Holly Welch Stubbing
The pandemic showed that a crisis can strike anyone at any time. And because crises can severely impact employees and workplaces, disaster relief should be part of a comprehensive financial wellbeing strategy designed to help employees gain security and peace of mind.
Holly Welch Stubbing, CEO of E4E Relief (E4E), a nonprofit social enterprise that helps employers provide grants to employees facing natural disasters and personal hardships, recently appeared on the Returns On Wellbeing Podcast to discuss how companies can provide emergency financial relief as part of their wellbeing initiatives.
Q: Tell us about E4E's history and what you do.
E4E Relief is an organization that partners with companies to award grants to employees who face hardship or disaster. We were formed by two financial services firms that lost employees in the 9/11 tragedy and wanted to provide support for people suffering from that terrible disaster.
Over the past 20 years, companies have leaned into the idea of helping employees in crises because they want to support their employees in times of need. In the years after we formed, we rapidly expanded to help employees after natural disasters, including Hurricane Sandy (2012) and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria (all in 2017)
These climate-related disasters prompted more and more companies to enact employee relief programs, and E4E Relief started getting calls from companies all over the world. Each crisis made us more ready for the next. Today, we have worked with close to 150 companies, including Bank of America
Q: How does disaster relief fit into a comprehensive financial wellbeing program?
Corporate America is interested in our program because they see how financial stress directly impacts employees’ health and their ability to get things done. The crises that are the most difficult for employees to handle are those they can't plan for. And studies show that Americans today have even more financial stress because of Covid-19.
E4E functions as a third-party administrator and makes grants directly to employees. Our model puts financial relief into the hands of employees fast. It also allows companies to provide multiple sources of support, receive tax deductions at the corporate level, and enable (non-recipient) employees to contribute and get their own tax deductions. The program also ensures that grants are not included in the recipient’s taxable income, which allows the support to go even further during times of need.
Because we’re seeing more and more unexpected events happening in the world, including climate, personal tragedy, medical issues, war, and violence, emergency disaster relief is a natural addition to a comprehensive financial wellbeing strategy to help employees with events they just can't plan for.
Q: Can you illustrate any success stories from your program?
We've supported almost every major U.S. disaster in the past 10 years, including the California wildfires, hurricanes in the Southeast and the Northeast United States, and the tornadoes that swept across the middle part of the U.S., where we gave almost $3 million in grants based on 3,750 applications.
We also help employees with hardships, such as unforeseen medical expenses.
Our surveys of grant recipients over the past two years show that 50% of recipients avoided late fees on bills, 38% avoided utility shut-offs, 38% avoided downgrading their meal choices, and 20% avoided eviction. We see how emergency grants make meaningful human and social impacts every day.
Q: What financial hardships do you predict that employees will face in the coming years?
Research shows that overall levels of financial stress are high, which means that more and more employees will be unable to meet emergency financial needs, which we predict will include catastrophic climate disasters. We also know that companies are evaluating their employee assistance programs to see whether they can sufficiently address employees’ mental health and wellbeing.
In response, E4E Relief is looking at providing mental health support that can be funded through a charitable program. For example, we're working with a company that has decided to move its relief program towards mental health support. This model can allow employees to pay for certain reimbursed mental health expenses that would be allowed under the tax code.
Q: Why is this an employer issue? What's the business case for this?
Employees now expect their companies to care about their financial and emotional wellbeing. Employee relief programs address both, providing a financial lifeline to employees during times of need and easing the stress and emotional burdens that are a natural byproduct of crisis. Employees feel supported, and they’re happier and more productive.
This explains why disaster relief should be part of any employer’s financial wellbeing value proposition.
It's one thing to have a generational moment like the pandemic where everybody steps up to help. But if companies only see disaster relief as a temporary response to a particular crisis, it will never become part of a broader strategy that helps workers achieve long-term financial security and helps companies become or continue to be employers of choice in their industries.
——-
Steven Van Yoder, co-founder at Returns On Wellbeing Institute, provided editorial support to this article.
