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Wealth inequality and new Americans

Written by José Quiñonez on .


The racial wealth gap is real, and it’s growing. But where do immigrants fit into this analysis?

This post first appeared on the Aspen Institute’s blog. It was written by MAF’s CEO José A. Quiñonez in preparation for a panel on the Racial Wealth Gap at the Aspen Institute’s 2017 Summit on Inequality and Opportunity. 

Here’s what we know about wealth inequality in America today: It’s real, it’s huge, and it’s growing. Barring substantial policy change, it would take 228 years for black households to catch up to white households’ wealth, and 84 years for Latinxs to do the same. This matters because wealth is a safety net. Without that cushion, too many families live just one job loss, illness, or divorce away from financial ruin.

Here’s another thing we know: Contrary to popular opinion, wealth inequality between racial groups did not come about because one group of people didn’t work hard enough, or save enough, or make savvy enough investment decisions than the other.

How did it come about, then? The short answer: history. Centuries of slavery and the bitter decades of legal segregation laid the groundwork. Discriminatory laws and policies against people of color made things worse. The G.I. Bill of 1944, for example, helped white families buy homes, attend college, and accumulate wealth. People of color were largely excluded from these asset-building opportunities.

Today’s racial wealth divide is the financial legacy of our country’s long history of institutionalized racism.

The factor of time is, in some ways, foundational to these findings. Sociologists, economists, and journalists alike all underscore how the racial wealth gap was created and exacerbated over time. But when it comes to the question of new Americans—the millions of us who have joined this nation in recent decades—time often gets glossed over in racial wealth gap conversations.

Immigrants’ creative survival strategies and rich cultural and social resources could help inform better policy interventions.

Reports generally illustrate the racial wealth gap by, understandably, placing the average wealth of different racial groups side by side and observing the gaping chasm that divides them. For example, in 2012, the average white household owned $13 in wealth for every dollar owned by black households, and $10 in wealth for every dollar owned by Latinx households. This story matters. There is no denying that. But what might we learn from investigating wealth inequality with more attention to immigration?

A report by the Pew Research Center divided the population of adults in 2012 into three cohorts: first-generation (foreign-born), second-generation (US-born with at least one immigrant parent), and third-and-higher generation (two US-born parents).

Clearly different racial groups have very different American stories.

The vast majority of Latinxs and Asians are new Americans. Seventy percent of Latinx adults and 93 percent of Asian adults are either first- or second-generation Americans. In contrast, a mere 11 percent of white and 14 percent of black adults are in the same generational cohorts.

By comparison, the latter groups have been in the United States for much longer. And given their relatively comparable tenure in the US, it makes sense to place their data side by side.

But comparing the wealth of Latinxs—half of whom are first-generation Americans—to that of white families, 89 percent of whom have been in the US for many generations, seems to raise more questions than it answers.

Instead, we could add nuance and context to our analysis by measuring the differences in wealth between racial groups within generational cohorts; or by comparing members of different groups who share key demographic characteristics; or even better still, by measuring the financial impact of policy interventions within specific groups.

For example, we could investigate the financial trajectories of young immigrants after they received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012. Did they improve their income, build their savings, or even acquire appreciating assets, as compared with their peers?

We could go further back in time and explore what happened to the generation of immigrants who were granted amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). What did emergence from the shadows mean for their assets and wealth? How does their wealth compare with those who remained undocumented?

These contextual comparisons can give us space not just to quantify what’s missing from people’s lives, but also to discover what works.

Their creative survival strategies and rich cultural and social resources could help inform better policy interventions and program developments. Bringing the story of new Americans into our conversations about wealth inequality will deepen our understanding of these disparities and the distinct forms they take for different groups. That’s what we need to develop the bold policies and innovative programs needed to narrow the stark racial wealth divide we face today.

Lending Circles at the Brown Boi Project

Written by Elena Fairley on .


Building Credit & Confidence in LGBTQ Communities of Color

Carla’s first experience with a lending circle came long before she began working with Brown Boi Project, and long before she’d heard of MAF.She knew them as “cundinas,” and she first encountered them at the Los Angeles clothing factory where she started working as a teenager.

