EMERGENCY FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE | Entertainment Community Fund

EMERGENCY FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

The Actors Fund helps everyone who works in performing arts and entertainment—whether it’s on stage, on camera or behind the scenes—including theater, film, television, music and dance. Our emergency financial assistance program provides temporary financial assistance to those with documented financial need due to unforeseen circumstances.

This assistance is to help towards the cost of basic living expenses such as housing, food, utility bills or health care. Once an application is received a social services team member will be in contact to discuss your particular situation, help you develop a plan of action and if needed connect you to community resources.

THREE STEPS TO APPLY

1. CONFIRM YOUR FINANCIAL NEED

Emergency financial assistance is available for people who are unable to pay basic living expenses (food/housing/health care). If you have liquid assets that allow for you to cover your expenses, we ask that you wait to apply.

2. REVIEW YOUR ELIGIBILITY

To be eligible for The Actors Fund Emergency Financial Assistance, you must have entertainment industry earnings over $6,500 for three out of the last five years (2015-2020). Income from teaching does not qualify. Dancers, comedians and comedy professionals must document three years of recent earnings of at least $2,000 a year.

Required Documentation

  • Three years of earnings over the past five years. Accepted forms of earnings documentation include: Union Pension and Health statements, W-2 or 1099 forms. Do not include income tax forms without W-2's.
  • Most recent checking and savings bank statement, including name, address and balance totals.
  • Current lease, rent or mortgage statement. If none of these are available, another household bill with your name and address.

3. PREPARE YOUR DOCUMENTATION

Before starting to fill out the online application, please collect and digitize all required documentation. Applications without proper documentation will not be processed and you will not be notified.

Tips On Making Your Application Process Easier

Prepare all documents prior to filling out the online application. Applicants will be required to upload all documents at the end of the online application.

If any documents are not already available electronically, here are some suggested steps to create a digital file.

  1. Search the app store for Evernote Scannable and download it to your phone. This is a free app. There are other similar apps that are available to create electronic files. Please use what works for you.
  2. Open the app and scan documents to create PDF files.
  3. You will need to create PDF files for each of these categories:
    • 1 file including five years (2015-2019) entertainment industry earnings.
    • 1 file for last month’s bank statement.
    • 1 file for current lease, rent, mortgage or maintenance statement. If none of these are not available, provide a government issued identification.
    • 1 file for union card(s) or proof of membership status, if applicable.

APPLY FOR ASSISTANCE

Please know that we are experiencing an extremely high volume of requests and ask for your patience during this time. It is taking approximately two weeks to process an application.