Purpose
Rhodes seeks to establish an Employee Compassionate Care Fund to financially assist faculty and staff who are experiencing a temporary hardship because of a significant life event.
Eligibility Criteria for the Compassionate Care Fund
- The hardship must be temporary.
- The employee must be a full-time employee.
- The employee must have been employed at Rhodes for at least one year, and cannot be in a disciplinary status, such as on a progressive discipline or performance improvement plan.
- Employees may submit only one application within a 12-month period.
- Awards will not exceed $1000, except in truly exceptional circumstances.
Application Process
All requests for assistance from the Mel Richey Employee Compassionate Care Fund shall be made by submitting this form with all of the required information. The application should contain all information that will aid the committee in evaluating the request. This could include medical bills, physician reports, fire or flood reports, documented loss of income due to illness or accident, etc.
Award Process
The college will establish a committee to determine 1) if the applicant fits the criteria, 2) whether or not an award should be granted, and 3) amount of the award. Once a decision has been made by the committee, Human Resources will notify the applicant about the outcome of their application. All decisions of the committee are final and there is no appeals process. Amounts awarded from the Employee Compassionate Care Fund are considered taxable income.
All members of the committee will keep requests to and disbursements from the Fund confidential to individuals outside of the committee. Upon approval of assistance, funds shall be requested from Accounting and, in most cases, will be available within five working days.
We ask that recipients of Mel Richey Employee Compassionate Care Funds consider making a gift to the Fund in the future, should financial circumstances allow it. We wish to ensure that our community is always striving to “pay forward” the kindness and support we extend to each other.
Contributions to the Fund
Employees and non-employees may make designated contributions to the college for the Mel Richey Employee Compassionate Care Fund online at Make a Gift Today | Rhodes College, by check, or by payroll deductions (for employees). Contributions made to this fund will be tax-deductible as a charitable donation.