The start of hurricane season, recent Texas and New Mexico floods, and other extreme weather events remind us just how quickly disasters can impact our communities, our businesses, and our employees. Yet many companies often find themselves unprepared when a crisis strikes. In difficult times, you can provide immediate support to your employees with an Employee Assistance Fund (EAF).

EAFs provide a structured, compassionate way for your workplace to offer help when it’s needed most. These programs, also known as employee assistance programs or hardship funds, are established by companies to support their employees through monetary assistance in times of disaster or personal hardship. As disaster season approaches, an EAF can ensure your company is prepared now so you are able to respond immediately when your employees are impacted by a natural disaster, personal hardship, or crisis event. Whether you’re new to EAFs or looking to enhance your current program, here’s how we support our clients in every phase of a crisis.

Before the disaster: Building the blueprint for rapid response
Preparation is the most powerful step your organization can take. We help our clients build a thoughtful EAF framework long before a disaster strikes, ensuring a fast and effective response when it’s needed.

  • Create a tailored EAF framework: We work with you to define eligibility, funding amounts, grant types, and more to ensure a governance framework that fits your unique employee population and culture.
  • Establish a disaster response playbook: Together, we will map out a plan for what happens in the event of a major disaster, including internal workflows, employee communications, fundraising readiness, and coordination with your CSR or HR teams.
  • Foster relationships with vetted charities: We partner with and represent 75 leading international charities that are often on the ground coordinating immediate responses to disasters and providing long-term relief for affected communities. Global Impact can introduce clients to our Charity Alliance members to create community support programs, enhance existing disaster response initiatives, and grow relationships where you live and work.

By planning ahead with our team at Global Impact, you’ll reduce the chaos when a disaster hits — and ensure your employees know where to turn for help.

During the disaster: Responding swiftly and compassionately
When disaster strikes, time is of the essence. Our team acts fast to support your workforce and mobilize relief efforts, helping your company show up as a trusted, compassionate employer.

  • Review and process employee applications: Our team of experts reviews applications, answers questions, and ensures eligible employees receive grants quickly, whether they’ve lost a home, faced evacuation, or experienced other hardship due to a disaster or crisis.
  • Support frontline charities: In addition to employee grants, we help you direct support to vetted nonprofits providing boots-on-the-ground aid — amplifying your company’s impact in the affected region.
  • Launch and manage fundraising campaigns: Your staff want to help their colleagues, and we make it easy. We quickly launch fundraising or matching gift efforts, empowering employees to support colleagues in crisis or the nonprofits leading on-the-ground relief.

Throughout the crisis, our focus is speed, clarity, and empathy — making sure your people feel cared for and supported.

After the disaster: Communicating impact and building long-term trust
Once the immediate crisis has passed, your EAF continues to play a vital role. This is the moment to strengthen community and showcase your organization’s values in action.

  • Communicate the impact: We work with your team to craft meaningful updates highlighting how many employees were helped, the number of dollars granted, and how the company (and its people) came together to respond.
  • Continue support where it’s needed: Many communities face long recovery periods. We help you assess additional needs and distribute grant funds through our Charity Alliance when appropriate.
  • Enhance retention and culture: EAFs don’t just help in a crisis; they build employee loyalty, retention, and pride. Sharing success stories and outcomes strengthens employee connection and shows new hires what your company stands for.

Why partner with Global Impact?
At Global Impact, we design custom programs that meet the unique needs of your employees, approach EAFs with a deep sense of empathy for your workforce, and recognize the urgency of distributing funds to your staff during difficult times. As natural disasters and crises impact employees, our clients value Global Impact’s high-touch and personalized approach.

With us, each EAF is uniquely tailored to the needs of the company, ensuring it aligns with your corporate values, unique company culture, and employee locations.

  • Easy set up: With an already established infrastructure, Global Impact can launch your company’s custom EAF in as little as eight weeks.
  • Experienced partner: With nearly 70 years of experience in distributing funds and ensuring they reach those in need across the globe, Global Impact ensures that your EAF is managed efficiently and with empathy.
  • Greater flexibility: Partnering with Global Impact, an external nonprofit, provides flexibility and tax advantages, offering non-taxable income to employees and tax-deductible contributions to the program.

Let’s build a stronger safety bet — together
Disasters are unpredictable — but your response doesn’t have to be. Whether you’re ready to launch a new EAF, strengthen an existing program, or prepare for hurricane and monsoon season and beyond, we’re here to help every step of the way.

Get in touch today to start planning your EAF strategy.