Our Story
Canary is a female-founded startup led by Rachel Schneider, who set out to develop an innovative workplace solution to improve the 21st-century social safety net.
It started nearly a decade ago when Rachel and a team of researchers went door-to-door across America to conduct research for her book, The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty. This experience exposed the complex financial realities of American families, how important emergency cash can be, and an opportunity to make the workplace a ubiquitous part of the solution.
So, she gathered a team to create Grant Circle: a nimble, responsive emergency relief fund solution designed to support the financial well-being of the modern workforce. In the years since, Canary has leveraged Grant Circle to help community foundations, private equity firms, and philanthropic donors deliver emergency payments to their communities.
Our Mission
Canary’s technology and services enable our clients (including employers, nonprofits, and others) to give individuals money at pivotal moments in their lives, with dignity and efficiency. We connect the latest technology and payments innovations to the innate and enduring human desire to help each other.
We believe that the right money at the right time matters: it gives people the peace of mind and confidence to recover from emergencies and to invest in their futures.
A Canary in the coal mine for employee financial wellness
The “canary in the coal mine” was an innovative early warning system that let coal miners know there was danger in the air, giving them the time to escape safely.
We chose the name Canary because we aim to do the same for modern day workers by connecting the latest technology and payments innovations to the innate and enduring human desire to help each other. The core tenants of this work are:
- Protecting Workers: Charitable payments help address employee financial stress before it escalates into larger problems.
- Identifying Workplace Trends: Data on the usage of a companies employee relief fund can help identify underlying issues that cause employee financial stress.
Carried by community
Canary’s innovative fintech roots are a credit to the crucial work of financial health experts Kimberly Gartner and Aliza Gutman. Alongside Rachel, their work began as a research project to learn how technology could help close the gap between people experiencing financial hardship and their access money to help them recover.
However, without a strong community of supporters, investors, and advisors their idea would have remained aspirational.
Canary is grateful for the inspiration, advice, and support provided by these organizations and leaders to guide the conversation around employee financial wellness and its influence on the future of work. We are particularly thankful for our partnership with The Worker’s Lab, our original fiscal sponsor for managing emergency relief funds administered by the Grant Circle.
The people
Rachel Schneider
Founder & CEO
Kimberly Gartner
Advisor
Aliza Gutman
Advisor
Angela Cheng-Cimini
Advisor & CHRO at Harvard Business Publishing
The Supporters
The investors
Our grounding values
Make a Difference
We are wildly ambitious in our desire to be helpful to the individuals and organizations we serve. We strive for meaningful change through generosity, dignity, and interconnectedness.
Embrace Growth
We are flexible and adaptive. We have high standards for ourselves, and celebrate our growth toward meeting them.
Center Empathy
We want to be authentically ourselves, and we want that for others too. We know empathy and mutual trust are what make that possible.
Financial security for all, regardless of background
At Canary, we aim to connect sources of money to individuals who need financial help at pivotal moments in their lives. Central to this work is recognizing that, as a result of racial and gender wealth gaps, people of color and women are more likely to need help recovering from emergencies. We believe strengthening individuals’ financial safety net is a crucial piece of advancing equity in the workplace and beyond. We work with clients, including employers, community foundations, and philanthropic partners to sponsor emergency relief funds that provide equitable access to charitable grants to every individual in every community our product serves.
Additionally, we know diverse ideas, perspectives, and backgrounds are the backbone of a creative, empathetic team that drives meaningful change. This led Rachel Schneider, our founder and CEO, to spend time with Rhonda Moret of Elevated Diversity to develop DEI policies and best practices. Their conversations inspired our team to come together, discuss how we value diversity, and create an inclusive hiring plan. In this work and beyond, we are committed to building and supporting a diverse workforce in order to bring our mission to life.
Ready to give your community the financial support they need?
Set time with Canary’s team to see how Canary can help you implement an easy, dignified solution for employees to request and receive support when they need it most.
