The Actors Fund provides social services to a broad array of entertainment industry professionals, including writers. They are meeting the challenge of today’s economic crisis by providing financial assistance to members of the community who find themselves unable to pay for basic living expenses.
Financial Assistance Program eligibility guidelines and a link to apply are below.
Eligibility requirements for Actors Fund Emergency Financial Assistance:
- Current financial need (inability to pay next two month’s bills)
- A minimum of five years of recent entertainment industry employment with earnings of at least $6,500 for three out of the last five years OR a minimum of 20 years of industry employment with a minimum of 10 years of earnings of at least $5,000 (please note that income from teaching does not qualify)
Checklist of required documents for Actors Fund Emergency Financial Assistance:
- You must provide a minimum of five years of recent entertainment industry earnings documentation that meets the qualifications stated above. You can do that by providing Union earning printouts from Pension and Welfare Departments, Contracts, pay stubs or W-2, 1099 forms (for professional work only)
- Most recent checking/savings bank statement (not printout from ATM)
- Current lease, rent statement or mortgage/maintenance
Tips On Making Your Application Process Easier
You should prepare your documents prior to filling out the online application. You will be required to upload your documents at the end of the online application.
If your documents are not already available electronically, here are some suggested steps to create an electronic file for your paper documents.
- Search your app store for Evernote Scannable. This is a free app. There are numerous apps that are available to create electronic files for your paper documents; please use what works for you.
- Download Evernote Scannable to your phone.
- When you are ready, open the app and scan documents.
- This will create a PDF of your files.
- You will need to create one PDF file for each of these categories:
- 1 file for five years of documentation of industry earnings
- 1 file for last month’s bank statement
- 1 file for current lease, rent statement, mortgage/maintenance. (If unavailable, can be substituted with utility/phone bill listing your current address)