Emergency Financial Assistance, The Actors Fund

The Actors Fund is a national human services organization here to meet the needs of our entertainment community with a unique understanding of the challenges involved in a life in the arts. Services include emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and insurance counseling, senior care, secondary career development and more.

To help our community manage during this public health crisis The Actors Fund has partnered with several industry organizations to provide emergency financial assistance to those who have immediate financial needs. To respond to you as quickly as possible we have transitioned to an online application process. Please know that we are experiencing an extremely high volume of requests and ask for your patience during this time.

Emergency financial assistance is available for people who are unable to pay their basic living expenses (food/housing/health care) over the next two months. We ask that if you have the resources to cover that period, please wait to apply. These are unprecedented times and we all must steward our resources very carefully.

Before starting to fill out our online application, you must review the eligibility criteria and be prepared to upload all required documentation. Applications without proper documentation will not be processed and you will not be notified.

Checklist of required documents for SAG-AFTRA, AEA Curtin Up Fund, AGMA Relief Fund, IATSE Local 798, Musician Union Local 802:

• Copy of your current membership card or confirmation by union membership department—including end date. You must be a paid up member to be eligible.
• Most recent bank statement (not printout from ATM)
• Current lease or mortgage/maintenance
• Local 802 members must provide proof of work cancellation
• Please note: Suspended Payment, Terminated, and Fee-Paying-Non-Member (Ficore) are NOT ELIGIBLE to receive assistance from SAG-AFTRA.
• Checklist of required documents for Jujamcyn Theatre Assistance Funds:
• Proof that you are current employee of the Jujamcyn Theatre and have been an employee for six months
• Most recent bank statement (not printout from ATM)
• Current lease or mortgage/maintenance

Eligibility requirements for Actors Fund Emergency Financial Assistance:

• Current financial need (inability to pay next 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
• Eligibility requirements for dancers—three years of recent dance earnings of at least $2,000 a year

Checklist of required documents for Actors Fund Emergency Financial Assistance:

• Documentation of industry earnings
• Union earning printouts from Pension and Welfare Departments OR
• Contracts, pay stubs OR
• W-2, 1099 forms for professional work only
• Most recent bank statement (not printout from ATM)
• Current lease or mortgage/maintenance
• 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. You can scan all of the documents one by one into one file. This will create a PDF of your files.

You will need to create one file for each of these categories:

• 1 file for documentation of industry earnings (if applying for Actors Fund assistance)
• 1 file for last month’s bank statement
• 1 file for current lease or mortgage/maintenance
• 1 file for union card(s) if applicable

Please know it is taking up to two weeks to process an application.

Click here for more information.