Sunny Day Fund: Helping the Entire Workplace Thrive With Emergency Savings

Sunny Day Fund was founded on a simple premise: When employers invest in the financial stability of their workforce, the entire organization thrives. The company is committed to powering financial health for all through a foundation of emergency savings, helping workers weather unexpected expenses while also strengthening workforce retention, productivity, and confidence.

Sunny Day Fund makes saving easy through payroll-deducted savings and employer- or foundation-funded rewards to encourage consistent contributions. Savers can also access complementary services like financial coaching, rent reporting, and credit-building tools, which meet people wherever they are on their financial health journey.

The idea behind Sunny Day Fund comes directly from the founders’ own experiences with financial vulnerability: unexpected costs, income shocks, and major life events without the savings to handle them. After thousands of conversations with workers across the country, they saw a pattern emerge: People lacked even a small financial cushion to absorb surprise expenses, and employers had a unique opportunity to help.

Sunny Day Fund set out to build a scalable, workplace-based savings program that could strengthen day-to-day stability and long-term financial confidence across income levels. Early participation in the Financial Health Network’s Financial Solutions Lab served as a pivotal turning point. 

As part of the 2022 cohort for the Financial Solutions Lab’s Accelerator program, which supported fintechs building financial health solutions for low- to-moderate-income people and other underserved communities, Sunny Day Fund received mentorship, peer support, and access to impact frameworks. Those resources helped the new company refine its product-market fit and clarified its role within the greater financial health ecosystem. Building on that foundation, Sunny Day Fund entered the marketplace determined to show how emergency savings programs could be a win-win for businesses and workers alike. Critically, the program’s access to the Financial Health Network’s wide ecosystem of partners helped Sunny Day Fund move from proof-of-concept to meaningful growth.

Sunny Day Fund launched its paycheck-deducted, employer-rewarded emergency savings program to help employees prepare for short- and medium-term needs. When enrolled in the program, a portion of an employee’s income is routed automatically to a brand new, high-yield savings account at Portage Bank, Member FDIC, removing traditional barriers to banking or creating a new savings account. Over time, they can earn cash rewards funded by employers or foundations for staying on track. The Sunny Day Fund team focused on employee resilience as a core metric—helping people establish accessible savings to handle unexpected expenses without derailing their lives.

To build and refine the platform, Sunny Day Fund first partnered with small and mid-sized employers and relied on direct feedback from its “Savers” to shape product design. As early results showed meaningful impact, the company expanded to large enterprise employers.

The early days were not easy. While a few innovative businesses were tapping into the power of employer-sponsored savings through programs like BlackRock’s Emergency Savings Initiative, some employers and investors still questioned whether emergency savings programs could truly move the needle. Technologists underestimated the integrations required for a seamless user experience. Financial institutions serving as employee benefits custodians tended to focus on loan-based solutions for workers already in distress, instead of products to help them proactively save. To complicate matters further, the regulatory environment kept changing. Sunny Day Fund’s team jokingly called themselves “mission-delusional”—a nod to their determination in the face of skepticism.

Sunny Day Fund also found that many employers assumed the only benefits were healthcare and retirement that were important to workers, a belief reinforced by tax incentive structures. Other employers relied solely on financial education as the main savings intervention, overlooking the need for practical paycheck-linked tools that help workers save.

For Sunny Day Fund, demonstrating a clear return on investment—for both employees and employers—became essential.

While emergency savings are often framed as a tool for crisis moments, Sunny Day Fund data reveal that when workers tap into their savings, they’re addressing the practical realities of everyday life.

Top Withdrawal Reasons by Frequency

Source: Data provided by Sunny Day Fund 2025 Saver Metrics.

Sunny Day Fund’s early participation in the Financial Solutions Lab offered critical guidance, from mentorship to product strategy to impact measurement. Support from partners like Prudential helped the company establish a benefits consultant channel, increasing access to employer markets nationwide. 

Today, Sunny Day Fund continues to collaborate closely with the Financial Health Network’s Workplace team, using tools like the FinHealth Score® and Pulse data to measure outcomes and demonstrate program impact. Other partnerships forged through Sunny Day Fund’s relationship with the Financial Health Network ecosystem have been equally transformative: 

• • FinFit helps workers who lack immediate savings capacity avoid harmful debt, creating a pathway toward savings tools like Sunny Day Fund. 
  • Manifest supports the smooth transition between starting or exiting a job—two critical touchpoints that complement Sunny Day Fund’s focus on consistent engagement. 

Looking ahead, Sunny Day Fund is focused on centralizing complementary financial solutions—from coaching to rent reporting to credit building—into one integrated experience. Rather than layering AI onto external data, the team is building new data infrastructure from the ground up to better understand and serve workers’ needs.

At every step, the company stays rooted in its core belief: Businesses have a responsibility and opportunity to invest in workers’ financial lives. By working with supportive partners, employers have the power to create scalable, sustainable pathways to financial health.