She and her coworkers formed the cundina to support each other in saving money. They each agreed to make a weekly contribution of $100.

It wasn’t an easy amount to save. Carla worked overtime to ensure she could make each payment. Eventually, she saved enough money through the cundina to finance a trip to Mexico, where much of her family was living.

Carla had taken the factory job knowing that her ultimate goal was to continue her education, and soon she enrolled in night classes at a local community college.

Money was tight, and the classes were expensive, so she took on heavy debt to finance her studies. She didn’t realize that she could have qualified for financial aid.

Shortly after beginning her studies, Carla suffered a back injury at work. Her employers stopped giving her hours, and she eventually went on disability and became a full-time student. She transferred to UC Santa Cruz, and a professor assisted her in applying for financial aid. Carla loved her coursework in Feminist Studies and Sociology, but the burden of her growing debt lurked in the background. She began skirting calls from debt collectors. She scraped by this way for years.

She spiraled deeper into debt. Her strong credit score of 720 plummeted, dipping below 500.

From Cundinas to Lending Circles

Shortly after graduating from college, Carla came across an job opening announcement with Brown Boi Project, an Oakland nonprofit that brings together masculine-of-center womyn, men, two-spirit people, transmen and allies to change the ways communities of color talk about gender.

She knew right away – this job was for her. Brown Boi’s mission and values echoed her own identity and experience. She applied without hesitation. Competition was steep, with over 80 applicants vying for the position. But Carla was right about her fit for the role. As she tells it, she and the staff at Brown Boi “just kicked it off well.”

She’d landed her dream job. But her debt and damaged credit continued to limit her.

She struggled to find housing in Oakland that would accept her low credit score. Fortunately, Carla had a friend who helped her find an apartment. But without a credit card, she couldn’t afford to furnish her new home.

“All of those things are so emotionally draining and stressful. I was feeling depressed. Your credit score can almost feel attached to your own worth.”

It was at Brown Boi that Carla learned about the Lending Circles program that MAF manages. She was familiar with the concept from her earlier experience with the cundinas. The promise of improving her credit score through participation lifted her spirit – she began to imagine the relief she would feel if her life were no longer controlled by debt, her options no longer curtailed by her credit score. After so many years of financial exclusion, Carla appreciated that Lending Circles were open to her regardless of her credit score.

Carla brought the same discipline and dedication to her Lending Circle that she had brought to the cundina years before. After Brown Boi became an official Lending Circles provider, Carla seized the opportunity to become the lead staff organizer for the program.

Carla finished her Lending Circle with 100% on-time payments. She paid down her debt and even managed to build up savings.

But despite her perfect track record, she was nervous to check her credit score. She had come to equate a credit score with feeling disheartened, discouraged, and stuck.

For almost a month after the Lending Circle ended, Carla delayed checking her credit. The same month Carla completed her Lending Circle, she was invited to attend a summit for innovators of color at the White House. She took herself suit shopping, comforted by the fact that she now had enough savings to cover the costs.

Carla found the perfect outfit: a grey suit with a red tie. At the register, the cashier offered her an application for the store credit card. Carla was accustomed to declining these offers, knowing she would likely not qualify. But this time, she applied.

And to her shock, she qualified.

“I qualified at a $500 limit! I was super surprised. I said, wait… What? I qualify?!”

Buoyed by this news, Carla finally pushed herself to check her credit score. She checked: it had risen 100 points to 650.

She paid off the store credit card and applied for a different card that offered airline miles. Again, she was approved – this time for a $5000 limit. Her next goal is save enough money to fly her mother to Europe next year.

What the Future Holds

Financial stability has transformed Carla’s outlook on life.

“I’m gonna be real,” she says. “I feel good. I have a credit card in case of emergency. I’m less stressed knowing that when I need the money, it’s there.” She adds, “I feel more grounded, like my life is coming back together.”

Carla feels passionate about starting more Lending Circles and encouraging more open conversations about financial exclusion with people of color in the LGBTQ community:

“There’s a lot of shame. It’s often taboo to talk about financial struggles in our community… Sometimes we think we don’t have these types of problems, but we do.”

