Mission & History
The Mission Asset Fund (MAF) is a San Francisco nonprofit organization working to expand access to financial services, savings, and investment opportunities for low-income and working poor families. Established in 2007 with seed funding from the Levi Strauss Foundation, our organization quickly emerged as a leader in the immigrant integration and economic development field due to our innovative, successful and cutting edge asset-building strategies. Rooted in empirical research, MAF’s culturally-tailored asset-building models demonstrate a solid record of achievement in helping low-income and immigrant populations build assets, transition to the financial mainstream, and actualize a more secure economic future.
MAF’s work is significant because it pioneers unprecedented, impactful models for addressing the financial and economic needs of immigrants, working poor and low-income families. With programs ranging from our signature Cestas Populares (peer lending circles) to our proprietary La RED | Matching People to Resources online application, our organization has improved the financial capability over 500 residents in San Francisco’s Mission District in a very short period of time. With MAF’s assistance, these individuals have opened bank accounts at mainstream financial institutions, improved their financial capability, built their savings, and responsibly leveraged credit to invest in homes, education and small businesses. As a result of MAF’s programs, participants accessed $500,000 in peer loans, saved an estimated $200,000 in loan fees and interest, and saved $200,000 in matched savings.
Our organization also advances the asset-building field using other innovative methods. With funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, MAF conducted groundbreaking research study in 2009 that analyzed financial immigrant integration issues. In a separate study, MAF unveiled the costs and dynamics of borrowing from various financial service providers in the Mission District, and presented new tools for reducing predatory lending and improving the ability of consumers to make healthy decisions. In addition, MAF is a founding member of Plaza Adelante, a multi-agency, one-stop service delivery center that offers financial empowerment, home ownership and microenterprise development services to Latino families.
Nationally recognized for our asset-building innovations, MAF is poised for expansion. The next step in our evolution will be to help greater numbers of people achieve the path to financial security. This will be accomplished by replicating our proven, proprietary peer lending and resource matching models in communities beyond San Francisco’s Mission District. By entering into contract and licensing agreements with community-based organizations, this new model will generate revenue to sustain our work in the Mission District, with a projected sum of $150,000 of our 2011 operating budget anticipated to come from fee-based services. Through these efforts, MAF will once again pioneer an ambitious new, resource-efficient strategy to broaden our reach into new communities and help significant numbers of low-income people to build brighter, more stable economic futures.
