Distribute CARES Act Funding in Less Than an Hour

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This year, we’ve seen a growing need for housing assistance across the country. With eviction moratoriums ending and more Americans falling into poverty, the second round of funding can’t come soon enough. Aunt Bertha’s functionality supports the tracking of housing assistance funds to those in need.

2020 Data Trends

Housing remains the top need across our network, spanning across all 50 states. The graph below shows the growth in interest in housing related programs. People in need are investigating housing related programs more than any other category right now, at a rate of more than 58,000 housing-related program investigations per week. These program investigations include electronic connections to programs, as well as closed-loop referrals. It’s really bad out there and the problem is not getting better over time. 

2020 Monthly Electronic Connections (across all of our customers)

We are working with coordinated entry systems across 200+ counties in Texas who are distributing new CARES Act funding. We’ve created online screeners to help facilitate this process, and they will soon be using them to support their homelessness prevention programs across the state.

Aunt Bertha Can Help Organize Funding Distribution

When faced with this seemingly unavoidable wave of housing insecurity, organizations across the nation can take a systematic approach to addressing needs within one system. The good news is that, for organizations who are trying to assess needs and distribute funds in their communities, our platform makes it easy to organize and track these requests for help. You can stand up a screener in minutes and track applicants to help decide on who gets the funding.

Anyone who is responsible for receiving and distributing CARES Act funding can sign up for our platform within minutes (for free). From there, it’s quick and easy to configure a screener, and be ready to track applications for funding using our tools. By tracking the dispersed funds through our platform, organizations gain useful insights about the gap between needs and available funding.

How it Works

1) Organizations can start by claiming their program on findhelp.org.

  • Simply click the link in the bottom navigation menu and follow the steps to claim.
  • If your program isn’t yet listed on findhelp.org, you can suggest that we add your program, and our data team will get back with you right away to confirm. 

2) Once you’ve claimed your program, you can set up your online screener.

  • Click to edit your program information under the My Program Tools menu.
  • Next, update your  Contact Settings, and choose a screener. This will allow you to collect eligibility information about people applying to your program.
  • As people connect to your program through findhelp.org, they will first be asked to fill out your eligibility screener.
  • You’ll be able to see their responses and can quickly determine which individuals may be eligible for your program. 

3) Once you are able to address a person’s need, you can close the loop by updating the status of the referral.

  • Go to your Inbound Referrals Dashboard and select the status of each referral to update.
  • Both the organization you referred them to and the person you’re helping will be able to see the updated referral status.

4) To collect additional information to report to your funder, you can set up a Data Collection Form and fill out the information for which you need to report on.

  • For example, your state might require that people submit proof of loss of income due to the pandemic.
  • You can collect this data in a Screener, and then use the Data Collection Form to report on that information.

5) Data collection forms are automatically added to your Analytics where you can easily download each report.

  • These can be shared with funders, or circulated internally to track and report on eligibility and funding distribution.

For nonprofits, all of this is free. You can sign up, claim your program, and set up a screener in minutes, and start helping people right away. If you’re not sure about how this will help your organization, send us your info and we’d be happy to walk you through it in more detail.

If you’re a larger organization and would like to talk about how we can partner, request a demo below and we’ll get you in touch with the right person.

Interested in learning more about Aunt Bertha? Visit us here to request a demo.

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