Help and careers · Assistance · 35 resources, every link checked 7 September 2026

The search is one part of losing a job.

The rest of it is the electric bill, the prescription, and the coverage that ends at the end of the month. Rolespect does not provide any of that. These are the organizations that do. Every link goes to the program itself, opens in a new tab, and says what it costs before you click.

Start here Money coming in Food Health coverage Prescriptions When it is not only the money Bills, phone and internet Training while you search For nonprofit staff

Search these 35 resources

Nothing to sign up forNo form on this page, no email asked for, nothing gated behind an address.

No affiliate linksNobody paid to be here and nothing on this page earns a referral fee.

Checked, and checked againEvery link was opened on 7 September 2026. A checker walks all 35 again before each deploy.

What is deliberately not here. Severance, contracts, discrimination, wrongful termination, and anything else that turns on the law. Those questions are real and they matter, and answering them takes a lawyer licensed in your state. Rolespect is not one and will not play one. The same rule that keeps this app from inventing a line on your resume keeps it from telling you what to sign.

Start here

One place that knows what your county has.

Assistance is mostly local and it changes by county. These three find what exists where you are, which is the question everything else depends on.

211 Local help with food, rent, utilities, healthcare, mental health and transportation, found by ZIP code or by phone at 211. FreeNo account Best for: You need help and do not know who provides it. What is available depends on where you live. A call gets you further than the website in most counties. Open in a new tab Community Action Agencies Find the community action agency serving your county. These are the local offices that administer energy assistance, emergency rent help and a great deal else. FreeNo account Best for: You want the office that actually holds the money, not a referral to one. Nearly every county has one and almost nobody knows the name. Search by ZIP. They are usually the fastest route to emergency assistance. Open in a new tab USAGov Benefit Finder The same idea in plainer English, run by the government office whose job is plain English. FreeNo account Best for: Benefits.gov felt like a form and you want the shorter version. Covers federal programs. State and county help is on 211. Open in a new tab

Money coming in

File the week it happens.

Unemployment insurance is run by your state, not by the federal government, so there is no national application. Benefits are usually paid from the date you file and not from the date you lost the job.

Unemployment Benefits Finder Pick your state and it sends you to that state official unemployment office. FreeNo account Best for: Filing a claim. Run by the Department of Labor. It is the shortest path to the right state site and it stays current when a state moves its pages. Open in a new tab Unemployment benefits, plain English What unemployment insurance is, who is generally eligible, and what a claim asks for. FreeNo account Best for: You have never filed and want to know what you are walking into. General. Your state sets the actual rules, the amount and the weeks. Open in a new tab American Job Centers Find the public workforce center near you. Career counseling, resume help, training money and in person assistance filing a claim. FreeNo account Best for: You want a person rather than a portal. Funded federally, staffed locally. Quality varies by center. Walk in hours are usually shorter than the posted hours. Open in a new tab

Food

Food help early, not last.

Most people wait until the refrigerator is empty. Food banks do not means test at the door in most of the country, and SNAP takes up to thirty days to arrive, which is the reason to apply before you need it.

SNAP by state The official application portal and phone number for every state SNAP program. FreeNo account to browse Best for: Applying for food benefits. Eligibility is set by your state and counts household size and income. Losing a job changes both. Apply even if you were over the line last month. Open in a new tab Find your food bank The Feeding America network locator. Two hundred food banks and the pantries and distributions they supply. FreeNo account Best for: You need food this week. Call the food bank rather than driving to it. Food banks supply pantries. The pantry near you is the place with the groceries. Open in a new tab National Hunger Hotline A USDA funded line that refers you to emergency food providers and federal programs, in English and Spanish. FreeNo account Best for: The locator returned nothing useful for your area. Staffed weekdays. Outside those hours the page lists what is open. Open in a new tab Emergency food assistance The government summary of every federal food program and who each one is for. FreeNo account Best for: Working out which program fits your household. A directory, not an application. Every program links out to its own. Open in a new tab WIC Food, formula and nutrition support for pregnant and postpartum women, infants and children under five. FreeNo account Best for: There is a young child or a pregnancy in the household. Income limits are higher than most people assume, and a job loss usually brings a household inside them. Open in a new tab Flashfood Groceries near their sell by date, sold through the app at a steep discount and picked up at the store. Costs moneyAccount required Best for: You have some money and want it to go further. A company, not assistance. It only works at partner grocery chains, so check whether any store near you is on it before counting on it. Open in a new tab

Health coverage

The clock on coverage is shorter than the clock on the search.

