We hope you and your loved ones are well. The current events are disruptive and unsettling, and we know everyone is doing what they can to make sense of what’s unfolding.
We’ve gathered some resources that we hope will be helpful to our community below. You can also follow our social media channels (Facebook and Twitter) to learn more about specific opportunities to support and connect with the RSF community.
General Resources
instructions for our philanthropic, investment, and loan clients
Center for Disease Control (CDC)
up-to-date multilingual guidance and advisories, both nationally and by region
World Health Organization (WHO)
provides a variety of global resources and updates about COVID-19
The RSF team has been reaching out to our social enterprise borrowers to find out how the crisis is affecting them and what they need. We continue to assess our community’s needs and capacity, and we are creating new opportunities for collective action. Our March 18 online Community Pricing Gathering focused on supporting borrowers, and in the coming days we’ll announce significant steps the RSF community will take to do that.
RSF and more than a dozen partners have built The Resilience Compass, a tool formed in response to the COVID-19 crisis as a collaborative public service. This group of partners, led by Conveners.org, aims to help small businesses, cooperatives, and nonprofits calmly navigate uncharted waters while accelerating their road to recovery. The Resilience Compass aims to bring helpful resources and guidance from a spectrum of public, private, and local sources that can be filtered to your organization’s most pressing needs.
If you have specific questions, please reach out to your Relationship Manager
If you experience technical problems with our online portal, please contact us at support@rsfsocialfinance.org
For social enterprises that have general questions, please contact Reed Mayfield at reed.mayfield@rsfsocialfinance.org
RSF Social Finance is watching the SBA Paycheck Protect Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) programs closely. RSF is not a SBA Lender but encourages businesses and nonprofits to review eligibility to determine if these programs can support your organization.
We are excited to see relief funds being made available but know that the demand will be high and funds will be limited-if you plan to apply, we recommend doing so now. Due to the limited funds and potentially long time frame for approval, we recommend that organizations continue to explore other relief funding and resources.
Please carefully review the following resources to learn more:
Economic Injury Disaster Loan Application
SBA Paycheck Protect Program (PPP)
RSF encourages all donors to read and sign on to the Council on Foundations pledge to act with urgency and support our nonprofit partners and the people and communities hit hardest by the impacts of COVID-19. The pledge asks donors to practice trust-based philanthropy; loosen or eliminate restrictions on current grants, continue making unrestricted grants, and reduce grant requirements such as reporting and site visits.
We also recommend the following resources for your urgent giving:
Above & Beyond Solidarity Fund – Thousand Currents
Seed Commons Worker Response Fund – Working World
Liberated Capital: A Decolonizing Wealth Fund
Flicker Fund support for crisis-impacted Indigenous Communities Worldwide – Seventh Generation Fund
Many of our partners in the field of philanthropy have cultivated lists of other opportunities to give:
Solidaire resources for regional and thematic mutual aid and relief funds
National Center for Family Philanthropy COVID-19 Response and Recovery Funds
Giving Compass list of regional relief funds
World Health Organization COVID 19 Solidarity Response Fund
Native Americans In Philanthropy resources and Native American Community Response Fund
Sustainable Agriculture & Food System Funders COVID-19 Response & Recovery Funds
Boston Impact Initiative – People Guarantee Pool & Enterprise Guarantee Pool
The Social Enterprise Crisis Response Fund is providing loan payment relief and, or small grants to our borrowers. Our goal is to raise $3 million for the Crisis Response Fund, which would enable us to support all RSF borrowers facing serious challenges due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Please review RSF’s Giving Guide for instructions on how to donate.
To learn more or donate online, please visit our Crisis Response page.
RSF’s Collaboratives are philanthropic initiatives that provide integrated capital to social enterprises focused in four areas: Food & Agriculture, Biodynamics, Women’s Capital, and Waldorf Education. These funds support early-stage, innovative entrepreneurs with creative financing and capacity-building solutions in the form of loans, loan guarantees, and grants.
In light of COVID-19, we are leveraging some philanthropic capital from the Collaboratives to offer immediate loan payment relief and rapid response grants to our borrowers where they are most needed.
Please see RSF’s Giving Guide for instructions on how to contribute to these Collaboratives, or click on the links below to learn more about these initiatives.
Food and Agriculture Collaborative
If you have any questions or would like additional support with your grantmaking, please reach out to grantrec@rsfsocialfinance.org.
To access your Donor Advised Fund, please log in to the client portal
If you experience technical problems with our client portal, please contact us at support@rsfsocialfinance.org.