From imbedding its logistics experts with the United Nation’s agencies to vaccine tracking programs to drones delivering medical supplies, The UPS Foundation, the philanthropic arm of UPS, is taking on global humanitarian relief and community safety in a big way. This year, The UPS Foundation will award $14.1 million in grant funding and in-kind support to advance humanitarian relief and community safety initiatives around the world.

"Preparing, responding and helping communities recover from natural disasters and other humanitarian crises occurring around the world are tragedies where The UPS Foundation and UPS can help save lives by contributing our logistics expertise, healthcare solutions and global reach,” said Eduardo Martinez, president of the UPS Foundation and chief diversity and inclusion officer for UPS. “We are honored and humbled to collaborate with our United Nations and NGO partners to help people and communities when they need us most.”

Among the initiatives, The UPS Foundation has teamed up with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Zipline, a California-based robotics company, to leverage drones to deliver life-saving blood, medicines and vaccines to remote communities, beginning with Rwanda. The global partnership, which was announced in May 2016 and formally launched the first drone deliveries in October 2016, so far has resulted in expediting 260 units of blood to more than 130 patients in rural hospitals across Rwanda. The program will expand to include vaccine delivery in the near future. The UPS Foundation also is working with UNICEF on the rollout of Visibility for Vaccines, a cutting-edge tracking system that enables early identification of potential stock outs and overstocks of vaccines. ViVa will help global communities ensure supply of life-saving vaccines by providing alerts of critical shortage and overstock situations and allowing for corrective actions.

Another 2017 focus is the expansion of The UPS Foundation’s Humanitarian Expert on Loan program in which it loans UPS executives for long-term assignments with NGOs to provide logistical support and technical assistance. In 2016, The UPS Foundation deployed logistics managers to strengthen supply chains in emerging markets for organizations such as Gavi, UNHCR and the World Food Program.

Among other humanitarian organizations receiving grants this year are:

• American Red Cross, in support of the Annual Disaster Giving Program that enables the Red Cross to provide food and shelter immediately following disasters as well as the Home Fire Preparedness Campaign and Global Disaster Preparedness Center Disaster Resilience App

• CARE USA, to aid with capacity building and training workshops for CARE logisticians as well as the launch of a commodity tracking system platform pilot

• Good360, to support DisasterRecovery360 platform technology enhancements and the development of Disaster Council and Recovery Kits

• National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, to support the organization’s Long-term Recovery Initiative and Long-term Recovery Mini-Grant Program

• Operation Hope, toward the Disaster Recovery Fund to help disaster survivors with financial recovery solutions as well as the Financial Recovery Preparedness Program for small businesses

• St. Bernard Project, Inc., to support the National Disaster Resilience & Recovery Lab (DRL), which provides re-building support for communities that have been impacted by disasters

• UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, toward capacity building for global fleet management and emergency preparedness supply training

• U.S. Chamber of Commerce Corporate Citizenship Center, to aid in the expansion of the Saglam Kobi Business Disaster Resiliency Project in Turkey and the launch of the Connecting Business disaster resilience program in Mexico

• World Food Program USA, in support of its Zero Hunger National Supply Chain SCAN assessments and other initiatives

The UPS Foundation also will award grants that help extend the reach of UPS Road Code™ safe driving training program for teens, which is a major global community safety initiative of the company that was first launched in 2009.

The program is offered in the U.S. with Boys & Girls Clubs of America and overseas with youth development organizations. Taught by UPS volunteers and based on the company’s safe-driving methods, the program is available to teens between the ages of 13 and 18. To date, more than 36,000 teenagers have participated. The program operates in Canada, China, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. This year, UPS is expanding the program into the United Arab Emirates.