The Bainum Family Foundation is a private operating foundation, so we differ from grant-making foundations in several key ways. Operating foundations actively conduct their own charitable, educational or other exempt programs and activities, and they also are required to distribute a specified percentage of their income annually for charitable or other exempt purposes.
Our status as an operating foundation gives us the opportunity to work hand in hand with partner organizations to achieve our goals, and it allows us to engage directly and regularly with the communities we serve and support. This connection was important to our founders and remains an essential part of how we work.
During our 2019/2020 fiscal year, we invested in the following areas: Early Learning and School Mental Health (which together form our D.C. Wards 7 and 8 Initiative), Seventh-day Adventist Initiative and Food Security Initiative, plus the Bainum Foundation Farm. Through our Family Philanthropy Initiative, we also support the ongoing philanthropic efforts of four generations of the Bainum family.
The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the intensified racial justice movement, led us to reexamine our investments during spring 2020. We offered partners the flexibility to use their remaining funding as they saw fit to meet urgent organizational and community needs. We also asked what else they needed to best support children and families and to fortify their own organizations to weather the crises.
In response to these requests, and as part of communitywide funding collaborations, we provided an additional $3.4 million in emergency funding from April through June 2020 for everything from remote-work technology and pandemic-related program activities to sanitation supplies and a cold-storage truck to deliver food to households in need. Following is a summary of the investments we made during this fiscal year. With the pandemic far from over and the impact still profound, we will continue to assess and respond to community needs in the year ahead.
