Depository produced thousands of prepackaged boxes of groceries, allowing food pantries and mobile distributions to serve large numbers of people, even while practicing social distancing.

“Ken and others are exhibiting extraordinary civic leadership at its finest.”

As the pandemic wore on—and months stretched into years—new problems began to arise, not only in the United States but all around the globe. In May 2021, more than a year after the initial outbreak, an especially devastating wave of infections hit India. In the space of just three weeks, the world’s second-largest country recorded seven million new coronavirus infections, a third of the total number it had recorded since the start. The situation was only growing worse, with one public health model predicting more than one million deaths in the next three months.

Photo Credit: © PATH 2015-2023. All rights reserved. Reprinted courtesy of PATH.

In an isolation ward at Rural Hospital in Palghar, India, a health-care worker installs an oxygen generator for a COVID-19 patient. In 2021, at the peak of the pandemic in India, the global health organization PATH installed 1,500 oxygen generators in 20 of that nation’s states.

Across India, hospitals and clinics were running desperately short on respiratory-care equipment, and oxygen generation plants couldn’t keep up with the demand. Griffin Catalyst joined forces with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to commit $5.5 million to an effort carried out by global public health organization PATH. While coordinating with state governments across India to answer the immediate oxygen shortage, PATH also provided the technical expertise needed to set up oxygen-generating plants around the country. In addition to meeting the most critical, immediate need, the effort created infrastructure intended to benefit the Indian people long after the crisis had passed.

“Lack of access to medical oxygen is one of the defining health challenges of our age. We must come together with others to help address this important issue.”

All told, Griffin Catalyst committed well over $50 million to address some of the most urgent problems brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, providing supplies and humanitarian aid, increasing internet access and educational resources for students during remote learning, accelerating testing and treatment and advancing the scientific research that would lead to a vaccine against the virus itself.

Disaster Preparedness, Relief, and Resilience

In the early hours of June 24, 2021, Champlain Towers South, a condominium tower in the Miami suburb of Surfside, suddenly collapsed due to structural failure, killing 98 residents inside. Another 126 residents survived the collapse, though many lost family members and neighbors—and all had lost their homes.

The local community sprang into action to support victims but was starting from scratch in the wake of the unanticipated catastrophe. Through that experience, city officials and civic leaders came to realize that Miami and the surrounding area needed a unified, well-organized strategy for disaster preparedness, relief, and resilience.

“I made myself a promise at that moment that we’d never again be in the middle of an active crisis starting from zero.”

Photo Credit: Miami Disaster Resilience Fund

To prepare supplies for a future emergency, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava (second from the left) and her colleagues pack relief boxes for the Miami Disaster Resilience Fund.

With a $5 million leadership gift, Griffin Catalyst stepped in to fund among the nation’s first municipal public-private partnerships for a unified disaster preparedness and resiliency strategy.

Designed to support communities from preparedness through victim support, the Miami Disaster Resilience Fund begins with pre-disaster stabilization grants: funds on reserve to deploy to frontline organizations in advance of an impending disaster, such as a hurricane. It covers crisis support, providing resources immediately to pre-vetted and coordinated organizations, with clear communication pathways to speed up delivery in an active crisis. It moves on to post-disaster recovery grants: funds readily available for long-term recovery. Finally, it deploys preparedness grants so that the region—and those working to make the community more resilient—are ready to respond to the next disaster, whenever it may strike.

“This evergreen fund will build capacity for local nonprofits working to prepare the most vulnerable communities, and to expedite a response for the community in times of need.”