Partnership Spotlight
3M and Direct Relief share a mission to improve lives via access to quality protective products that allow for good health of individuals and protection of medical staff and first responders.
For more than twenty years, 3M has supported Direct Relief’s global relief, recovery, and resiliency efforts. Through generous donations of requested products and personal protective equipment, 3M has helped Direct Relief quickly respond to multiple global crises and supported millions of patients in emergency-impacted communities and marginalized populations in the United States and ninety countries, primarily in the developing world.
Over the past decade, 3M has supported Direct Relief’s emergency response efforts with generous cash funding for situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ukraine conflict, the Turkey earthquake, Mozambique floods, Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas and severe weather across the US, etc.
Beginning in 2024, 3M became Direct Relief’s Official Respiratory Health Sponsor with an annual commitment of five million N95 respirators to safeguard medical staff members and at-risk groups, to securely provide support in challenging settings globally.
“Through our partnership with Direct Relief, 3M is able to bring our mission to life in under resourced global communities. Our company believes that we can apply science in collaborative ways to improve lives. We are proud that our technologies are contributing to humanitarian aid and wellbeing through Direct Relief’s deep expertise, scale, and infrastructure.”
— Michael Stroik, VP of Community Investment
LA WILDFIRES
When devastating wildfires threatened Los Angeles communities, 3M and Direct Relief’s longstanding partnership once again demonstrated its crucial value. The high-quality N95 respirators donated by 3M enabled Direct Relief to equip emergency response teams with protection against harmful smoke and particulates while delivering medical aid to evacuation centers and affected communities.
For residents with respiratory conditions, these respirators provided a critical defense against the dangerous air quality conditions that followed the fires. 3M also donated goggles and coveralls that were instrumental in building thousands of re-entry kits for residents to wear upon returning to their affected homes.
HURRICANES
When Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck in rapid succession, devastating communities across the southeastern United States, the partnership between 3M and Direct Relief proved critical to emergency response efforts.
In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s destructive path through the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Georgia, 3M’s donated N95 respirators became essential tools for first responders and cleanup crews working in hazardous conditions with mold, debris, and compromised infrastructure. When Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida just weeks later, intensifying the regional crisis, 3M expanded their support to meet the escalating needs.
COVID-19
When the COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented global health crisis, 3M’s partnership with Direct Relief proved more vital than ever. In the early days of the pandemic, when personal protective equipment shortages threatened healthcare systems globally, 3M provided N-95s, Face Shields, PAPRs, and many other products to Direct Relief during the height of its COVID-19 response. Working closely with Direct Relief’s logistics network, 3M helped ensure that these essential protective devices reached healthcare workers in COVID-19 hotspots across both urban centers and underserved communities.
3M made a generous grant donation that served as the anchor commitment, enabling Direct Relief to establish its US COVID-19 Response Fund for Community Health that provided over $40 million to safety-net clinics to address various aspects of Covid-19 and catalyzed Direct Relief’s $75 million US Fund for Health Equity.