Facebook said on Friday that it is committing to match $20 million in donations, a fraction of its quarterly profit, to support global relief efforts for COVID-19 coronavirus.
Mark Zuckerberg, the social juggernaut’s chief executive, said Facebook was committing $10 million for the United Nations Foundation (UNF) and World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and an additional $10 million for the CDC Foundation, which will launch its Facebook Fundraiser in the coming weeks.
“More to come soon,” Zuckerberg said, possibly hinting that the company, which said this week that at least some of its contractors can’t work from home for a number of reasons, will do more in the future.
Also on Friday, Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing said it was committing to a $10 million special relief fund for drivers and couriers in its international markets.
Chinese tech giant Alibaba's founder is sending the US 500K testing kits & 1 million masks. Is Coronavirus the "Independence Day" event that unites the world? https://t.co/5YqH5Dpn5F
— Josh Constine 📶🔥 (@JoshConstine) March 13, 2020
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Microsoft and Amazon, two major Seattle-based tech companies, this week committed $1 million each — again, only a fraction of their quarterly profits, to COVID-19 Response Fund. Google.org and Google employees have donated more than $6.5 million to support relief efforts, and the search giant has said it was donating $25 million in ad credits to the WHO and government agencies.
Last week, Facebook also said that it would provide free advertisements to the World Health Organization (WHO) to ensure that more people have access to accurate information about the virus.
Nations around the world are struggling to fully understand the new virus, its symptoms and spread. The virus has infected more than 132,000 individuals globally.
Correction: An earlier version of the story said Google.org and Google employees had donated more than $1 million. The correct figure is more than $6.5 million.