She now keeps her spending under 25% of her credit limit and pays off the full balance of her cards each month. These skills are practical, but they have a larger significance to Carla. She sees financial education as a powerful way of mastering an economic system that so often excludes and disadvantages people of color and members of the LGBTQ community.

“No one has taught us how to play this game,” Carla explains. “But with financial education modules, we learn the rules.”

Sonia: A Future Chicago Homeowner

Written by Samhita Collur on .


Building Credit and Community through Lending Circles at The Resurrection Project

Sonia arrived in Chicago from Puerto Rico one year ago with hopes to turn over a new leaf. As a result of a difficult divorce, her credit report was dotted with blemishes.

A low credit score and considerable debt were keeping Sonia from accessing affordable loan options and achieving an important personal goal: purchasing a home.

In her search for a solution, Sonia discovered my organization, The Resurrection Project (TRP), in a local newspaper.  She learned that TRP provided Lending Circles and became interested in this opportunity to re-establish her credit—so much so that she didn’t mind taking a 45-minute bus drive from the north side of Chicago to our south side neighborhood to meet with me.

Like all Lending Circles participants that come to TRP, Sonia began by meeting with me one-on-one for an initial financial coaching session. Together, we reviewed her monthly income, budget and credit history, and we discovered several discrepancies on her credit report. While we completed her Lending Circles application, she reached out to the credit bureaus to address and resolve these inconsistencies.

At her Lending Circles formation in April, Sonia became a member of Los Ganadores—“The Victors.” As the name implies, Sonia has since won several small victories, leading her closer to her ultimate goal of rebuilding her credit and becoming a homeowner.

Since participating in Lending Circles at TRP, Sonia has increased her credit score by 65 points, decreased her debt by nearly $7,000, and increased her savings by $1,000.

Since joining Los Ganadores, Sonia has not only made significant strides in her personal finances, but she has also gained a new friend. Sonia and Alicia, another participant, connected at their Lending Circles formation and established a beautiful friendship. One wonderful aspect of the TRP Lending Circles program is the sense of community that participants form, both at the start of a circle and beyond. Alicia and Sonia formed a close bond through their Lending Circle. Alicia now volunteers at Sonia’s church food pantry and even joined Sonia at her wedding last May.

Sonia has embarked on the journey to make a new life for herself in Chicago, and we are so happy to support her in reaching her goal. Sonia will be telling her story in her own words at TRP’s next Lending Circles Brunch, where all of our participants come together to share their experiences and celebrate their accomplishments.

About the Author: Madeline Cruz is a Senior Financial Coach at The Resurrection Project (TRP), which offers financial coaching, homeowner education, entrepreneurship support, and immigration services in Chicago, IL. She’s a featured speaker on the panel “True Heroes: Engaging Clients in the Digital Age” at the 2016 Lending Circles Summit.

Celebrating the Many Moms of Our Community

Written by lending8 on .


This Mother’s Day, we’re celebrating all the “MAF Moms” working hard to create better lives for their families through Lending Circles.

This Sunday is a day dedicated to the strong, wise, generous, and caring mothers in our lives. In the spirit of Mother’s Day, we’re celebrating a few MAF clients who are working hard to build bright financial futures for their families.

Three Generations of Chefs

For Guadalupe, cooking authentic Mexican cuisine has always been a family affair. As a girl, she and her mother made the tastiest tortillas from scratch, and now she and her daughters do the same. She used her Lending Circles loan to buy equipment and help pay for a van to expand her catering business, El Pipila — which she runs with her daughter to support their family.

When we last shared Guadalupe’s story in 2014, she dreamed of opening a small, brick-and-mortar food stand. Now, she’s a food vendor at The Hall in San Francisco and a food truck regular at Bay Area festivals. Guadalupe’s family is key to her success. “I am doing this for my daughters. I want to make sure that neither of them has to work for anyone but themselves”.

A Mom on a Mission

Helen, a single mom from Guatemala, came to MAF with a simple dream: to have a safe home for her children. Because she couldn’t afford the hefty security deposit and didn’t have a credit score, she had no choice but to rent rooms in shared apartments — including one with families living in hallways.

After joining a Lending Circle, Helen saved up enough for a security deposit and built her credit score. Now, she has her own three-bedroom apartment for her daughters, and even bigger dreams.

