Carol Lucka and Scott Rodeman from U.S. Bank, and Rochelle Gorey from SpringFour are presented with the BAI Global Innovation Finalist recognition from Debbie Bianucci, CEO of BAI.

We recently returned from the BAI Beacon Conference where SpringFour was a finalist for the BAI Global Innovation Awards. Global. Innovation. Award. Let that sink in. We had to.

As a small and scrappy social impact, Fintech Company based in Chicago, being named a finalist was a huge validation and sense of accomplishment for our team at SpringFour. To see SpringFour on the list of finalists for an Award that celebrates companies from around the world doing great and innovative work in the financial services sector was tremendous.

The fact that we we shared this Award with our customer and partner, U.S. Bank, gave even more validation. Together we were recognized for our work in the Breakthrough Collaboration in Financial Services Category. No small feat.

From the beginning, our mission has been to connect people to resources, programs, and tools that can help people achieve better financial health. We understand that when people have difficulty paying their bills, it’s because there is something happening in their financial lives that makes it impossible for them to do so. This understanding guides everything we do at SpringFour and drives us to work hard and to do what we can to help our customers.

When we started SpringFour, no one was really talking about financial health and certainly no other company was building a business focused on directing consumers to local resources that could help them build a better financial life and catch up on past due bills. Today, with our customers, we are making over 1 million referrals each year and the number is growing. And we are excited to see so many companies having conversations about financial health and thinking about how to bring financial health solutions to their customers and/or employees.

Here’s to financial health and the validation that helping consumers pay their bills and stay on track can be worthy of a Global Innovation Award.

Katie Gottschall Donohue, Vice President, Strategy and Operations

SpringFour, Inc.

It’s a difficult time to be working towards financial health in America, when the damage and destruction caused by recent natural disasters has taken many people back to square one, or worse. Families already living paycheck to paycheck in Texas, Florida, and Louisiana, are now facing displacement from their homes and schools, unemployment, food insecurity, and complete financial instability.

But it’s also an inspiring time. Tuesday night while watching the Comic Relief hand to hand fundraiser on TV, I was reminded by our work at SpringFour by one of the images that played over again of a spontaneous human chain of support that was formed to rescue an elderly man from a sinking SUV.

That spirit of human resiliency that inspires great generosity is now just beginning as individuals, organizations, and governments band together to begin recovery efforts. The Comic Relief event alone raised more than $44 million dollars in one night. Those funds will soon be disbursed to reputable charities and reflected in recovery support offered by organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Save the Children. And that’s a drop in the bucket. A recent estimate shows that the federal government alone was spending an average of $80 billion dollars on disaster relief even before the recent hurricanes.

So how do we make sure that the people most in need of assistance have access to it? This question has prompted increased media attention, hackathons, and workshops in the tech world.

SpringFour a Certified B Corporation, has been addressing this question since 2012, the year we added a disaster relief category to our platform in response to hurricane Sandy. When a disaster victim calls their lender, their bank, a credit counseling agency, or a local trusted organization for help, they are directed to quick reliable resources that have been curated by our professional data team. Thousands of people have already accessed information about applying for disaster assistance and been referred to local resources for financial support, medical care, rebuilding help, and employment from programs that they may have not otherwise known about. Years after the flood waters are gone, we continue to update and add resources as aid funds are distributed and more programs become available.

At SpringFour, our mission is simple; Help people find the assistance they need. If you are a SpringFour subscriber, help your clients and customers affected by Hurricane Harvey or Irma today by referring them to Disaster Relief resources. It will take years for the impacted communities to recover. That’s why it’s also important to utilize our 25 other categories to help start your clients on a path to recovery and financial security.

Click here to learn more about the benefits of offering disaster relief information from SpringFour. 

If you are not a SpringFour subscriber and would like to learn more, please contact sales@springfour.cc

Update October 16th, 2017: We’ve now seen over 15,000 referrals to disaster recovery resources in Florida and Texas. Thank you to all of our subscribers for providing this valuable information to their customers. 

Cassandra Compton, VP of Data Integrity and User Experience

SpringFour, Inc.

Last week, SpringFour was chosen as the top venture for the Points of Light CivicX Accelerator. We are thrilled to have been selected and this win is especially meaningful as SpringFour was one of 12 ventures focused on increasing economic mobility chosen for this cohort. The ventures included for-profit and nonprofits.

The investment came at the end of The Civic Accelerator’s ninth bootcamp-style startup program and investment fund. The Spring 2017 program convened 12 startups over 10 weeks for three in-person, weeklong sessions in Atlanta, New York and Seattle, in addition to an in-depth virtual curriculum. The participants peer-selected the two ventures that received $50,000 investments.

The Civic Accelerator is the first accelerator and investment fund in the country focused on “civic ventures” – for-profit and nonprofit startups that solve social problems by tapping into human capital as part of the solution. The goal of the accelerator is to equip each startup to seek investments and scale their social innovations.

The founding partners of the accelerator are PwC Charitable Foundation and Starbucks Foundation, with additional, notable sponsors including CapitalOne Investing for Good, Vodafone Americas Foundation, U.S. Small Business Administration, Dentons, Singing for Change, and Hilton Worldwide.

The Spring 2017 Cohort of the accelerator addressed the financial health of typically overlooked populations through:

• Inclusive financial health

• Financial resilience

• Opportunity though innovation

“SpringFour is excited and honored to have been selected by our peers. It provides strong validation of our mission and our solution to connect consumers to resources that increase opportunities for financial health,” said Rochelle Gorey, co-founder and CEO of SpringFour.

“With this investment, we plan to continue to provide people with the resources they need to reduce their household expenses so that they can begin to pay back past-due bills and save again.”