The nature of CSR has evolved, it is now more than simply giving to charity; it has become an integral part of how organizations run their business and focus on consumers’ perceptions of company governance, the company’s positive influence on society, and how it treats its employees.
It’s clear why corporate social responsibility is important to organizations: it enhances public trust; it makes an organization a more attractive prospect for employees, particularly Millennials; it leads to more engaged employees, and let’s not forget that engaging in CSR and becoming a responsible business can have a positive impact on an organization’s bottom line.
The global pandemic reinforced the need for another powerful tool to provide support to employees who may be experiencing financial difficulty, a Corporate Hardship Fund.
Corporate Hardship Funds are a dynamic mechanism for providing support to individuals who need it most.
What is a Corporate Hardship Fund?
A corporate hardship fund is a grant opportunity for employees, with customizable guidelines established by the employer, which provides aid to their employees for disasters and other hardships. Gifts to this fund can be made by the employer or by employees and are fully tax-deductible.
Why do you need a Corporate Hardship Fund?
If 2020 has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected. No one could have predicted a global pandemic and COVID-19 has touched each and every one of us in some way. With an increasing number of people falling into financial difficulty, a Corporate Hardship Fund could be the lifeline they need to get back on their feet.
A Corporate Hardship Fund can be an integral component of your corporate social responsibility initiative. Strategic corporate giving that makes an impact in your community and supports your employees’ charitable efforts, ultimately makes them feel more valued while increasing job performance, morale, and therefore productivity.
Why It’s Important
By their very definition, emergencies can happen at any time. And preparing for the unexpected can make the difference between catastrophic consequences and the ability to help your employees move forward through the hardship.
In operating a hardship fund, it is important to make sure that funds are directed appropriately to relieving or preventing poverty, with suitable financial thresholds and other appropriate criteria in place. Funds might be applied, for example, in making hardship grants to help with rental payments, or in paying for essential items, or in providing debt relief advice, and so on.
Discover how we can help your organization get the best return on managing your Corporate Hardship Funds.
With Covid-19 impacting millions, be part of the change with our Hardship Relief Management Program – organize and automate the process for an influx of applications in a matter of minutes.
Simplify the process by automating tedious and repetitive steps to save time.
Eliminate Bias and Discrimination in your Review Process
Utilize the powerful and intuitive review tools to simplify the review process and eliminate bias in your relief funding process – such as hidden fields, and anonymous commenting and scoring. Make sure you never have to worry about discrimination and create an empathetic relief program.
Monitor your impact in real-time
Don’t be left in the dark. Access all your application and funding data in real-time with our Business Intelligence tool, and create powerful custom reports so that you can monitor your impact and ensure a seamless process every step of the way.
How will our Corporate Hardship Funds Management Platform Benefit You?
Build and Accept Applications
Choose existing forms or customize your own form to fulfill your requirements, and view and manage all your existing forms on one screen.
Manage your Application Process
Communicate with applicants and reviewers, view applicants in real-time, and manage the evaluation workflow to make sure your review team makes equitable and unbiased decisions.
Distribute and Track Awards
Streamline your awards process with easy-to-use tools to notify awardees and disburse awards with a simple process. View allocated budget, top-ranked applicants, and scoring breakdown with a glance. Say goodbye to manually keep up with tracking, and monitor your funding process all within the same platform.
Advanced Reporting Tools
Slice and dice that data however you wish using real-time ad-hoc reporting. Create and organize flexible reports, export, and quickly transform raw data into useful and readily understood information. Easily measure your impact and make decisions for a more efficient grants process.
Whether you’re a startup organization or a leading corporation, CommunityForce provides fully customizable, all-in-one online grant management solutions to maximize your efficiency, simplify complex processes, and improve collaboration so you can focus on increasing your impact. We’ve helped organizations streamline their entire grant-making process no matter the size and scope of their giving.
We enable organizations to reduce the amount of time spent on administrative burdens and focus on what matters: increasing their impact.