Cash and Voucher Assistance

Cash and voucher assistance (CVA) is a vital tool to support communities in crises. It gives gives power and flexibility back to the people actually impacted by disasters, so they have the freedom to prioritize their unique and urgent needs. CVA provides the dignity of choice, which can mean so much after losing everything.

Los Angeles Fires Response

CORE is one of the first and only organizations providing direct cash support for people impacted by the Los Angeles fires. With your generous donations, our goal is to give $1 million in cash assistance. This is a critical part of our relief efforts, as many Angelenos have lost their homes, jobs, or both because of this disaster.

CORE will be rolling out its cash response in phases to address immediate and then longer-term needs. We’ve created specific eligibility requirements to make sure our support helps the most vulnerable and underserved Angelenos. Our first phase of cash assistance prioritizes rapid access to cash in smaller amounts, which allows us to gather initial learnings and improve systems before amounts increase in future phases.

Our response will continue to evolve over time, to meet the changing needs of the community. Find the latest information about CORE’s cash assistance for those affected by the LA fires here.

Providing cash assistance is the most rapid and positive disruptor in the humanitarian system, shifting the power dynamic so that people affected by crisis lead their own response.

Why Cash and Voucher Assistance?

CORE values the agency of individuals, households, and community groups in choosing how to meet their needs, on their own terms—that’s why cash assistance is our preferred response modality.

Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) is faster and more cost-effective than traditional, one-size-fits-all humanitarian assistance. Through CVA, we prioritize recipients’ preferences and dignity, support local markets, and ensure a flexible response – all central to CORE’s ethos of community building.

Importantly, CVA creates new opportunities for traditionally excluded community members—including women and youth, older people, and people with disabilities—to safely access and control resources. CVA ultimately helps impacted communities effectively and equitably meet their immediate needs and longer-term recovery goals while contributing to the local economy.

READ OUR FULL CVA STATEMENT

CVA is CORE’s preferred response modality when context allows. We routinely consider CVA across all our programs—including emergency responses and programs that address climate change and health access—because it allows our response to adapt to the needs of impacted communities while preserving the agency and dignity of recipients.

CORE’s CVA programs are backstopped by a technical cash and markets specialist at headquarters, and our regional and local staff, as well as implementing partners, are trained in CVA. CORE continuously assesses our processes and systems to ensure staff and partners can mitigate risks of fraud and corruption, and to ensure intended community members are safely receiving assistance.

Following the completion of an organizational cash readiness assessment, CORE established various CVA commitments and tools to expand our reach and ensure program quality.

CORE is committed to:

Programming and Fundraising: Increasing use of CVA as a response modality within our programming and as a proposed modality
Capacity-building: Ensuring staff and local partners have sufficient knowledge and skills to implement quality CVA programming including access to expertise from partners and networks.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Accountability: Ensuring robust M&E and accountability mechanisms are in place from the start of CVA programming to support learning, uptake of best practices, innovation and achieve scale.
Protection & Safety: Ensuring programming controls to ensure CVA-associated protection risks for communities, staff and partners are identified and mitigated.

Our Approach.

Providing CVA transfers the decision-making power to crisis-affected communities to make choices about their own immediate needs and priorities. We consult communities during start-up on their needs and preferred ways to receive support, and we continue to collaborate with them to minimize risks and ensure assistance is inclusive, safe, and accessible for recipients.

CORE uses CVA to support marginalized and low-income communities to cover the costs of their basic needs and essential services, replace lost assets, and restart livelihoods. We partner with local financial service providers, governments, NGOs, and community-based organizations to help design support, identify those most in need, and implement and coordinate market-based programming. We pair CVA with tailored support, such as business training, recipients’ rights awareness, and linkages to specialized services. CORE continuously assesses these processes and systems to ensure staff and partners can mitigate risks of fraud and corruption.

Our Impact.

$5 million

CASH ASSISTANCE PROVIDED

207,000

INDIVIDUALS SUPPORTED

4 continents

NORTH & SOUTH AMERICA, EUROPE AND AFRICA

CORE has implemented CVA on four continents delivering more than $6 million directly to crisis affected households and community-based organizations. Our local teams and partners have delivered this support in many ways including through bank transfers, electronic and physical vouchers, prepaid cards, mobile money, and over the counter cash out. CORE has implemented CVA within food security, shelter, early recovery, and health programs.

CORE leverages CVA within our emergency response, climate change, and health access programs. We are currently implementing CVA programs internationally in Haiti, Ukraine, and Sudan and domestically in Georgia, North Carolina, and California.

CVA Case Studies.

To ensure CORE documents learning on the effectiveness and safety of its programs, we monitor and evaluate our interventions and take on feedback from impacted communities who received cash and voucher assistance.

CORE shares our learning with the humanitarian community, including across networks dedicated to CVA such as the CALP Network, to serve as resources for other humanitarian organizations implementing cash programs. Click below to learn more about how CORE has implemented CVA programs to empower communities around the world.

Brazil

Haiti

Maui

Sudan

Türkiye

Ukraine

Our CVA Partners.

Here are our proud partners…