An anonymous Connecticut family gave Americares $50 million to plug part of the aid gap. ET Online Last Updated: 08 September, 2026 06:38 PM -7 GMT An anonymous family has gifted fifty million dollars to Americares, marking its largest donation ever. This significant contribution will fund healthcare access for one hundred million people globally. The organization also plans to bolster health centers within the United States. This private funding arrives after US government aid cuts impacted several projects. The donation signals continued trust in humanitarian efforts amidst shifting global priorities. A Connecticut family that will not be identified has given $50 million to the American aid group Americares, the largest single donation in the organisation's 47-year history, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday. The gift lands at an unusual moment. Most global health organisations have spent the past year and a half contracting. Americares is now planning to expand. "They definitely understood the moment and wanted to do more to respond to that," Christine Squires, the president and chief executive of Americares, told AP of the donor. The family has been associated with the organisation for three decades and is, in her words, very savvy about global health. You May Like Half the money will go toward the group's target of helping 100 million people access quality healthcare by 2030, largely by supplying medicines and equipment to its network of more than 4,000 health centres. The focus will be on under-funded countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Latin America. Americares also plans to increase support for health centres inside the United States, in states where it expects a rise in the number of residents without insurance. The other half goes into the endowment. What was lost Americares drew roughly 10% of its funding from the US government before the cuts, Squires told AP. The shortfall showed up as cancelled work. A maternal care project in Tanzania lost its support last year. Medical clinics in Colombia serving Venezuelan migrants stayed open for several months on private money before closing. A planned five-year collaboration to build a more resilient medical supply chain across Gaza was scrapped entirely. The organisation now funds itself entirely through individual donors, corporations and private foundations, which Squires said matters as it responds to more than 20 active emergencies, among them the Nepal floods and the Ebola outbreak in Congo. Founded in 1979 and headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, Americares says it has delivered more than $17 billion in humanitarian aid across 164 countries. The bigger hole The gift is the latest in a series of private interventions since the Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development in early 2025. The scale of what was withdrawn makes the arithmetic difficult. US foreign aid totalled about $64 billion in 2023, the most recent year with comprehensive figures. Private money has moved, though unevenly. British hedge fund manager Chris Hohn stepped in to keep production running at MANA Nutrition, one of two American manufacturers of the therapeutic peanut paste used to treat severe child malnutrition, after US stop-work orders halted their lines. Hohn had already given the organisation more than $250 million before the crisis. A group of former USAID staff, working outside office hours or after being fired, assembled a list of 80 high-impact programmes and took it to private donors. Their effort, Project Resource Optimization, mobilised more than $110 million in grants, with other emergency funds raising at least $15 million more, taking the total past $125 million within eight months. In March 2025, Jacklyn and Miguel Bezos, the parents of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, committed up to $500 million to UNICEF's Child Nutrition Fund, structured as a one-to-one match designed to draw in other donors. It was, by UNICEF's own account, the largest investment the agency had ever received from a family. The Gates Foundation, separately, narrowed its priorities. Susan Appe, an associate professor of public administration and policy at the University at Albany who researches how nonprofits handle shifting donor-country priorities, told AP that global health has drawn most of the large donors' attention, which she called reasonable given that lives are at stake. But she said the philanthropic response overall has been slower than researchers in her field expected. "I think that a lot of philanthropy scholars like myself have been a bit disappointed with the lag of response," she told AP. "It's kind of, to some degree, business as usual." Nobody involved argues that private giving can substitute for what was cut. A study published in The Lancet in June 2025, analysing data from 133 countries, estimated that USAID-supported programmes had prevented more than 91 million deaths between 2001 and 2021, and projected that sustained cuts could result in over 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including more than 4.5 million children under five. The authors described the projection as a model output with a wide uncertainty range. The Trump administration has defended the closure. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in July 2025 that the agency had little to show for itself since the end of the Cold War, and that the State Department would prioritise trade and investment over aid, negotiating directly with countries rather than through nonprofits and contractors. Squires said she hopes the anonymous gift prompts others. A donation of that size signals that people still trust both her organisation and the humanitarian sector, she told AP. "It's not only up to individuals," she said. "However, individuals who have the means, who have the passion and can invest like this, will help to bring others along." (With inputs from AP)

