“This Is Us Lending to Us”: How HCCI Built a Million-Dollar Lending Circle in Harlem

Partner Spotlight: Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI)

When Rev. Dr. Charles Butler first heard about Lending Circles, he didn’t wait for the presentation to end.

“I went right to the front,” he recalls. “I said, ‘I need this program. This is exactly what we’ve been missing.’”

That moment set off what would become a decade of credit-building in Harlem. Today, Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement (HCCI) has circulated more than $1 million through Lending Circles, the first MAF partner to reach that milestone.

Harlem Has Always Had Its Own Systems

HCCI was founded in 1986 to invest in Harlem’s revitalization from within. Over the decades, the organization has developed more than 4,000 affordable housing units and built programs in workforce development, financial education, and homebuyer preparation. Dr. Butler has been part of that work throughout.

His focus has always been homeownership, getting people there, one barrier at a time. The barriers he kept running into were familiar: insufficient savings and thin or damaged credit. What frustrated him wasn’t that residents lacked financial skill. Many were already practicing their own forms of cooperative saving, traditions like susu, rooted in West African and Caribbean communities, where members pool money and take turns receiving a lump sum. The practice is disciplined, consistent, and built on mutual accountability. The problem was that none of it showed up in a credit report.

“The issue wasn’t behavior. It was recognition.” — Rev. Dr. Charles Butler

A Familiar Practice, Made Visible

Lending Circles offered a way to close that gap. The model formalizes what communities already do: participants contribute money on a fixed schedule and receive a lump sum in turn. What changes is that each payment gets reported to the credit bureaus.

“It’s structured, and it’s reported. So it raises visibility.” — Dr. Butler

Lending Circles don’t teach people how to manage money, they make visible what people are already doing, and connect it to the systems that determine access to housing, credit, and opportunity. Dr. Butler recognized something in the model that aligned with Harlem’s history of Ujamaa, the principle of cooperative economics that has long guided how the community cares for itself.

It took nearly two years of partnership-building before HCCI officially launched Lending Circles in 2015. Dr. Butler wanted to get it right. He understood what was being asked of participants: consistency, accountability, and trust in an unfamiliar institution. HCCI’s credibility was on the line, and so was residents’ money.

Since then, more than 80 Lending Circles have formed across Harlem.

From 480 to Over 700

The homeownership pathway is where Dr. Butler has seen the clearest results. HCCI’s homebuyer education classes regularly bring together 35 to 40 residents at a time. Lending Circles became a natural companion, a way to address credit barriers while residents were already focused on their financial futures.

One story has stayed with him.

A participant came in with a credit score of 480. Dr. Butler was skeptical. “I didn’t even want to put her in the program,” he admits. “I thought she was too much of a risk.”

She joined anyway. Then a second circle. Over time, her score climbed past 700. She became one of HCCI’s most vocal advocates, telling everyone she knew.

Her experience is common, not exceptional. Thirty-five Harlem residents have used Lending Circles as part of their path to becoming first-time homeowners. Others have used the program to pay down debt, return to school, or start small businesses. On average, participants see their credit scores increase by 30 to 40 points with many gaining significantly more.

Collectively, Harlem residents have saved nearly $185,000 in fees and interest, money that stayed in the community instead of going to high-cost lenders.

Growth Through Word of Mouth

HCCI doesn’t advertise Lending Circles. The program spreads the way trust does: person to person. Participants tell their siblings. Parents and children join circles together. Neighbors recommend it after homebuyer workshops. The program found its way into churches and community events without a marketing budget.

Dr. Butler remembers one call from a woman whose friend had told her about the program. The first thing she said: “It’s real. It’s not a scam.”

That credibility isn’t built through outreach. The performance data backs it up: despite serving participants navigating real financial instability, HCCI’s missed payment rate is just 4.9%. The accountability inside each circle, the shared commitment between participants, is what makes that possible.

A Milestone Built Over Ten Years

Reaching $1 million in Lending Circle volume didn’t happen quickly. It took ten years of circles forming, participants showing up month after month, and a community organization that made this program central to its work.

Lending Circles now appears in HCCI’s grant proposals and long-term strategy. “Funders respond to the proven outcomes,” Dr. Butler says. But the more important audience is Harlem itself. When residents see their neighbors buying homes, building credit, and talking about Lending Circles at community events, the program carries its own momentum.

For MAF, HCCI’s milestone reflects what the partner network was built to make possible: organizations with deep local trust using the Lending Circles infrastructure to drive real outcomes in their communities. The technology handles the reporting and compliance. The relationship between HCCI and its participants handles the rest.

Growing the Circle

Dr. Butler is already thinking about what comes next. He sees opportunities to bring Lending Circles to small business owners and to younger residents who are starting to learn about credit for the first time. He wants to reach more people who are one step away from homeownership but not quite there yet.

The core idea doesn’t change.

“This is community lending. This is us lending to us.” — Dr. Butler

In Harlem, that has always been true. What Lending Circles make possible is for it to count.

Interested in bringing Lending Circles to your community? Learn how you can become a partner and help residents build credit through systems rooted in community trust.