A social impact expert for Lyft shares her advice for helping during a crisis: Giving cash might be the best option, even if it's not 'sexy'

• Joan Hanawi has a cool tech job: She's a social impact manager at Lyft.
• Hanawi helps Lyft decide how to give back to local communities. She helped create Lyft's Jobs Access program, which gives people access to transportation, with the intention of putting them on a path of upward mobility.
• Now that Lyft, and Hanawi with it, has focused some of its efforts on coronavirus crisis response, Hanawi has one piece of advice for people trying to help right now: Accept that doing something that's not "sexy," like giving cash, might just be the best option.
• Hanawi shared her outlook on the role the tech industry should have in giving back and a silver lining of working during the crisis: seeing the human side of coworkers "outside of the conference calls and the meetings."

This article is part of Business Insider's series Coolest Jobs in Tech, which highlights people who work in unusual, exciting, or futuristic roles in the tech industry. It provides an inside look at a day in the life.

Joan Hanawi is familiar with the overwhelming feeling of wanting to do something to help people, especially during this time of crisis.

Hanawi, 27, is a social impact manager for Lyft, which means she spends her days working on ways Lyft can help solve problems in local communities. When the coronavirus outbreak began spreading rapidly in the US in March, Lyft found avenues to help, like by providing free scooter rides for healthcare workers and first responders and by setting up a grocery delivery service, both of which Hanawi worked on.

But one of the challenges of being in a position to help during the crisis is the feeling of not knowing the best way to be useful. Hanawi's advice: Accept that giving cash might just be the best option.

"Money is not something that people get excited about, they want to be hands-on and put together a care package," Hanawi said. "But you might not be able to do that with social distancing. So how do you support from where you are? How can you help behind the scenes and do the stuff that's not sexy, that's not glamorous?"

Business Insider talked to Hanawi about what Lyft's philosophy on helping communities, the role the tech industry should have in giving back, and a silver lining of working during the crisis.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What's one story you could share that highlights why you love what you do? What's one change you helped make at Lyft, or in the world more broadly?

One of the programs that I've had the privilege of leading and working on from start to finish has been our Jobs Access program. That was something that launched late last fall, around October of 2019. This program is very simple: It's, "What transportation do you need to get to work? What transportation solution actually unlocks opportunities that put someone on a path where there's mobility, where there is upward movement?"

We have about 10 to 20 partners specifically focused on Jobs Access ... and these local partners help us identify the individual need and then hand out the ride codes to their cohorts to get to their specific use cases, provide the wraparound services. Because we know you can't just hand someone a ride code and say, "Good luck finding a job."

What's been the biggest change for you and your role amid this crisis, and how have you adapted to that new reality?

It feels like so much has changed, and at the same time, nothing has changed. Right now, we're seeing that there are transportation gaps caused by COVID-19. I think that the biggest change is that everything has kind of pivoted to be under the scope of disaster-response. Many of the Jobs Access partners, they've now pivoted ... to meet the needs of their constituents who need a ride to the grocery store. They might not need a ride to work right now because they're working from home — they still do need to get food.

What do you think the tech industry's role is in helping local communities and giving back to society?

One of the things that I've loved seeing shift in the social impact space probably over the last decade or so is this attention to: "What are everyone's core super-powers? What are everyone's core products or core abilities and how do we lean into that?" It's like, as a transportation company, we should be leaning into where there are transportation needs.

Do you have any advice for other companies or for individuals looking to make a difference right now?

I think it's really easy to feel daunted — like, what is out there and how do I even tackle it? It seems like such an overwhelming problem, but breaking it down into those digestible chunks: If I know that an organization I love and support is in need of financial support and that's honestly what they need right now, do I have extra dollars that I can donate? I don't always have to be the hero, showing up in person, being the face of something.

Walk me through your morning routine. What's a typical day?

I have learned to draw better boundaries for myself and I think that's really important. One thing about working during the COVID times is people are forced to be like, "Oh sorry, like my baby is crying" or "I need to feed my dog." You get that human portrait of who someone is outside of the conference calls and the meetings and all of that.

That's been something I've been trying to adopt as well: I am pretty sacred about my mornings. I do not like taking morning meetings because I like to have that time to get outside, get some fresh air, and set myself up for the day.
So I will typically block 8 to 10:00 a.m. on my calendar and try as hard as I can to ask people to respect that for no meetings so I can just get focused and approach the day correctly.

How do you make time for yourself? What are some ways you unwind and stop thinking about work?

We've been attuned to think that not working or not being productive is a bad thing, when actually, when you're having those moments of leisure, that's when you are inspired. That's when you have space to think. A lot of time, after I've taken the time to cook, do a puzzle, hang out with my partner, stuff that's like just soul-enriching, now I have that light bulb moment because I've actually had the space to think about it. I'm not bogged down by the fast-paced nature of emails and Slack messages and Cal invites and all of that.

Do you work in a unique role in the tech industry? Do you want to tell us about it? Contact the author at ahartmans@businessinsider.com.