Mutual Aid Ministries Individual Grant Guidelines
Purpose of Individual Grants:
Individual grants are intended to serve churches, temples, synagogues and other faith communities located within the United States (hereafter referred to as faith communities) as they seek to help congregants or other persons who have an unexpected financial burden created by an emergency or a definable loss that is beyond the reasonable resources of the affected person(s).
Examples of such qualifying circumstances include, but are not limited to:
- Individuals, households or congregations who are displaced from their property due to fire, storm or other catastrophe and who are facing hardships beyond the scope of their insurance or other available resources.
- A serious medical condition, injury or death experienced within the household which creates unsustainable costs or results in the loss of a job and/or income.
- Situations such as family break-ups or abandonment where a spouse is left with an unmanageable financial burden.
- Individuals, households or congregations that experience an uninsured loss or quantifiable financial hardship beyond the scope of the recipients’ accumulated assets.
- Natural or man-made disasters which leave a community and its households destitute.
- Pastors who face financial hardship due to extraordinary circumstances such as those described above.
Individual grants are NOT intended to be used for activities such as capital campaigns, annual campaigns, operations, compensation, loan repayment, mission trips, group activities, special events, sports teams, equipment or supplies.
MAX members who have submitted and received a payment for their claim are NOT eligible to receive a Mutual Aid Ministries grant arising from the same occurrence.
Criteria and Process for Awarding Individual Grants:
The following process and criteria shall be used by the applying faith community and by the MAX Mutual Aid Ministries team to determine the merits of financial assistance and the grant amounts.
- The applying faith community will have independently discerned the need of the person or family facing hardship and determined that the need exceeds the individual’s or household’s financial means and accumulated assets.
- The faith community and the individual/family will jointly submit an on-line grant application form to the Mutual Aid Ministries Executive Director. (Click here for grant application.)
- The amount of the individual grant will be decided with consideration given to the determined need; the ability, support and assistance of the faith community; and, Mutual Aid Ministries resources available.
Generally, grants will be considered as follows:
- Grants will be limited to one per recipient individual or family in a 12 month period and no more than four grants per faith community in a 12 month period.
- Grants will be limited to individuals and faith communities residing or based in states in which MAX does business (see map below).
- Approval or disapproval of a grant request is at the sole discretion of the Mutual Aid Ministries Advisory Board.
The confidentiality of grant recipients will be respected at all times. There is no obligation to purchase insurance from the MAX Insurance Enterprise for the church or its members under any of these circumstances.
