Coronavirus Pandemic, Stock Market Crash And The World Of Impact: Insights From Jimmy Chen Of Propel

What do the Coronavirus pandemic and the stock market plunge mean for social enterprises and impact investors? Not Only for Profit is talking to a variety of key players for their insights.

First up is Jimmy Chen, the founder of 28-employee, New York City-based Propel. Why Chen? Low-income workers employed in service industries are likely to be among the hardest hit economically by this crisis and that’s the population his company targets. Started in 2014, Propel’s app helps food stamp recipients check their balance using their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) payment card, save money through access to grocery store discount coupons and apply for jobs. More than 2 million low-income Americans use the app each month, according to Chen, who figures that his users have saved over $30 million thanks to the coupons they tapped through the app.

How is the crisis affecting your customers?

Our belief is low-income Americans are the most vulnerable and the first to feel the impact of things like this. They don’t have a buffer. When they have to take a week off from work because, say, the children are home, they lack the resources to absorb the shock. It’s challenging to afford stocking up on canned food, for one example. Many people take for granted they have the ability to go to the store and purchase soap. For many of our users, they wish they could participate in those precautionary measures, but they don’t have the financial ability.

We recently surveyed our users to see what their needs are in this crisis. Overwhelmingly, the top one is more money to pay for food. That’s been true outside of this pandemic also. For a lot of our users, putting food on the table and making ends meet—food stamps are insufficient to meet those needs. This is a monthly challenge, now exacerbated by the fact that our users have to stock up and spend more at one time. We found that 30% of our users have functionally spent all of their benefits for the month. The average for this time of the month usually is 20%. We expect that to get worse in the next few days.

The combination of closing of public schools and employers giving fewer shifts and work opportunities—it will put our users in a really tough spot. Our users are disproportionately employed in industries like retail and food service and those are the areas that are going to be hard hit.

During the government shutdown in 2019, you teamed up with Full Cart to send free food to families with low food stamp balances. Are you planning anything like that now?

We saw the government shut down as a time of disruption causing many challenges for our users. But it was different. That was a situation where people’s food stamps schedule changed. Now, the combination of the need for childcare and lower employment opportunities, as well as potential changes in food stamp programs being debated, are all going to come to a head.

Our role is two-fold. First we can help amplify the voice of our users. And second, we can communicate back to our users and be a trusted source of information. So, if local food banks are available, we can communicate who’s offering what.  Or if certain states are pausing on evictions. Things like that.

There’s no way any one company could solve this challenge. It has to be a team effort. The needs we’re going to see over the next months will be be pretty unprecedented. I think a lot of social enterprises are going to be in a position where they can contribute. It’s hard to say exactly how now. My hope is we can work with a variety of other programs to help our users navigate these times.  We’re in early discussions. We have to figure out what other organizations’ strengths are.

What do you see as the role of social enterprise is in this crisis? And impact investing?

The silver lining is a lot of entrepreneurs are born in a time of crisis. A lot of social enterprises can start to solve the needs they identify, in the same way that some organizations started during the 2008 financial crisis. There’s an opportunity for people to step up and solve some of these underlying problems that are on the horizon for so many Americans.

My hope is that impact investing can rise to the challenge of supporting entrepreneurs who are looking to meet these needs.

Speak Your Mind

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Get in Touch

350FansLike
100FollowersFollow
281FollowersFollow
150FollowersFollow

Recommend for You

Oh hi there 👋
It’s nice to meet you.

Subscribe and receive our weekly newsletter packed with awesome articles that really matters to you!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

You might also like

Employee Health: Why Support Is Critical for Worker Retention

Employee health and well-being are probably one the most important things to take care...

RBI to Set Up Innovation Hub for Finance Sector

A worker walks past the logo of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) inside its...

Exclusive: Chevron To Lay Off About 25% Of Noble...

Chevron Corp will lay off about 25% of Noble Energy’s employees who joined the...

Reversing Course Ahead Of Election, Trump Extends Drilling Ban...

JUPITER, Fla.: U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to extend a...