How to Start Your Own Emergency Fund in the Time of COVID-19
When the COVID-19 pandemic began impacting our communities, we quickly saw that all the data about income inequality was right: most people don’t have any savings to cover their household expenses in an emergency. Many small businesses operate with only enough cash on hand to last them 27 days.
We heard this loud and clear from the street vendors we’ve worked with for over a decade. Street vendors who participate in our micro-loan program and those that are involved in the LA Street Vendor Campaign saw their business revenue dissolve almost over night. And new policies in LA banned most street vending as a result of COVID-19.
The vast majority of LA’s street vendors have been temporarily shut down either by orders from local governments or by the steep drop in clientele brought on by most Angelenos staying “safer at home.” Many of them will not have access to government resources during this time.
As you’ve likely already seen on our social media feeds, we started an emergency fund to provide direct cash assistance to LA street vendors who are financially struggling as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak (if you can, donate here). If you know a vendor that needs support, tell them to call (323) 388-3724 or send them a link to the application in either English or Spanish.
What Did We Do?
We worked quickly with our partners at East LA Community Corporation (ELACC), Public Counsel and Vendedores en Acción (VEA) to put together this emergency fund. With generous support from The United Way Pandemic Relief Fund,The Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation, Councilman Curren Price, and over 150 individual donors so far, we’ve raised over $90,000 to support street vendors. With these funds, we plan on distributing $400 to street vendors in our city.
We aren’t the only one. Many organizations have started relief funds including our friends at SEACA who are supporting Chinatown residents, the Food Chain Workers Alliance who is supporting restaurant workers, and many others. We’ve also fielded some calls from other organizations and leaders who are working hard to organize resources for the vulnerable communities they serve.
We know this is not enough. COVID-19 will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable people in our cities-- in many ways, it already has. But in the absence of decisive government action to help meet the needs of the people most affected, mutual aid funds like the one we have created can have a tremendous impact in the lives of the people we serve.
Over the long term, we hope that the current crisis opens the door for serious discussions about strengthening our country’s social safety net. Initiatives around universal basic income and cash transfers need to be prioritized to support the most vulnerable in our communities. The fact is that our economy simply leaves too many people behind, even those that work multiple jobs and do everything possible to take care of their families. We need to do more to make sure that when a crisis hits, they don’t have to worry about losing their food, home, or healthcare.
In the meantime, we hope other organizations and grassroots groups start their own emergency funds to help the populations they serve, be it street vendors, the unhoused, renters, or any other group affected by this public health and economic crisis.
8 Tips for Starting Your Own Emergency Fund
We outlined what we feel are some of the important steps we took in starting the Street Vendor Emergency Fund. We are learning as we go, but we hope others find these steps helpful as they form their own emergency funds!
Identify the community you would like to support: Be specific but allow some flexibility. Oftentimes there are multiple organizations who want to support the same communities, seek partnerships when possible. We encourage you to incorporate the community you want to support into the decision making process--who knows better what the community needs are than the community itself?
Create a selection committee: Identify who within your organization and within your partner organizations will be making fund management decisions. Our fund has a committee of five: three vendor leaders from VEA, one person from ELACC, and one person from our team. A selection committee will be pivotal as questions regarding your fund’s eligibility rules pop up. Where possible, we encourage funds to engage the community being supported in the committee itself.
Gather contact information: Once you have determined who you want to provide cash assistance for, you can start collecting a list of individuals who may qualify for your fund. Inclusive Action and ELACC created a list of vendors that need/requested immediate assistance with the support of VEA. VEA’s street vendor leaders mobilized and identified individuals and we collected their contact information.
Create fund-specific communication channels: We created email addresses and Google Voice phone numbers. Use whatever channel is appropriate for you and the people you serve. Get ready for an influx of questions. Community members who want to receive support will start contacting your organizations as soon as they find out about your fund. Having a fund-specific email and phone number will make it easier for your team to plug in and help manage these questions.
Create a simple application: Communities are struggling and the last thing we want to do is make it difficult for them to provide information. We chose to only ask questions that can help us identify whether someone qualifies for our fund, how to prioritize who needs immediate aid, and that allow us to create a narrative about the community we are supporting so we can seek more funding for this fund. We also were careful not to put the “burden of proof” on the applicant. Everyone is impacted by COVID19, we shouldn’t ask people to exhaustively explain how they are being affected.
Be ready to help people fill out their applications: We sent our application, fund email, and Google Voice number via a mass text using TextMagic. We recognize that some individuals will not be able to fill out the entire application on their own, so our application only requires that people answer three questions, their name, phone number, and whether they are a street vendor. We will be calling individuals to fill out the rest of the application with them. There may be other ways to do this more efficiently, but don’t forget to consider how you can help people access resources. Not everyone has the same skill set we do.
Don’t reinvent the wheel: Ask organizations who have systems in place if you can use their materials. We’ve sent our application to numerous individuals and we have also asked organizations to share things like volunteer logs so we can track all incoming calls, texts, and emails. This isn’t about cutting corners, it’s about collaborating and supporting each other so we can better serve our respective communities.
Connect individuals to other resources: A small cash grant is really helpful, but there may be other resources that can support a family or business owner. Identify other resources that can help your community get through this time. We love Morena Strategies’ growing list and the list created by Little Tokyo Service Center for small businesses. (We translated it into Spanish too.)