Like many private foundations, by the middle of March of this year, the Qlarant Foundation board was about to finish up reviewing, vetting, and eventually making funding decisions when Maryland’s coronavirus-related “Stay-at-Home” order was issued. Its immediate impact on schools, local businesses, and arts organizations was and continues to be devastating, but the hardest hit were the health and human services organizations that Qlarant was dedicated to supporting as their primary mission.
As a result, Qlarant, like many private foundations, had to pivot.
In short order, the Qlarant team had to assess each applicant again, contact those organization’s leaders, and get a reality check on the most current and pressing need each grantee had in light of one of the most significant public health crises in modern memory.
On the front line for much of this was Qlarant Foundation’s board chair, Molly Burgoyne-Brian. With the unique qualification of being a board-certified rheumatologist who had worked in local health care for decades, Burgoyne-Brian quickly recognized the special challenges facing healthcare providers and also the Foundation’s need to reevaluate its priorities.
In her Spy interview from last week, Dr. Burgoyne-Brian talks about the Qlarant Foundation’s response to COVID-19, which came to over $400,000 this year, and highlights some of how this year’s grantees are adjusting to the “new normal.”
This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about the Qlarant Foundation go here. Qlarant is a fiscal sponsor of the Annapolis Spy, Chestertown Spy and Talbot Spy.
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