Ask For Help
Who We Serve
Currently Lifted Spirits is providing assistance to professionals in the Hospitality Industry who work in the Austin Metro Area, which we define as follows:
The Austin Metro Area includes the five counties that connect and surround the City of Austin, which are Travis, Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell, and Hays Counties. We serve those who are employed in the Metro area, but do not require those we serve to live in these counties given that a substantial portion of our Industry comes from surrounding counties outside the Metro area.
The Hospitality Industry is defined based on the 2017 North American Industry Classification System. Within the Hospitality and Leisure Industry we focus specifically on the subsectors of Accommodation and Food and Drinking Places. The following are the major types of businesses within our definition of hospitality:
- Hotels and Traveler
- Accommodations
- Drinking Places
- Restaurants and Other
- Eating Places
- Food Service Contractors
- Caterers
- Mobile Food Services
How To Qualify For Help
Qualifying for Direct Financial Assistance
Lifted Spirits provides Direct Financial Assistance to Hospitality professionals who are experiencing one of the following crises:
Injury
Illness
Death in the Family
Housing Disaster
A significant injury that has resulted in loss of work hours, income, and financial stability.
An illness or signficant sickness that has resulted in loss of work hours, income, and financial stability.
The loss of an immediate family member, such as a partner, child, parent, sibling, or caretaker.
A housing disaster such as flooding, fire, storm damage, or other crisis of household safety.
If you are experiencing a crisis that fits within the four categories above, please use the Ask For Help form linked below to get in touch with Lifted Spirits. We will then get you connected with a case manager who will assist you through the rest of the application process.
Please Note: As part of the full application we will require you to submit documentation that can verify the details of your emergency, as well as additional financial information, but you DO NOT need to have that information on hand before Asking For Help. You are welcome to wait to assemble all of your documentation until you have heard from our case manager. If you would like to make sure you have what you need ahead of time, please see our Direct Financial Assistance page for more information about what we will need to see for each of the four qualifying emergencies.
Qualifying for a No-Interest Microloan
Basic Qualifications
Additional Requirements
Our No-Interest Microloans are intended for individuals who are currently employed in Hospitality, but just need a little bit of help to get ahead of a future crisis scenario.
The most straightforward scenario for our Microloan is if you need help to cover the gap when an unexpected disruption to expected work hours or income has led to being just short bills related to basic needs (rent, utilities).
You may also qualify if there is an important cost that’s hard to cover after bills, but necessary to prevent a future financial crisis. This includes a range of situations, like the cost of car inspections, replacement headlights, other costs that prevent tickets and bigger financial burdens down the road.
Our application process is intended to be as simple as possible, and to start with we ask for a reasonably complete narrative of your situation to make sure it’s an appropriate circumstance and fits our standard criteria.
In doing our due diligence we may require additional details or documentation about your situation and the cost you’re trying to resolve. In order to receive a loan, we also require you to provide two professional references, just like you might provide for a job application.
This is in lieu of more formal loan security requirements, and if you fail to repay the loan your supporters are not liable for that debt. They will, however, be expected to help hold the loan recipient accountable and assist us as needed to follow up.
If you are interested in seeing if your situation makes you eligible for a No-Interest Microloan, please use the Ask For Help form linked below to get in touch with Lifted Spirits. We will then get you connected with a case manager who will help you to explore your options.
Getting Help Through the Spirit Lifting Network
If you are in need of help, but are not experiencing one of the four emergency situations above, we will still do our best to assist you. To be referred through our Spirit Lifting Network, all you have to do is Ask For Help on this page! Be sure to specify the “other” emergency situation that you are experiencing so we know what is going on, and a case manager will contact you with more information. You can also visit the Need A Lift page to see what opportunities our Spirit Lifters have to offer.