Whipping Up Cupcakes with Her Son’s Support

Elvia’s son ignited her passion for baking with a simple question: “Mom, what do you love to do most?” After building a reputation for having the best desserts at parties, her family and friends encouraged Elvia to start a bakery.

She used a $5,000 loan from MAF to invest in a fridge, business license, and a number of necessities to grow her bakery, La Luna Cupcakes. She now has a cupcake shop in Crocker Galleria in San Francisco, and her children continue to be her North Star. “I always taught them if you want something, you can do it! Believe in your dream!”

Thanks to Lesley Marling, MAF’s newest Partner Success Manager, for her contributions to this post.

Respect, Meet, Build: A Model for Financial Inclusion

Written by lending8 on .


Financial inclusion is about respecting people for who they are, meeting them where they are, and building on what’s good in their lives.

Last week as part of CFED’s Assets & Opportunity National Week of Action, Mohan Kanungo—an A&O Network Steering Committee Member and Director of Programs & Engagement here at MAF—wrote about how your credit report can impact important personal relationships. Building on those themes, Mohan is back this week to highlight MAF’s strategy for empowering financially underserved communities to build credit. This blog was originally published on CFED’s “Inclusive Economy” blog.

There are more payday loan shops in the United States than McDonald’s or Starbucks.

That might surprise if you live in a neighborhood where all your banking needs are satisfied by mainstream financial institutions instead of payday lenders, check cashers and remittance services. Sources including the New York Federal Reserve, the CFPB and the Assets & Opportunity Scorecard reveal that there are millions of people who experience financial exclusion, particularly around credit and basic financial products. These disparities are well-documented among communities of color, immigrants, veterans and many other groups who are isolated economically. How can we address these challenges and lift folks out of the financial shadows?

First, as leaders in our field we need to have a frank conversation about how we engage communities around financial services and assets.

It’s easy to cast judgement on those who use alternative products due to the high interest rates and fees, but what do you do if mainstream products are not responsive to your needs? Increasingly, banks and credit unions have been closing brick and mortar locations to move online, while rural and urban areas may not have had access to “basic” financial products many of us take for granted—like a checking account—for generations. Traditional “assets” like homeownership may seem completely out of reach even if you are well-off, educated and savvy with credit, but live in a costly and limited housing market like the San Francisco Bay Area.

Similarly, non-traditional “assets” like deferred action may seem more urgent and important for an undocumented young person because of the physical and financial security that comes with a work permit and permission to stay in the US, albeit temporarily. We need to listen and appreciate the unique challenges and perspectives of financially excluded communities before coming to a conclusion about the solution.

Second, we need to understand that the values and approach driving any solution can tell us a lot about whether the outcome of our work will be successful.

MAF started with the belief that our community is financially savvy; many in the immigrant community know what the exchange rate is with a foreign currency. We also wanted to lift up cultural practices like lending circles—where people come together to borrow and loan money to another—and formalize it with a promissory note so that folks know their money was safe and gained access to the benefit of seeing this activity reported to the credit bureaus.

It is about building on what people have and meeting them where they are rather than where we think they should be.

We need to be innovative in our fields to come up with long-lasting solutions within the financial system that are responsible to the communities they serve. Small-dollar loans by non-profit lenders like Mission Asset Fund’s Lending Circles program does just that.

Third, we need to think about how to bring our products and services to more communities who can benefit from such programs, while maintaining the respectful approach to our community.

Early on in our work at MAF, there was a clear sense that the challenges people experienced in the Mission District of San Francisco were not unique and that communities across the Bay Area and the country experienced financial exclusion. We perfected our model and then scaled slowly. While MAF sees itself as the expert in Lending Circles, we see each nonprofit as being the expert in their community. MAF also knew it was impractical for us to build a new office everywhere in the country. So we relied heavily on cloud-based technology to build a robust social loan platform and the existing banking infrastructure to facilitate transactions using ACH, which encouraged participants to get a checking account and put them on a path towards realizing larger financial goals, like paying for citizenship, eliminating high cost debt, and starting a business.

MAF was founded in 2008 with the vision to create a fair financial marketplace for hard-working families.

