How Georgetown Community Members are Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Whether through research and advocacy or virtual events and “spiritual continuity,” members of the Georgetown community are working together to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic while staying connected to each other. We’ve joined together to create experiences that connect our communities, continue vital resources and services in new ways and make positive impacts in our community and around the world.

This page shares many of the ways the University community is coming together in response to COVID-19. For our official COVID-19 Resource Center with internal communications, FAQs, and Health Information, please visit georgetown.edu/coronavirus.

Business for Impact Initiative

Business for Impact, an initiative at the McDonough School of Business, is dedicated to providing updates via newsletter on their work surrounding COVID-19.  The Initiative has created a website page that showcases past newsletters.

Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs

The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs has created a website page that showcases how religion both impacts and is impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on ethical, pastoral, policy, and theological issues. It includes over a dozen events and faculty publications. 

Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life

The coronavirus pandemic is not only a global health calamity, but an unprecedented economic, governmental, political, and moral crisis as the spread of COVID-19 raises fundamental questions about who we are and what we believe. The Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life has offered several online dialogues that address how we should act to protect human life and dignity and promote the common good in a time of fear, danger, and loss.  

Center for Global Health Practice and Impact

The CGHPI team is currently working in several countries to tap into and support local communities of practice around public health issues including COVID-19 — leveraging the connections and innovation at the local level and linking local health service delivery with national policymaking.

Center for Global Health Science and Security

Developed in response to calls from local governments for more information on how to protect their communities, the GHSS, in partnership with NTI and the Center for Global Development, developed the COVID-19 Frontline Guide, an online tool featuring eight indicators of progress for self-assessment and seven key actions that each include checklists of decision points.

Center for Social Justice

We have had many inquiries from members of our community (faculty, staff, and students) who, true to the Georgetown spirit of Hoyas for Others, are interested in volunteering in the DC community or volunteering virtually during the COVID-19 crisis. The staff in the CSJ has compiled two lists of volunteer opportunities based on their experiences and recommendations: Virtual Volunteering Opportunities and DC Organizations Requests and Needs. While these opportunities are not being run or endorsed by CSJ or Georgetown University, we hope this list is a helpful resource for individuals considering virtual volunteerism.

Center for Security and Emerging Technology

The White House is tapping the expertise of researchers from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology to determine how data and open research can be used to address the COVID-19 pandemic. CSET has partnered with leading research groups to prepare and distribute the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19), a resource of more than 44,000 articles in JSON format about COVID-19 and the coronavirus family of viruses for use by the global machine learning community. The dataset represents the most extensive machine-readable coronavirus literature collection available for data and text mining to date. 

Georgetown Law Workers’ Rights Institute

The Workers’ Rights Institute has put together resources for workers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Find them here.

Health Policy Institute:

Center for Children and Families

In response to the public health emergency caused by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families has created this resource center to keep you up to date on the latest in health coverage.

Center on Health Insurance Reforms

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been the cause of confusion and anxiety for individuals and families across the country, especially when it comes to health care. The Center on Health Insurance Reforms pulled together some frequently asked questions (FAQs), and added new COVID-19-specific inquiries, from our Navigator Resource Guide to help guide Navigators, brokers, assisters, and consumers through this complex and trying time.

Center for Juvenile Justice Reform

Given the amount of information available regarding COVID-19 and its impact on the youth-serving field, The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform compiled a targeted list of resources that juvenile justice and child welfare practitioners and partners can reference as they manage the crisis at hand. 

Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation

In partnership with other universities impacted by the move to virtual learning, the Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation is implementing a COVID-19 Student Impact Survey,  intended for any student of any institution, worldwide, who is aged 18+. This short (10-15 minutes) survey is designed to give students a voice – a place where they can share their experiences, both positive and negative, and their concerns and opinions.

O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law

As the COVID-19 outbreak and response continues, the O’Neill Institute will send out analysis on outbreak developments and share the viewpoints and thought leadership of our in-house public health experts. 

There are two easy ways to make a gift to support the COVID-19 Response and Resilience Fund.

Make your gift through our secure online giving form. Use the “Other” designation text box at the bottom of the page to type “COVID-19 Response and Resilience Fund” in the space provided and your gift will be directed appropriately.

Make your gift by mailing a check to the address below and include “COVID-19 Response and Resilience Fund” in the Memo field of your check:

Georgetown University
Office of Gift Administration
Department 0734
Washington, DC 20073-0734

Support Georgetown University students through the COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund for Students

Student needs are many and varied, ranging from travel expenses to groceries to WiFi access to storage for personal belongings. Your gift to the COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund for Students will support the university’s commitment to providing assistance to any student who requires it.

Support Georgetown University faculty, staff, AAPs and temporary employees through the GUCares Fund

GUCares is an emergency fund to assist full-time faculty, AAPs and staff with a full year of continuous service with the University who are experiencing financial hardship as a result of a recent natural disaster, accident, catastrophe, death or illness. 

GUCares relies on donations from University employees to ensure that we can continue to provide emergency financial support to our community. 

Visit the GUCares site to learn more and make a gift.

Support MedStar Georgetown University Hospital

Gifts designated to the Associate Emergency Support Fund at MedStar Health will support emergency and crisis situations for applicable non-management associates across MedStar Health who may need extra support during this unprecedented time.

Gifts may be designated to MedStar Health or multiple hospitals and services to support the team’s COVID-19 Critical Needs Fund, helping to offset unanticipated expenses related to the pandemic. To choose multiple designations, select the amount and designation, then click add. You may add as many as you wish.

Visit the MedStar website for ways to Support COVID-19 Response Efforts.

Support Your Community Through a Virtual Volunteer Opportunity 

We have had many inquiries from members of our community (faculty, staff, and students) who, true to the Georgetown spirit of Hoyas for Others, are interested in volunteering in the DC community or volunteering virtually during the COVID-19 crisis. The staff in the CSJ has compiled two lists of volunteer opportunities based on their experiences and recommendations: Virtual Volunteering Opportunities and DC Organizations Requests and Needs. While these opportunities are not being run or endorsed by CSJ or Georgetown University, we hope this list is a helpful resource for individuals considering virtual volunteerism.