Losing employer coverage opens a special enrollment period, and it closes. Sixty days is the common window. Missing it means waiting for open enrollment.

Coverage after a job loss The official marketplace page for people who just lost coverage, including what a drop in income does to the subsidy. Free to useAccount to enroll Best for: Your plan ended or is about to. A lower income usually means a much larger subsidy. Estimate your income for the year ahead, not the one behind you. Open in a new tab Special enrollment period What qualifies you to enroll outside open enrollment and how long you have. FreeNo account to read Best for: Working out whether your window is still open. The window usually runs sixty days from the day coverage ends. You can often enroll before it ends, which avoids a gap. Open in a new tab Medicaid and CHIP by state How to apply for Medicaid and CHIP, and the route to the agency that runs it in your state. FreeNo account Best for: Income dropped to zero or close to it. Medicaid counts current monthly income in most states, so a household can qualify the month after a layoff and not the month before. Apply through your state even if you were over the line last year. Open in a new tab Find a health center Federally qualified health centers, which charge on a sliding scale based on income and see patients without insurance. Sliding scaleNo account Best for: You need care now and have no coverage. Ask for the sliding fee scale by name when you call. It is not always offered. Open in a new tab COBRA, and what it costs What continuing your employer plan actually costs, set beside a marketplace plan, from the marketplace itself. Free to readNo account Best for: You are mid treatment and changing plans would break it. Free to read and expensive to use. You pay the whole premium plus an administrative charge, usually far more than a marketplace plan with a subsidy. You can drop COBRA later, but that does not open a special enrollment period, so compare before you elect. Open in a new tab

Prescriptions

The same drug has several prices.

Cash price, insurance price, coupon price and manufacturer program price are four different numbers for one medication. Check before you pay the first one.

NeedyMeds A nonprofit database of patient assistance programs, manufacturer programs, free and low cost clinics and diagnostic help. FreeNo account Best for: An expensive brand name drug with no generic. The manufacturer programs it lists are the deepest discounts available and almost nobody knows they exist. Open in a new tab GoodRx Compares the cash price of a prescription across pharmacies near you and gives you a discount code to bring in. Free to look upNo account to search Best for: A generic you fill every month. A company. It earns a fee on the discount, and it sells a paid membership you do not need for the basic price check. Open in a new tab Cost Plus Drugs A mail order pharmacy that publishes what it pays for a generic and adds a fixed markup and a fee. Costs moneyAccount required Best for: A maintenance generic you can wait a few days for. Generics only, and not every one. It is mail order, so it does not solve a prescription you need today. Open in a new tab

When it is not only the money

Losing a job hits harder than the budget does.

Identity, sleep, and the part where you stop telling people. That is ordinary and it is not a character flaw. If you want someone to talk to, these are the ways in that do not require insurance.

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Call or text 988 from anywhere in the United States, any hour, and reach a trained counselor. FreeNo account Best for: A hard night. You do not have to be in crisis to use it. Chat, text and phone all reach the same network. There is a Spanish line and a veterans line. Open in a new tab FindTreatment.gov The federal locator for mental health and substance use treatment, filtered by what you can pay. Free to searchNo account Best for: You want ongoing care rather than a call. Filter for sliding scale and for facilities that take clients without insurance. Both filters are there and easy to miss. Open in a new tab Open Path Collective A nonprofit network of therapists who see members at a reduced session rate. Low cost, not freeAccount required Best for: You want a regular therapist and cannot pay the going rate. A one time membership fee, then a reduced rate per session. It is built for people without adequate insurance. Availability depends on therapists near you. Open in a new tab

Bills, phone and internet

You cannot run a search without a phone number.

Call the utility before the bill is late, not after. Hardship and deferred payment programs exist at almost every provider and almost none of them advertise it.

Lifeline A federal program that discounts phone or internet service for qualifying households. Free to applyAccount required Best for: Keeping the number an employer will call. One benefit per household. Participation in SNAP or Medicaid usually qualifies you, which means a layoff can make you eligible. Open in a new tab Help with utility bills The federal programs that pay part of a heating, cooling, water or phone bill, and how to reach the office in your state that runs each one. FreeNo account Best for: A past due electric, gas or water bill. LIHEAP money runs through states and local agencies, and applications close when the money runs out. Early in the season matters more than the paperwork does. Open in a new tab HUD housing counselor Free counseling from a HUD approved agency on rent, mortgage, and what to do when you cannot make the payment. FreeNo account Best for: Housing is the bill you are worried about. Counseling and referral, not money. Agencies are local and usually know the emergency rental programs your county actually funds. Open in a new tab

Training while you search

Free training that is actually free.

