Capital for Good, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that connects donors and grantmakers with international and domestic nongovernmental organizations in the areas of education, health, human liberty, and economic empowerment, has announced the creation of an Ebola Crisis Fund.

Funded in part by the Dubai-based Legatum Foundation and managed by Geneva Global, a philanthropic consulting firm with offices in a dozen countries, the fund aims to raise $1 million over the next three months for vetted organizations in West Africa, where the deadly and highly contagious disease has already killed more than a thousand people.

Organizations already selected to receive funds include rural health clinics in Liberia, which will use them for training, logistical support, and equipment; a health advocacy network in Sierra Leone, which plans to train and equip five hundred community contact tracers and scale up community awareness efforts around Ebola prevention and control; a women's cooperative in Sierra Leone working to provide support to affected families; and a Guinean organization working to raise awareness of the disease in remote areas. As more funds become available, grants will be awarded to organizations in other countries.

In Nigeria, Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, has donated N150 million ($924,000) through the Dangote Foundation for the establishment of a National Ebola Emergency Operations Centre in Lagos to help the Nigerian government control the spread of the virus, Nation Nigeria reports. The center will coordinate prevention, patient care, tracking, data analysis, and containment of the virus, and serve as a platform linking the medical community in Nigeria to hospitals, doctors, and care providers in other West African countries threatened by the virus.

"This is a period of national health emergency and [the] government's comprehensive containment strategy requires the support of all Nigerians to succeed," said Dangote. "We have therefore decided to lend our support to the effort. The Ebola EOC is an important innovation that will strengthen our health system, even long after this particular health crisis has abated."