Corporate Care Funds
If you are an employee in need, scroll the list to the right to find your company’s Fund, instructions and an application for assistance.
When employees suffer tragedy, employers often want to help. Such help, when directed at a particular person or situation, is kind and generous but not deemed by the IRS as a “charitable” act which qualifies for a tax deduction.
We have a tax-deductible, streamlined solution – Corporate Care Funds.
Here’s how it works:
• A company makes a tax-deductible contribution to establish a Corporate Care Fund within The Community Foundation.
• This creates a charitable vehicle through which employees facing crisis are able to apply for emergency support to get through financial hardship.
• We educate you and your team about how the Fund works, including how gifts can be made and how employees apply when they are in need.
• The Community Foundation handles the details from here, such as processing all employee applications to ensure privacy and fairness.
Examples of these Funds:
Learn about Magazines.com, a Franklin, Tenn.-based company, and other area businesses which have established Corporate Care Funds within The Community Foundation. Click here.
Companies interested in creating a Corporate Care Fund should contact Belinda Dinwiddie at 615-321-4939.
If you are an employee seeking assistance, please call The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee at 615-321-4939 or 888-540-5200.
What situations qualify an employee to receive help?
Corporate Care Funds are designed to provide short-term, emergency support to employees or eligible dependents who are facing serious financial hardship and who cannot afford housing, utilities and other basic living expenses as a result of certain unforeseen and unpreventable circumstances, including:
Natural disaster:
This includes a situation such as a flood, hurricane, tornado, wildfire, severe storms or earthquake, which has damaged or destroyed a primary residence.
Life-threatening illness or injury:
This includes the employee, spouse and eligible dependent(s). Employees do not automatically qualify for assistance when they, or their dependants, are diagnosed, and assistance from a Fund cannot be a substitute for medical insurance. Applicants must demonstrate resulting financial need including an inability to pay basic living expenses.
Death:
This includes both death of the employee or of eligible dependent(s). A Fund cannot pay for travel to funerals or other funeral expense, but can help when the loss of income or the cost of funeral expenses or medical bills prevent an employee or the employee’s family from affording basic living expenses.
Other catastrophic or extreme circumstances:
These may be but are not limited to house fire; major home damage that an employee could not avoid or prevent; serious crime against an employee such as robbery, arson, assault, domestic abuse; or another reportable crime that impacts the ability to afford basic living expenses.
Donations of any size are accepted to existing Corporate Care Funds, allowing company employees and company friends to participate in supporting colleagues who may experience hardship.