A free trial is not free and a certificate you pay to download is not free. Everything here is free to finish. Where an account is required, the card says so.

Apprenticeship.gov Registered apprenticeships, which pay a wage while you train, searchable by trade and location. Free, and it paysNo account to search Best for: Changing fields and needing income during the change. Not only the building trades. Healthcare, IT and manufacturing programs are on it too. Open in a new tab Local training finder Training programs near you, including the ones federal workforce money will pay for. Free to searchNo account Best for: You want a credential and cannot pay tuition. Take the results to an American Job Center. The funding decision is made there, not on this site. Open in a new tab Khan Academy A nonprofit teaching math, statistics, economics, computing and test prep from the ground up. FreeAccount optional Best for: Rebuilding a skill you need and have not used in years. No certificate at the end. It is for learning the thing, not for proving it. Open in a new tab Microsoft Learn Full training paths for Excel, Power BI, Azure and the rest of the stack, written by the company that makes them. Free to learnAccount required Best for: An office skill a posting asked for by name. The learning is free. The certification exam is not, and you do not need the exam to put the skill on a resume honestly. Do not claim the certificate you did not sit for. Open in a new tab Salesforce Trailhead Hands on Salesforce training with a free practice environment and badges that employers recognize. FreeAccount required Best for: Any role that touches a CRM, which is most of them now. The badges are free. The certifications are separate and cost money. Open in a new tab HubSpot Academy Free courses and certificates in marketing, sales, service and CRM basics. FreeAccount required Best for: A communications, development or sales adjacent role. The certificates are genuinely free to earn and download. Expect marketing email once you have an account. Open in a new tab

For nonprofit staff

The sector runs on grant cycles, not quarters.

A nonprofit position often ends because a grant ended, which means the date was on a calendar somewhere long before anyone told you. It also means the next employer is looking at the same funding math. Three things here that the app does not do for you, and then a page that goes much further than a list of links can.

Idealist The largest nonprofit job board in the country, with volunteer and internship listings alongside paid roles. FreeAccount optional Best for: A broad search across the sector. Volume is the strength and the weakness. Filter hard, and expect listings that are open long after they were filled. Open in a new tab ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer Every filed Form 990 for every registered nonprofit, searchable and free, including revenue, reserves and what the leadership is paid. FreeNo account Best for: Deciding whether an employer can pay you and will still exist in two years. Filings run one to two years behind. Read the trend across three years, not one number, and look at months of reserve rather than revenue. Open in a new tab State associations of nonprofits The state association for your state. Most run a job board, and most of them are not aggregated anywhere else. Free to browseNo account Best for: A local search that the national boards miss. This is where small and midsize organizations post first. A few states have no association yet. Open in a new tab

Rolespect already searches the boards. Scout ships with six general sites an assistant can read, and the nonprofit boards, Idealist, Foundation List, Chronicle of Philanthropy and the rest, are one press each in your profile. So there is no reason for this page to carry a second copy of that list. Idealist is above for the person who found this page and has not opened the app yet.

Thinking about the sector rather than one posting?

Nine families of nonprofit work, 32 role profiles, the associations and conferences where each function gathers, the pro bono routes that build sector experience without leaving your field, and a straight answer on where a degree actually moves a hiring decision.

Nonprofit careers, explained The 32 role profiles

How this page is kept

A links page is a promise that the links work.

Government pages move. One of the links above moved between the day it was chosen and the day this page shipped, which is the whole argument. So the build checks them.

✓Every one of the 35 links is opened before a deploy. A page that has gone missing stops the deploy.
✓Finders are preferred over destinations. One link to find your state unemployment office survives fifty state redesigns.
✓Federal programs and national nonprofits are preferred over anything venture funded, because they are still here in three years.
✗Nothing is listed because it paid to be, and nothing here pays this site.

Found a dead link, or something that belongs here? The About page has the way to reach me.

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Rolespect checks whether a posting is real, scores whether the role earns your evening, and tells you plainly when to pass. Free, no account, and your record stays in your browser.

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