"With this terrible crisis unfolding across the Middle East, Africa and Europe, sport and the Olympic Movement wanted to play its part in bringing humanitarian help to the refugees," IOC President Thomas Bach said.
The committee, which has worked with the UN Refugee Agency since 1994, said it was fielding submissions for IOC funding from National Olympic Committees (NOC).
It explained that the announced foundation’s budget was equally funded by the IOC and its organization that provides financial support to NOCs, Olympic Solidarity.
On Thursday, the German football club Bayern Munich donated $1.1 million to charitable projects involved in helping refugees settled in the country. The Scottish Celtic club announced it would donate proceeds from Sunday's charity match to an international aid agency working with refugees.
Europe is at the epicenter of an unprecedented migrant crisis as hundreds of thousands of people continue to arrive there from conflict-ridden homelands in the Middle East and North Africa.