Since launching our social loan program, we have expanded to provide Lending Circles through 50 non-profit providers in over 18 states plus Washington D.C. We have serviced over $5 million in zero-interest loans and offer a range of financial products, including bilingual online education, to turn financial pain points into credit and savings opportunities. And we have done all this with a default rate of less than 1%.

Currently, we are expanding Lending Circles in Los Angeles, and we have plans to expand further across the country while deepening our reach in places where we already have non-profit providers. Check out LendingCircles.org to see if there’s a provider near you or express your interest in partnership. Financial institutions, foundations, government agencies, private entities and donors can champion the work of MAF and non-profit organizations working to lift people out of the financial shadows.

An Important Question for Every Relationship: “What’s Your Credit Score?”

Written by lending8 on .


From finding your next great relationship to paying for a special night out, having good credit is important.

This blog was originally published on CFED’s “Inclusive Economy” blog as part of the Assets & Opportunity National Week of Action.

We all love the excitement of getting a notification that someone is interested in you after looking at your dating profile. You quickly check theirs, see where they live, what interests they have, what their pictures say about them.

But what if you could see their credit score, too?

So many relationships are fraught with money troubles, so it’s understandable to want to know whether your potential partner is sound financially. Dating sites are good at determining compatibility based on self-reported measures, but using a seemingly objective indicator like credit score seems like it would help make better matches–and potentially help love birds avoid some serious financial problems down the road.

What about folks who don’t have any credit history at all?

There are an estimated 26 million people in the United States who are “credit invisible”, meaning there is not enough information in the borrower’s profile to generate a credit report or a credit score. Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites or Asian Americans to be credit invisible or to have unscored credit records. Millions more have “subprime” credit, meaning that they have less-than-ideal credit profiles or scores.

There was a woman who dropped by one Friday afternoon at Mission Asset Fund (MAF), the nonprofit where I work. She asked if she would be able to get money so that she could take her son out to dinner that night for his birthday. Unfortunately, MAF’s social loan program does not provide the immediacy of funds that she needed.

So where does someone like her go?

If she does not have credit and is unable to borrow from friends and family, her only option may be to go to a payday lender that can offer her money that same day as an advance on her regular earnings with an employer. Even though payday lenders are known to charge exorbitant interest rates and fees, the trade-off may seem worth it to her in order to have a celebratory meal with her family.

I saw so many people make this same decision at the payday loan shop that my mom managed in Indiana. The challenge was that, once someone took out a payday loan, it became very difficult for them to get rid of it.

What seemed like a short-term loan ballooned into a long-term commitment.

While in high school, I came back from California to visit my mom every six months, and I would see the same customers every year, again and again. They would even get my mom gifts for Christmas. The payday lender soon became the lender of choice and at times the only lender, a place where customers felt listened to and understood, but which did little to break them out of a credit-and-debt cycle so that they could truly build assets.

Many state laws protect consumers against predatory lenders, but borrowers can still access these loans online if they are not available in their neighborhood. New York has warned online lenders about its interest rates caps and rules against title lending, while other states like California have seen operations move out of state to tribal reservations in order to thwart regulations and continue business. Laws are not enough to protect consumers from accessing bad loans, as people will always need access to capital.

One of the barriers to strong consumer protection is the way our country goes about credit.

It is not intuitive that a person may be dinged on their credit report for failing to pay an electricity or cable bill, while at the same time being unable to benefit from making regular on-time payments for such services–even though these often require a credit check or a sizable deposit. Increasingly, credit has become so important that it can impact where you work and even where you live.

From finding your next great relationship to paying for a special night out, having good credit is important. My immigrant father who came to the United States from India repeatedly told me to avoid credit cards as a young adult so I would avoid the same mistakes he made. He added me as an authorized user to his AMEX charge card so I could build a credit history early on without taking on debt.

I encourage you to start similar conversations with your family members and friends about credit too.

You may even want to connect with one of the organizations in the A&O Network to help you realize larger financial goals. You, your relationship and your credit profile deserve to be powerful.

Partner Spotlight: Henry of CLUES

Written by lending8 on .


An active member of the CLUES community, Henry has become an avid believer in the power of Lending Circles.

