In October 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel sparked a war that created a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Overnight, over 1.6 million people were in urgent need — with women and girls facing the harshest impacts.
In conflict, their needs are often forgotten. They eat last, lose access to maternal care, face rising violence, and struggle without essentials like menstrual hygiene. Their dignity is at constant risk.
UNFPA has been on the ground in Gaza since 1986, committed to the “three zeros”:
– Zero unmet need for family planning
– Zero maternal deaths
– Zero gender-based violence
This deep presence allowed UNFPA to respond immediately — and remain through relentless crisis — providing care to pregnant women, newborns, and families with sexual and reproductive health needs. No one else had the infrastructure or access to do it.
USA for UNFPA launched fundraising to meet the growing need. Two years in, the war continues — and conditions for women and girls remain dire. Thousands of women give birth each month, often without anesthesia or clean beds. Newborns are dangerously underweight. There’s a severe shortage of menstrual pads, and no water to stay clean.
Despite it all, we continue to raise emergency funds — to be there for every woman and girl, no matter what.
While UNFPA delivers critical care on the ground in Gaza, USA for UNFPA has spent the past two years mobilizing individual support from generous Americans. What began as an emergency appeal has become an always-on campaign, with rapid response efforts triggered by urgent developments.
In December 2024, we launched a major awareness push around Dignity Kits — basic healthcare and reproductive supplies for women and girls — supported by a strong influencer campaign.
In July 2025, when Gaza ran out of infant formula, we moved quickly to mobilize support. Using modeled universes, we reached new and existing donors while the crisis was still making headlines. Our content team has worked nonstop to share real-time updates from Gaza through blogs and articles, turning our website into an info hub. Donors heard exactly where their money was going — from medicines and Dignity Kits to mobile health clinics and reproductive care.
We’ve also expanded our use of machine learning to create an AI-first approach to donor acquisition and retention. SMS campaigns targeted at supporters of humanitarian causes brought in hundreds of thousands in new gifts — with nearly 15% converting to monthly donors.
Finally, we’ve continually re-engaged lapsed donors using AI-driven targeting to bring them back into the fold during this long and devastating emergency.
RECORD BREAKING FUNDRIASING
USA for UNFPA mobilized private sector donors to support UNFPA’s on-the-ground response effort. With those efforts, we reached millions of concerned Americans through social media, email, SMS, direct mail, influencer marketing and paid advertising. Directly attributable Gaza appeals have raised a total of $3.2MM — 3.5X what the entire marketing program had raised the year prior.
UNFPA mobilization efforts are powered by a broad mix of sources including world government funding, global private sector fundraising, and more. But amidst this ongoing crisis, another devastating blow occurred: The U.S. government terminated dozens of UNFPA grants, cutting funding in the middle of this humanitarian disaster.
This had an immediate impact, ending funding for 8 obstetric units in shipping containers and 40 safe spaces for women and girls. It impacted the delivery of medicines to 80 health facilities and post-partum kits for 30,000 mothers and newborns. The supply of dignity kits for 50,000 women and girls, and menstrual supplies for over 280,000 was also jeopardized. This made our work raising money from individual donors more important than ever.
HISTORIC CARE DELIVERED IN GAZA
Despite all the challenges, USA for UNFPA’s work was able to contribute to UNFPA’s delivery of care in a big way.
In July 2025 alone — while we pushed awareness around the infant formula shortage in mass market appeals — UNFPA reached 57,500 with sexual healthcare services, 33,500 supported with gender-based violence response, supported 34 health facilities and 12 women’s safe spaces.
Since this crisis and USA for UNFPA’s resource mobilization efforts began, tens of thousands of Dignity Kits and Hygiene Kits have been distributed. Millions of menstrual pads have been provided to women. Nearly half of all safe births in Gaza have been supported by UNFPA.
Additionally, nutritional aid like folic acid, multivitamins and other prenatal supplements have been provided to countless pregnant women and new mothers.
REAL IMPACT, REAL LIVES SAVED
While the stats of care delivered are powerful on their own, nothing moves and motivates us quite like hearing directly from the women and girls who are used to having their needs overlooked. Here are direct quotes from women and girls in Rafah, Gaza who received UNFPA Dignity Kits:
EXCELLENCE IN EARNED MEDIA
One estimate of the earned media value of our Gaza campaign executed by the USA for UNFPA team determined the value to be well over the $1,500,000 mark, given the time it was allotted in significant publications including multiple major TV network (NBC, BBC, CNN) and major publications like Time Magazine and the Middle East Eye.
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