Establishing the Fund
In 2021 Global Impact and Geneva Global were enlisted to establish and implement the Vaccine Confidence Fund (VCF), an applied research grantmaking facility aimed at supporting global research focused on the nexus of social media and increased vaccination confidence and uptake. It is financially supported by Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) and Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA (known as MSD outside the United States and Canada) (“MSD”). In 2023 the partners formalized their relationship into the Advancing Health Online Initiative (AHO), dedicated to further improving health around the world using technology to reach vulnerable populations. In 2024 the partnership expanded to bring in two additional, large funders to support the VaxSocial project, a $12 million fund to support additional research on the role of social media with a focus more on routine and HPV vaccination uptake.
Providing Operational and Programmatic Support for the fund
Serving as the fiscal sponsor for all of AHO’s projects since its inception, GIV has provided comprehensive support in overall project management, contract development, financial management and reporting, design and implementation, grant management, and compliance.
We operated virtually all aspects of the first Vaccine Confidence Fund, to soliciting applications and reviewing more than 280 proposals in several weeks to ultimately award 33 research grants totaling $7.3 million to institutions from 26 countries. Currently we are coming to the end of the second Vaccine Confidence Fund grant program, distributing over $4.8 million to 11 grantees across five continents and ten countries. We continue to monitor grantees, address their questions and issues, and guide them through creating reports as global public goods. We also serve as the facilitator on the partnership and project design for VaxSocial.
As a result, we have helped AHO and partners identify and fund grantees for a total of almost U.S. $20 million to advance our understanding of the role social media can play in vaccine confidence and uptake. Through this work we have reached 34,273,993 individuals with the first installment of VCF, which resulted in 106,030 individuals vaccinated. GI and GG continue to work with AHO to consider and implement new projects and programs that advance the mission.