In the upcoming weeks and months, desperate people will knock on the doors of almost every church across the nation to ask for emergency financial assistance. But many, reluctant to ask for help, do so only at the last moment – so there will not be much time to respond. Is your church ready?

The wake-up call for my church came one Saturday. Friday, I had started work with a family that was set to be evicted Monday. The service agencies were closed for the weekend, putting the family in a very tight spot.

I am a social worker who helps families on the verge of having children removed by protective services due to abuse or neglect. What they didn’t tell me when I started the job is that many times “physical neglect” of children is essentially the same as living in poverty – for example, being evicted. When parents cannot meet children’s basic needs, the state becomes concerned.

Luckily, my clients that weekend had secured an apartment and a family loan for much of the move-in money – but they were short a few hundred dollars. Fortunately, my pastor, who was on his roof doing a repair when I called, was willing to come down, dash to the church, and cut a check. I was able to hunt down a council member, who met me at a nearby KFC, to serve as the second check signatory. The family moved the next day. The kids remained in the home. If I had not been able to get ahold of my pastor and the council member, that family likely would have been evicted and broken apart.

As this example shows, the procedural nuts and bolts of church crisis response matter. How can you fine-tune your emergency assistance efforts ahead of time, so as not to depend on rooftop calls? Here are some questions you can consider now to be ready then:

• Who will receive and process emergency requests? When should people submit requests, and when can they expect answers to them?
• What information will the church need? (For example, what efforts have already been made? Is collaboration with other resources possible?) Can a church member with knowledge of local human services help standardize your information-gathering?
• To whom would the church issue a check or other aid? What documentation is necessary to do that? Will the church want applicants to do anything special, such as volunteer, in exchange for help?
• Will some needs take precedence over others? Define your priorities ahead of time: First come, first served? Number of people impacted? Connection to the congregation? Ultimate fallout of crisis, such as threat of children being removed?
• What process and time are needed to approve checks for direct aid? Consider defining a threshold for minor benevolence that can be approved rapidly, without a whole committee. Some churches set aside a modest fund with a single experienced gatekeeper to handle small requests; clear guidelines and a detailed records system can make this work well for urgent needs. If a church desires more checks and balances, consider a phone or e-mail process for approving requests.
• What needs does the church feel most called to assist (e.g., housing, food, utilities, medical)? What special areas of need can you fill? For example, in our area, agencies can help homeless clients with rent but never security deposits. Defining a niche assistance area can be very helpful – the community learns what the church offers, and the church becomes an expert in one area rather than a dabbler in many.
• When requests for money can’t be granted, are there other kinds of support the church wants to offer – transportation, child care, networking from the church community, in-kind supplies like diapers, or gift cards for food or gas?

I hope these tips help your church prepare to serve our brothers and sisters in need!

Beverly Ryskamp is a social worker and an attorney. She attends Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.