Neal Flanagan, right, a research scientist at Duke University, uses a tool to take a soil sample from a peatland as Curt Richardson, an ecology professor at Duke, observes Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in Belhaven, N.C. (AP Photo\/Joshua A. Bickel)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-09-09T13:00:22Z<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A major American aid group is promising to deliver more medicines in high-need areas around the world after receiving its largest ever donation.<\/p>\n
Americares, a nonprofit that supports thousands of health centers globally, announced a $50 million gift Wednesday from an unidentified Connecticut family. The contribution represents an unusual expansion at a time when the United States\u2019 sudden aid cuts<\/a><\/span> have hamstrung programs ranging from maternal and child health<\/a><\/span> to HIV treatment and prevention<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey definitely understood the moment and wanted to do more to respond to that,\u201d Christine Squires, the president and CEO of Americares, said of the donor.<\/p>\n Individual philanthropists and charitable foundations have sought to plug some funding holes in the 18 months since President Donald Trump upended the U.S. Agency for International Development<\/a><\/span>. A British billionaire funded nutritional peanut paste<\/a><\/span>. Former USAID employees raised more than $125 million<\/a><\/span> to buoy dozens of critical aid programs. The Gates Foundation narrowed its priorities<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Global health of all USAID\u2019s targets has received much of the attention from big donors, according to Susan Appe, a University at Albany associate professor of public administration and policy who has researched how nonprofits deal with the changing whims of donor countries. That\u2019s reasonable, she said, considering \u201clives are on the line.\u201d Jeff Bezos\u2019 parents, for example, committed up to $500 million last March for UNICEF\u2019s Child Nutrition Fund.<\/p>\n Experts agree that high-net-worth donors could never save every program lost by the billions of dollars cut from U.S. spending on global health. But there was an expectation that more philanthropists would step up to support the causes advanced by USAID.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that a lot of philanthropy scholars like myself have been a bit disappointed with the lag of response,\u201d Appe said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of, to some degree, business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n