Community Crisis Response

American AgCredit

“In 2017, we found ourselves facing unprecedented territory as our employees and customers were assaulted by the Wine Country Fires in California, devastating property and community alike. We turned to Stratiscope to help coordinate our community response, making sure our support was appropriate, impactful, and thoughtful. Through this process, we worked to set up protocols that will guide us in future crises to respond easily and swiftly to take care of our people and communities.” – Byron Enix, President and Chief Executive Officer

Challenge:

Develop AgCredit’s rapid response to a wildfire ravaging local communities by identifying community needs, which service providers are best able to meet those needs, and how AgCredit can best support its community.

Stratiscope Approach:

• Spoke with local civic and community leaders to determine pressing community needs and identify active service providers
• Vetted potential fund recipients to learn how they would use the money and to what effect
• Developed a recommendation portfolio of how much to give and to whom
• Established an employee matching fund to engage employees in supporting their peers
• Identified opportunities to leverage funds from other businesses and funders
• Remained available on short notice to provide support to CEO and leadership team through the duration of the crisis

Outcomes:

• Directed the allocation of $1million of AgCredit donations, as well as additional leveraged donations, to various community relief initiatives including, for example, the provision of 318,00 meals to those facing hunger as a result of the fire
• Established scalable protocols for future crises
• Established an employee relief fund that allowed employees to support each other with a match from the company
• Set industry standards of crisis response for other Farm Credits to follow