MAF was a Gamble from Day One.

We started our work 15 years ago in a small office on the second floor of a local cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District. Our vision then – as it is today – was to help improve the financial lives of people pushed aside and left behind without access to the most basic of financial tools like checking accounts or credit scores. Without such tools, how can we expect people to materially improve their financial lives? 

Since then, MAF has put the best of technology and finance to serve our clients, allowing us to scale our work nationally. Now, low income immigrant families all across the country are accessing MAF’s programs to help put food on the table, pay rent, launch their small business, and even to apply for citizenship or gain protective status to allow them to work and live without fear of deportation. We have delivered more than 92,000 grants and loans to immigrants, people of color, and low-income families to improve their financial lives with higher credit scores, bigger savings, and smaller debts. 

MAF’s financial services work because they are rooted in the lives of the people we serve. While we have much to celebrate – and we did just that this past October to mark MAF’s Quinceñera – there is still more work to be done. 

In 2023, we are diving deeper in our research of the 5,000 participants in the largest guaranteed income program for immigrant families. We are expanding small business loans to help clients access credit to recover faster. And we’re improving our tech infrastructure to build and scale our work even further. 

MAF is dramatically different than when we first started our work in the Mission. What has not changed is our community-centered approach to financial security and social change. Our clients are at the center of all that we do. They inform and inspire how we show up to build a better future together. For our true power is always in each other. 

Read our 2022 Annual Report to learn more about MAF and the work to come.