Banking on Justice

Earlier this month, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed new rules to regulate payday lending – the business of offering high-cost short-term loans to Americans on terms that many consumer advocates consider predatory.

Years of misrule and a subsequent dearth of hard currency, along with crippling bank-fostered debt cycles and exorbitant home mortgage interest rates, have created immense suffering for Myanmar's poor. But with the guidance of a local NGO, Women for the World, a pilot project helped women in some of Yangon's poorest neighborhoods capitalize on their cultural "head-of-household" status; by forming and managing community savings cooperatives, the women have instilled trust through local control and, above all, enabled members to secure land, build homes, buy food, and even generate profit through loans to families' business enterprises.

For patients with tuberculosis, it is vital that they take their medicine consistently and on schedule, even after they are no longer contagious, which can be time consuming and expensive for public health departments to manage. Teleconferencing has helped people remember to take their medications, even during a disaster like Hurricane Harvey.

When paying bail isn't a realistic ask of a defendant, many times the person will plead guilty to avoid jail time even if it means having a record. To solve the problem of the poor being unfairly punished by small crimes through the setting of a bail amount they can't make, The Bronx Freedom Fund offers charitable bail funds to those with a bail under $2,000.

Over two million baby boomers own their own companies, and with retirement looming, the government stepped in with a solution. A portion of a 2018 federal bill included language that will push the Small Business Administration to help baby boomers transition ownership of their companies to their employees if they wish. This will mitigate job loss often associated with a retiring business owner putting the company up for sale. Employee owners on average make a higher salary and have higher job stability, supporting the idea that employee ownership is beneficial for everyone involved, as well as for the econom

To improve financial literacy and knowledge around child development, Prosperity Works – a program in New Mexico – is offering classes focused on these issues to parents. This program offers the foundational education necessary to open a bank account and use Individual Development Accounts to save funds for housing or educational needs.

A pediatric care center in Philadelphia has partnered with a nonprofit that "helps people with tax prep and asset-building" as well as an organization that provides financial counselors to offer young patients free, on-site help with their taxes. The initiative is modeled after Boston Medical Center' StreetCred program which has "returned more than $5.3 million to more than 2,700 low-income families since 2016."

The Business Center for New Americans, a nonprofit that offers loans with a focus on immigrant-run businesses, is going above and beyond to make sure its lenders get through the COVID-19 economic crisis. They are offering tailored support on how to apply for Economic Injury Disaster Loans, sharing other grant and loan opportunities, and using its status part of the SBA’s Microloan Program to offer new loans.

The Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust uses conservation easements to conserve agricultural land in the state. These agreements happen when a landowner sells or donates the development rights to their land to the trust forever. They are allowed to keep farming the land, but it must remain undeveloped.

Modeled after Spain’s Mondragon, an organization that helps develop cooperatively-owned businesses, Co-op Cincy is a nonprofit incubator helping businesses in Cincinnati, Ohio, do the same. The organization runs an educational course to teach teams everything they need to know, provides access to loans, and has ongoing technical assistance for its co-ops.