A firm believer in experiencing a product before trying to sell it, Henry was quick to jump on board to the Lending Circles program at MAF’s partner, Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio (CLUES) in Minneapolis. He first learned about Lending Circles while working at Lutheran Social Services (LSS). Both organizations were involved in a social innovation fund that Henry was particularly interested in. Through this connection, Henry discovered the Lending Circles program.

He immediately sensed that LSS clients could benefit from the program and asked his staff to learn more by forming a Lending Circles themselves. Though his primary goal was to experience the program first-hand, Henry was also eager to rebuild his financial footing after getting a few blemishes on his credit report.

“I was 100% in from day one,” he said.

His first Lending Circle had a contribution amount of about $30. The LSS staff quickly realized just how feasible such payments were and grew even more excited when they began to notice the effects on their credit report. It was at this point that Henry began to see the value the Lending Circles program provides.

“We were all trying to accomplish the same thing and that’s really financial stability.”

As the Lending Circle cycle went on, Henry found himself setting small financial goals around the pending distribution. He chose to use his savings to buy his wife of 22 years a bracelet for their wedding anniversary. Henry has gone through two different Lending Circles, and continues to participate in order to save for a new car and build credit to get the best interest rate possible on the car loan.

Henry remembers his family as being committed to financial austerity from an early age. Even with this strong financial background, Henry saw how easy it can be to make financial mistakes. He has taken extra steps to ensure his daughter is well prepared for financial independent.  At age 8, she has a $2/week budget and has strict instructions to spend some of it, save some of it and donate what is left.

“If I had my dream, my daughter would be learning about financial literacy in elementary school”.

Henry believes strongly in the need for financial management training and credit-building opportunities within his own community. In his current role at Project for Pride and Living as the Housing and Financial Coaching Coordinator, he works with potential home buyers to build their financial portfolio in order to become strong candidates. Many members of the community he works with have a mistrust of the banking system and as a former banker, he hopes to help address this stigmatization. He feels the Lending Circles program can act as a vital step towards achieving that goal.

Leonor Brings Sunshine to the Community

Written by lending8 on .


Find out how Leonor used Lending Circles to launch a business to promote good health in her community

For as long as Leonor Garcia can recall, the driving force in her life was to support her community. Even when she was a little girl in El Salvador, Leonor says she always had a keen sense for business, but would use her savviness to help the people around her.

She grew up on a sprawling tobacco farm which her father and mother were in charge of. On the side, her mother owned a small shop that sold food, beverages and other items for the men working in the field. Leonor would spend all of her time tagging along with her father as he inspected the fields, managed the workers, and tended to the crops. When the growing season had ended, she would go with her mother and watch her negotiate sales prices and contracts with various companies and stores that wanted to purchase the tobacco.

Leonor learned a great deal about business and the relationship between products and money, but she also learned that working for the community yields the greatest rewards.

Leonor went on to become a teacher in a local school. For her, teaching children was a dream job. She worked her way up to become the headmaster of the school. During this time, Leonor kept her dream of entrepreneurship alive by owning and running a highly successful grocery store. After she retired from teaching, she decided that it was also time to sell the store. Leonor needed a new adventure and she knew just where to find it. She knew that in the US she would have more opportunities and more freedoms to grow a business.

After moving to the US in 2001, Leonor wanted to start her new business immediately, but she was blocked. Whenever she went for a loan, she was denied because she had no credit. For Leonor, that was a slap in the face. She had run a highly successful business in El Salvador while running a school. She also grew up watching and learning everything she could from her parents.

Leonor wouldn’t give up, but she needed a reliable way of getting money and building her credit. That’s when she found out about Mission Asset Fund through one of her friends. She was able to get a micro loan and build up her credit for future investment. The loan helped her purchase a generator, display shelves and other medical equipment to open up her business, Leonor’s Nature Sunshine.

Leonor’s Nature Sunshine is a business built upon Leonor’s desire to help people live healthier lives.

She provides the latest natural health products, supplements, diagnostic tests and homeopathic remedies for people’s needs. A few minutes in her chair and Leonor will know exactly what ails you and how to fix it! Leonor believes in finding affordable products that treat the root of the problem and the whole system. Her most popular products are for digestion, chlorophyll and probiotics.