Las Vegas Sands announces a $400,000 Sands Cares donation to Americares for emergency response and readiness. Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) has announced a $400,000 two-year grant to Americares through its Sands Cares community program. The funding will support global emergency response and readiness programs, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific emergency response hub in the Philippines. Through this commitment, LVS joins Americares' RISE program, providing flexible funding for disaster response and humanitarian crisis management. The grant will support the Global Readiness Team, which responds to over 35 natural disasters annually. Key initiatives include recruiting emergency roster members, pre-positioning supplies, and hosting WHO EMT Type 1 Mobile Training in both the U.S. and Philippines. The partnership, which began in 2020, has already helped expand Americares' Asia-Pacific response capacity from 20 to over 180 members in 2024, enabling responses to multiple typhoons and natural disasters in the region. The two-year grant provides capacity-building funding for the organization's global response and readiness efforts and continues support for its Asia-Pacific Response Hub in the Philippines. LAS VEGAS, Sept. 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ - Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) will contribute $400,000 to Americares as part of a two-year grant through the Sands Cares global community engagement program. Funding supports global emergency response and readiness programs, including continued investment in the organization's Asia-Pacific emergency response hub. With this commitment, Sands has joined the Americares Rapid Impact and Support for Emergencies (RISE) program, which provides the health-focused relief and development organization with a reliable stream of flexible funding to maintain a constant state of readiness and launch robust responses to natural disasters and humanitarian crises. The Sands Cares contribution supports Americares Global Readiness Team, which strengthens emergency and humanitarian assistance by enhancing organizational preparedness for responses. Americares responds to more than 35 natural disasters and humanitarian crises worldwide each year, establishes long-term recovery projects and brings preparedness programs to communities vulnerable to disasters. Americares relief workers are among the first to respond to emergencies, helping to restore health services for survivors. The organization's teams increase access to essential medicines and supplies, as well as provide medical care, surge staffing, emergency funding and psychosocial support for disaster survivors, frontline health workers and first responders. Americares maintains a Global Roster of more than 800 trained professionals who can be mobilized for deployment. Sands has supported Americares since 2020 with Sands Cares funding for the Americares Asia-Pacific response hub in the Philippines and U.S. regional emergency readiness activities in Greater New York and the South/Southeastern United States. "Sands' generous support has greatly strengthened our Asia regional response operations as well as our global readiness to respond swiftly and effectively when disaster strikes," Americares Deputy Senior Vice President of Emergency Programs Provash Budden said. "In becoming a RISE member, Sands has recognized the increased urgency of being ready to respond to more frequent and intense extreme weather events and more complex humanitarian crises." According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), disasters now directly affect approximately 200 million people annually, cause medical emergencies and disrupt health care services with long-term health implications, including mental health impact. Populations most disproportionately impacted are people in low-income communities and countries that already lack the resources needed for adequate preparedness and response. The 2025-2027 Sands Cares grant supports the following activities: 2025-2027 U.S. Headquarters Activities Sands' participation in the Americares RISE program will support Global Roster recruitment and training, equipment and the pre-positioning of response supplies. In year two of the Sands Cares engagement, Americares plans to host a World Health Organization EMT Type 1 Mobile Training for Global Roster members in the United States. 