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Point Your Corporate Giving Inward This #GivingTuesday (November 29th this year) by Supporting Employees with an Employee Assistance Fund (EAF)
Point Your Corporate Giving Inward This #GivingTuesday (November 29th this year) by Supporting Employees with an Employee Assistance Fund (EAF)
Published 11-17-22
Submitted by America's Charities
In December 2021, America's Charities helped a mortgage company, with a large employee base located in Texas, launch an employee assistance fund. Little did that company know the widespread damage that would impact their employees just a couple months later, February 2022, when Winter Storm Landon caused over 375,000 people to lose power and many accidents to occur on snowy roadways as well. Fortunately, because the mortgage company had the forsight to set up an EAF with America's Charities, their disaster fund was set up properly and ready to go. When their employees needed help the most, the mortgage company was able to demonstrate their commitment to their employees’ well-being and help employees through the EAF program.
You never know when a disaster or tragedy will strike, nor do you necessarily know when an employee has hit a financial rough patch and needs a little help. 39% of Americans can't cover a $400 unexpected emergency expense, or would need to borrow or sell something to do so - and the impact of financial stress on workers costs employers 13-18% of annual salary costs.
As we approach #GivingTuesday, a worldwide movement that celebrates the generosity and collective impact of charities, businesses, and individuals, consider pointing your corporate giving inward this year by making a commitment to support your staff in times of hardship and emergencies.
How exactly do you establish an EAF (also known as an Employee Relief or Crisis Fund) and should you manage it in-house or outsource the program to a nonprofit partner? While there are a few different ways you can establish an EAF, the following are key reasons more than 150 companies have chosen America’s Charities as their EAF partner.
Employers who Choose America’s Charities as their EAF Partner benefit by:
Mitigating Risk: Outsourcing management of the sensitive application review and appeals process to America’s Charities minimizes your company’s risk and legal ramifications.
Reducing Overhead and Administrative Burden: America’s Charities provides consistent, objective application review, conducts necessary follow-up, approves grants or makes recommendations, and answers employee questions, allowing your team to focus on program promotion and utilization, rather than administration.
More Flexibility and Tax Advantages: With America’s Charities’ 501c3 status, grants are tax-free, and working through a public charity reduces the amount of restrictions, providing additional flexibility to defined disaster and emergency hardship categories to be covered.
Confidentiality and Uniformity: Having America’s Charities serve as point of contact throughout entire application process, provides anonymity, protecting employees’ privacy and reducing their reluctance to apply. Employees know who to ask questions to and can depend on a knowledgeable response and timely grant determination.
America's Charities
America's Charities
America's Charities inspires employees and organizations to support the causes they care about. We help nonprofits fundraise unrestricted, sustainable dollars through the workplace, and we help employers achieve their giving, engagement, and social impact goals. We do this to bring more resources to the nonprofits that are changing our world.
Who we serve:
- Charities – We help charities fundraise recurring, unrestricted, sustainable dollars through the workplace. Click here for a printable list of our members.
- Employers – We help employers achieve their giving, engagement, and social impact goals. Employers seeking to build or boost a strong culture; engage their employees and help them find purpose and meaning; attract, recruit, and retain talent; and ultimately achieve better corporate profitability and social impact, partner with America's Charities to launch or revitalize their workplace giving programs. We offer employers a suite of employee giving software packages, tools, and resources.
- Employee Donors – Through our work with charities and employers, we inspire individual donors to connect with great causes, support nonprofits in a recurring, sustainable manner, and make a personal, social impact.
Core Services:
- We offer a full suite of employee giving and engagement tools, including easy-to-use workplace giving technology platforms ranging from a straightforward, out-of-the-box option, to a comprehensive platform that integrates matching gifts, employee volunteering, cause campaigns, and more. Each of our solutions is tailored to fit an employer's specific needs and social impact goals, and deliver personalized, highly social online giving experiences.
- We generate sustainable unrestricted financial support for member charities through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), state and local giving campaigns and private sector workplace giving campaigns.
- We provide charitable funds management services to nonprofits and private and public sector employers while maintaining a resolute commitment to transparency and accountability.
- We provide comprehensive consulting services with expertise in employee engagement, corporate social responsibility (CSR), workplace giving program and strategy development, benchmarking, analysis, and more.
- We help companies support their employees in times of distress and hardship through Employee Assistance Funds (EAFs), also known as Employee Relief Funds or Employee Crisis Funds. By working with us, a company increases its flexibility around the types of hardships the fund can cover and lowers its administrative burdens.
Since 1980, our collective experience and ability to provide the highest level of personal service and expert consulting to our member charities and employer clients has resulted in more than $750 million for more than 25,000 nonprofits through federal, state and local government, and corporate workplace giving programs.
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