Hospitality Relief Network
Fiscal sponsor and charitable administrator RFI
An invitation to help create the trusted charitable home hotel and restaurant workers need during a sudden crisis.
- Prepared for
- Public charities and specialized employee-relief administrators
- Status
- Planning-stage discussion material
- Version
- August 2026
The mission to carry
Hospitality Relief Network is being built so hotel and restaurant employees have somewhere trustworthy to turn after a house fire, medical emergency, domestic violence, family loss or another sudden crisis. Most smaller employers cannot operate a charitable fund of their own, leaving many workers without the kind of help available inside the largest companies.
Program concept
HRN is a planning-stage initiative intended to serve an open-ended class of hotel and restaurant employees facing sudden, documented financial hardship. The contemplated model includes employee payroll gifts, employer matches, corporate underwriting and grants to individuals based on objective need. The right charitable partner would bring the authority and experience to turn that industry support into private, fair and responsible help.
Required capabilities
- Experience making emergency-hardship grants to individuals, including personal hardships beyond qualified disasters.
- Independent control over charitable funds, grant criteria and recipient selection.
- Ability to evaluate payroll gifts, employer matching and multi-employer participation.
- Nationwide charitable solicitation, receipting, accounting and reporting capabilities.
- Secure case management, privacy safeguards and conflict-of-interest controls.
Commercial and operating questions
- Onboarding fees, minimum annual costs and administrative fee structure.
- Whether approved vendors may underwrite startup and operating costs directly.
- Insurance, audit, banking, state registration and tax-filing responsibilities.
- Ownership and licensing of HRN intellectual property and participant data.
- Agreement term, termination rights and a responsible transition plan.
Governance questions
- Who approves eligibility and grant policies?
- How is the independent selection process constituted?
- What authority remains with the sponsor?
- What advisory role may hospitality employers, vendors and HRN leadership hold?
- What public reporting can be provided without compromising applicant privacy?