Volunteer organizations are typically at their best in the aftermath of a disaster, quickly arriving on the scene to provide food, water, shelter, and, sometimes, spiritual counseling.
What they often do not provide, says John Bryant, the founder of the Los Angeles nonprofit Operation Hope, is financial advice, and that is where his group steps in.
Three years ago it created Hope Coalition America. Made up of about 250 banks and other financial services companies, its mission is to provide economic recovery services and counseling to disaster victims.
Currently the coalition is in southwest and central Florida, where residents are still recovering from a category 4 hurricane that ripped through the region last month.
"After a disaster there are first the emotional and physical tragedies and then come the economic tragedies, from what to do without any account documentations to how to deal with credit card companies and debtors," Mr. Bryant said. "And people need help dealing with these issues."
In what has been its largest deployment to date, last week the group set up 12 economic recovery offices in H&R Block branches throughout the hardest-hit areas. Most of the 60 volunteers are H&R Block employees, but Mr. Bryant said the coalition is getting calls daily from bankers and other financial professionals across the country saying they want to come to Florida to pitch in.
Lance Triggs, the head of Hope Coalition, is in Florida and said that volunteers are providing services such as budget counseling, credit management, emergency mortgage assistance, and insurance claims.
A new partner in the coalition is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security. In January FEMA formalized a partnership stating that Hope Coalition would respond to certain federally declared disasters with economic recovery help. In exchange the agency promotes and supports the coalition.
Larry Zensinger, who set up the agreement, said that FEMA has historically provided funds, not advice, and that few other nonprofits offer such assistance. When Mr. Bryant approached him about a possible partnership, he was interested.
"There are volunteer agencies that provide a wide range of assistance for both physical and spiritual needs, but this is the only organization that focuses on financial counseling and financial literacy," said Mr. Zensinger, who left FEMA a month ago and is now a consultant in the private sector.
With FEMA on its side, Mr. Bryant said, the coalition is getting about two calls a week from community leaders in towns that have been through disasters of all degrees. However, he said that the group would call in volunteers and set up temporary offices for the most devastating disasters.
Work done by Hope Coalition before the FEMA agreement included setting up full-scale operations in southern California last November in response to the wildfires there, and assisting residents and businesses affected by tornadoes in Ladysmith, Wis., in 2002.
The idea for Hope Coalition came after Mr. Bryant and others in the industry witnessed the economic turmoil caused by 9/11. Operation Hope had opened an office in a building next to the World Trade Center a few weeks before the terrorist attacks. Through the New York Bankers Association, the group advised bankers on providing financial management assistance to customers affected by the attacks.
A few months after 9/11, Operation Hope volunteers set up an office in Los Angeles to provide job training, credit counseling, and other services to hundreds of laid-off employees. Through these efforts Hope Coalition was born.
UnionBanCal Corp.'s Union Bank of California got involved after the wildfires hit southern California. Its vice chairman, Richard Hartnack, said that the bank decided to join the group after hearing about the financial difficulties its customers face after losing their homes and most of their possessions.
"From the perspective of the banking industry, this allows us to get through things in an orderly way," Mr. Hartnack said. "And for people who have lost everything, this substantially speeds up their ability to get their lives back on track."
Like a handful of other Hope Coalition members, the $46 billion-asset Union Bank, whose parent company is mostly owned by Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc., decided to contribute funds to the cause. And like all its members, it agreed to provide volunteers if a disaster strikes in its market. Union Bank has sent one of its executives to Florida to learn about responding to disaster.
