WHY EAF?

You’re on the right path to helping your own through difficult times. Establishing and managing a disaster and hardship relief fund can be complicated, but with a decade of experience, Emergency Assistance Foundation (EAF) makes it easy.

EAF is the oldest and largest standalone charity designed solely to administer global disaster and hardship relief funds, and we have immense passion for what we do. We know that many of those we serve are experiencing severe financial hardship. This understanding drives every interaction with our Applicants and Grant Recipients, as well as our commitment to supporting our Fund Partners.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

All relief funds at EAF comply with regulations, including but not limited to: IRS, GDPR, CCPA & LGPD.

Our charitable structure – a public charity with Field-of-Interest Funds – means that we are permitted to provide tax-advantaged relief for qualified disasters, non-qualified disasters, and hardships. This is not the case for the other charitable structures outlined below.

DOMESTIC & INTERNATIONAL GRANTS

For multi-national organizations, the ability to award grants globally is essential to relief fund success. EAF has IRS approval to make grants both domestically and internationally.

EAF has our pulse on disaster events occurring around the world in real time, and our 100+ team members, located across 10 different time zones, are ready to respond through every crisis.

TAX-ADVANTAGED DONATIONS + GRANTS

Because EAF is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, public, non-profit organization, all donations are tax deductible and all grants are tax free within in the United States.

In addition, our partner foundation in Canada (Emergency Assistance Foundation Canada) offers the opportunity to establish a relief fund that provides tax benefits for Canadian grant recipients and donors through non-taxable grants and donations that are eligible for a tax credit.

FOR DONORS
Tax-Deductible Donations

FOR GRANT RECIPIENTS
Tax-Free Grants

APPLICANT EXPERIENCE

Our full-time, multi-lingual Applicant Experience team ensures that all Applicants receive hand-held support as they navigate difficult times.

Read disaster, personal hardship, and grant process testimonials from EAF grant recipients.

23 languages spoken, including: English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Hindi, Italian, Filipino, Chinese & Japanese

Live chat, texting, click-to-call, and a dedicated Fund email address and phone number

Dynamic, cloud-based grant application is user friendly and can be made available in any language

EAFResources.org provides additional support: local resources, disaster preparedness education, financial learning tools, and more

Knowing that I don’t have to have all the answers and I’m able to reach out to Emergency Assistance Foundation is really important. The helpline for employees is something that we really value; as a company with roughly 80,000 associates and growing every day, Emergency Assistance Foundation continues to meet our evolving needs.

ELEVANCE HEALTH CARES FUND

LOW FEES

Emergency Assistance Foundation utilizes a variable fee structure based on fund activity to keep costs low, and our basic fees have not increased since our inception. We remain committed to minimizing fees so we can maximize the dollars sent to individuals in need. Based on EAF’s four-year average, 95.8% of donations are allocated to grant payments, while 4.2% go to administrative costs.

Each Fund’s individual percentage of administration costs will differ based on donation contributions, grant size, chosen grant criteria, and program type.

INDEPENDENT & OBJECTIVE ADMINISTRATION

As a third-party administrator, EAF independently administers all fund activities – including accepting donations, objectively reviewing grant applications, and awarding and distributing grants – while advising Fund Partners to ensure that each fund is regulatorily compliant and increasingly effective.

Our third-party status means that our Fund Partners avoid liability issues and potential conflict with applicants. Further, EAF’s independence addresses the legal and regulatory requirement that grant decisions must not controlled by the fund’s sponsoring organization.

You never know when hardship is going to strike. You don’t know where it’s going to strike or who it may impact. We’ve learned that no one is immune to it, so we can all benefit from having a little bit of assistance to get us through rough times.

TEAGEN WOODLOCK
CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY ASSISTANT, ALDI

REAL-TIME REPORTING

EAF provides our Fund Partners with real-time diagnostic reporting through our partnership with a widely recognized data visualization solution. The fund dashboard provides detailed information related to applications, donations, and grants.

This not only allows for informed decision-making during disasters, such as alerting Fund Partners when the fund balance is running low and requires additional donations, it also enables them to make impactful decisions about the fund’s grant criteria and analyze fund effectiveness and opportunities.

QUICK & EFFICIENT DISASTER & HARDSHIP RELIEF

As a financial first responder, we must be resourceful and fearless to ensure that financial assistance reaches individuals in need as quickly and efficiently as possible, no matter the unique circumstances.

We remain agile and adaptable by harnessing technology, developing scalable platforms and procedures, and constantly evaluating and improving our processes.

EAF’s unique, low-cost Immediate Response Program rewards small grants (<$1,000) quickly and efficiently in times of large-scale qualified disasters.

Launching an Immediate Response Program with Emergency Assistance Foundation broadened employee assistance eligibility and provided a new way to show all of our employees that we care. This step eliminated doubts, demonstrating that the company will support employees during challenging times, regardless of title or salary. This notion is demonstrative of our company culture and has helped reinforce NRG as a
place where people are proud to work.