Financial Empowerment In a Thriving Community Development Network finds that financial empowerment is a growing strategy for community development associations. Financial empowerment programs provide strategies to help families with low and moderate incomes stabilize their finances, prepare for their financial future, budget soundly, improve credit worthiness, build assets, and reduce debt.
Funded by the PNC Foundation, the report assesses 18 state and regional community development associations’ engagement in financial empowerment activities. It’s based on interviews with the executive directors of the associations, all of whom are NACEDA members.
Findings include:
- The vast majority see a continuing need for financial empowerment in their communities;
- Existing funding comes predominantly from the Federal government and to a lesser extent from philanthropy;
- Measurement standards and terminology differed widely among the associations;
- All of the associations currently engaged in financial empowerment and asset building programs see it as a future area of work for their organizations.
