How one-time cash grants built financial security
SaverLife partnered with Neighborhood Trust to facilitate onboarding and recruitment of vulnerable families and provide one-on-one financial coaching to help cash recipients make a financial plan.
A $500 Lifeline: Pandemic Cash Grants Help Low-Income Americans Survive a Summer of Uncertainty
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Within a month of the COVID-19 pandemic shuttering American life, SaverLife sprang into action to provide critical one-time emergency grants of $500 or $1,000 to almost 5,000 families struggling to make ends meet in the face of overnight income disruption and rising expenses.
A comparison of SaverLife transactional data of cash grant recipients vs. non-recipients clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of these grants in stabilizing family finances during the early months of the pandemic. In addition to providing immediate financial relief, SaverLife found the grants had a stabilizing effect that lasted several months. The results are in: direct relief works.
In addition to cash grants, SaverLife partnered with Neighborhood Trust to facilitate onboarding and recruitment of vulnerable families and provide one-on-one financial coaching to help cash recipients make a financial plan.
Together, SaverLife and Neighborhood Trust began to distribute cash grants and provide financial coaching to those most in need of support. Recipients included SaverLife clients across the United States; Neighborhood Trust clients including residents of the Bronx, home health care workers, and food-service employees; and, small business owners and their employees through partnerships with Accion Opportunity Fund, AEO MainStreet Rise, and the United Way of Newark.
Funding for this project was provided by Humanity Forward, MetLife Foundation, Prudential Financial, Target Foundation, Wells Fargo, and individual SaverLife contributors.
Cash Grants Boost Savings Balances
SaverLife transactional data demonstrates that a one-time cash grant in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic had a significant impact on the wellbeing of low-income families.