Leonor’s store used to be located in a flea market in Richmond, but after her surgery, she moved it to the comfort of her home which was also more private and confidential for clients. She is so client-centered that if they can’t pay her upfront, clients are able to pay her in installments for their purchases. Leonor has become so popular that people come to her house daily to have a meeting with her.

After she appeared on local TV last year, Leonor said she was inundated with calls as soon as the interview was over.

“People said ‘it’s such a blessing to have your phone number!’,” she recalls with a laugh.

Through her successful business Leonor has been able to focus on healing her community and she’s got big dreams for her future. “ I want to have more capacity and more recognition to help people have a satisfied, healthy life,” she says. Leonor also wants to challenge herself new trends in her field, attend conferences and become savvier with social media. She hopes to improve her economic status and begin training others as health promoters.

Right now, Leonor is training her husband, a welder, to work with her in the business. Her interest in nonprofits motivated her to be an ambassador and funder for A New America’s first entrepreneurship class as well as donate funds and time to various nonprofits around the Bay Area. She says that without MAF, none of this could have ever happened and she is thankful every day that she has been given this amazing opportunity to be Mother Nature in her community.

Itzel: A DREAMer making a difference

Written by lending8 on .

I think things are going to go great and we’re going to look back and say, yes, we made a difference

Itzel always knew she was undocumented, she had known it all her life. Her status had never really impacted her life in a major way. She was happy in high school, and didn’t need a driver’s license because she could not afford a car.  Everything in her life was moving down the right path, but when she turned eighteen, things took an unexpected turn.

The nine digits that disrupted her future.

When Itzel went to apply for college, she was unable to get past the first page. She had fantastic grades, she had the support of her teacher, she did everything you were supposed to do to get in to a good school. But her dreams of attending UC Berkeley or Stanford in the fall were halted due to her lack of a Social Security Number. Itzel didn’t have a Social Security number to fill out in the application and realized she couldn’t apply to the schools that she had been looking forward to going to her entire life. She refused to let this limit her, and when her family moved she enrolled in Community College.

Itzel was undaunted, and continued to pursue her dreams.

When she moved from her home in Oregon to San Francisco she enrolled in City College. As an out of state student her fees were sometimes triple what local students were paying. Unlike other students, she could not access traditional loans, financial aid, or other student services. For her, this was a small price to pay to continue her education. At school she heard about a new program designed from Dreamers like her. DACA was her opportunity to finally get the social security number that had barred her from applying to college. Once DACA was launched, it changed Itzel’s life. She was able to apply for DACA by joining the Lending Circles for DREAMers program, where she received mentorship and financial aid through social loans, and received her first work permit.

Living the DREAM.

Now Itzel will be able to pay in-state tuition as a citizen and a resident of San Francisco for one year. She has worked hard all of her life, and she will continue to work hard to attain her American dream. She is proud to be an example of what undocumented youth can be, and is optimistic about what the DREAMer movement can accomplish in the future. “I think things are going to go great and we’re going to look back and say, yes, we made a difference.”

Pablo: Aspiring Filmmaker

Written by Aparna Ananthasubramaniam on .

After participating in Lending Circles and Financial Education, Pablo figured out how to navigate the US financial system

When Pablo moved to San Francisco 11 years ago from Columbia, he discovered that just because he had no debt, it didn’t mean he would have it easy in building a new life. But without a credit history, he had no score. After joining a Lending Circle and taking financial education classes at MAF, he learned about navigating the U.S. financial system and that to improve his score, he needed to take on affordable debt and pay it off on time. He used his loan towards paying for college and investing in his future career. A Political Science and Journalism student, Pablo is working on his first feature film on the 2014 World Cup qualification process in Brazil.

“Mission Asset Fund gave me really good tools to manage my money.”

“Mission Asset Fund gave me really good tools to manage my money. I’ve had two years without having to work in a restaurant thanks to the things I’ve learned from Mission Asset Fund. I’ve been in school and have been dedicating my time to finish my degree.”

A truly enthusiastic participant, Pablo is always recruiting his friends to join Lending Circles and take advantage of the opportunity to learn more. He has also joined a Lending Circles for Citizenship with MAF to finance another dream: becoming a citizen.