2025-2027 Asia-Pacific Activities Sands Cares funding for the Asia-Pacific region will support Americares efforts to recruit at least 25 new emergency response roster members, pre-position relief supplies and equipment in regional warehouses, as well as host ongoing trainings for Asia-Pacific Global Roster members and Americares staff. Americares also plans to host a World Health Organization EMT Type 1 Mobile Training for Global Roster members in the Philippines. Americares and Sands Cares - Previous Accomplishments Through engagements beginning in 2020, Sands has helped Americares substantially grow its disaster readiness response capacity in the Asia-Pacific region, establishing a response hub in the Philippines and increasing its regional emergency roster from 20 to more than 180 members in 2024. With Sands Cares support, Americares also conducted its first large-scale emergency simulation exercise at the Philippines regional hub. As a result, Americares launched responses out of the Philippines hub for Typhoons Doksuri, Noru, Goni, Vamco and Rai; Tropical Storm Nalgae; the Taal Volcano eruption in the Philippines and severe flooding in Vietnam. In 2023, Sands expanded its support for Americares to the United States with a two-year contribution to help Americares build emergency response capabilities in the Tri-State area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, as well as the South/Southeastern United States. Sands Cares' support allowed Americares to recruit 25 new Global Roster members from the Tri-State area and host its first-ever, in-person Global Roster onboarding training in Queens, New York. With funding from Sands Cares in 2024, Americares Global Readiness Team recruited 24 new emergency responders. They fill critical roles such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, mental health and psychosocial support professionals, and safety and security officers throughout the Southeastern United States. Through Sands Cares support, Americares led a second Global Roster Onboarding Training in April 2025 for 14 of the new recruits in Houston. Sessions covered Americares emergency response interventions, deployment processes, equipment, safety, security and more. "We recognize the growing number of global disasters and crisis situations along with Americares proven ability to mobilize on-the-ground response efforts that address both the immediate and long-term health of people impacted," Ron Reese, senior vice president of global communications and corporate affairs, said. "Joining the RISE program reflects our desire to support Americares so that it can be nimble and effective to meet global humanitarian needs, while we continue our investment in the great work Americares is doing at the Asia-Pacific response hub." Sands' partnership with Americares reflects its Sands Cares priority on supporting hardship relief initiatives in its communities around the world. To learn more about the company's corporate responsibility programs and other Sands Cares community engagement activities, visit https://www.sands.com/responsibility. To learn more about Americares, visit https://www.americares.org/. About Americares Americares is a health-focused relief and development organization that helps people and communities around the world access health in times of disaster and every day. Each year, Americares reaches 85 countries on average, including the United States, with life-changing health programs, medicine, medical supplies and emergency aid. Americares is one of the world's leading nonprofit providers of donated medicine and medical supplies. For more information, visit americares.org About Sands (NYSE: LVS) Sands is the leading global developer and operator of integrated resorts. The company's iconic properties drive valuable leisure and business tourism and deliver significant economic benefits, sustained job creation, financial opportunities for local businesses and community investment to help make its host regions ideal places to live, work and visit. Dedicated to being a leader in corporate responsibility, Sands is anchored by the core tenets of serving people, communities and the planet. The company's ESG leadership has led to inclusion on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for World and North America, as well as Fortune's list of the World's Most Admired Companies. To learn more, visit www.sands.com. What is the size and duration of Las Vegas Sands' (LVS) donation to Americares? Las Vegas Sands has committed $400,000 over two years (2025-2027) to Americares through its Sands Cares program. How will LVS's donation to Americares be used? The donation will support Americares' global emergency response capabilities, including the Global Readiness Team, recruitment and training of response roster members, and strengthening the Asia-Pacific response hub in the Philippines. What has LVS's previous support helped Americares achieve in the Asia-Pacific region? Since 2020, LVS's support has helped Americares grow its Asia-Pacific emergency roster from 20 to over 180 members, establish a Philippines response hub, and respond to multiple natural disasters including typhoons and flooding. What is Americares RISE program that LVS joined? RISE (Rapid Impact and Support for Emergencies) is Americares' program that provides flexible funding to maintain constant readiness and launch robust responses to natural disasters and humanitarian crises.

Francine Gingras joins Americares Board of Directors.