Finance/Micro-Loan Programs

Hi. Good points. Thanks. I will bring that information to the table.

I am not going to be able to be in Tampa this year, but I would like to make sure that I have an opportunity to put in my thoughts on this process. For me, a national partner defeats some of the things that we are trying to accomplish with our microloan program. Primarily, we are trying to help our new friends and borrowers develop a positive…[Read more]

sorry hit the wrong button –

Name, address and phone number of client.
Names of others in the household as well as the children’s ages.
Source, amount and frequency of all income, whether taxable or not. We also ask about the feasibility of continued employment or increases in pay.
Financial outlays of household – rent/mortgage, utilities, food,…[Read more]

Wow! That would be wonderful if you can get a local foundation to fund your program.

We actually do not have any sort of special application materials. Our Visiting Vincentians collect complete financial data during their home visit using the normal Client intake form. Generally the call to us is for help with rent or a mortgage or for utility…[Read more]

Hello Judith Coleman. We are just starting a micro loan program in Illinois. We have a cooperating bank and are collaborating with the credit counselors in our area. We’ve applied for funding through a local foundation. We’ve put together a loan committee and are in the process of putting together the ‘application materials, guideline etc. Could…[Read more]

One size does not fit all. We are a small conference located in a small, relatively affluent (on the surface) area – Cape Cod. There are numerous social services available to our clients also. Most would not think of themselves as poor as they are able to live from paycheck to paycheck. When they miss a paycheck, they come to us and many are…[Read more]

Now that your program has been running for a year, what have you learned? Any best practices that you’d like to share?

I visited all the conferences in this county (we are having to develop partnerships by county with different Credit Unions), and asked for volunteers to be financial mentors. We have a 3 person local board of Vincentians who oversee the loan program now in that county and they are recruiting and training additional mentors. I don’t think it’s a…[Read more]

Hey Everyone,

Apropos of this conversation and Deb’s comment on the CFPB “Your Money, Your Goals” toolkit–I got an invitation yesterday from the CFPB for a webinar about this toolkit. See below, if you’re interested. The toolkit is free to download on the CFPB website if you’re interested in poking around and seeing what it looks like.

Happy…[Read more]

So Deb, do you then offer SVdP financial mentors. If so can you explain more how this works in your Conference with the people you serve? We have recently been considering this in our Conference.

Bill, we are just getting a microloan program off the ground. We require that everyone who gets a loan through our program meets with financial mentors monthly. We use the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s program You Money Your Goals. It’s an empowerment program so it does not demean the person we are mentoring. There are 14 financial topics…[Read more]

Hi, Bill

Yes and no. Our main concern when granting a loan is the client’s ability to repay it. While we don’t insist that they participate in a financial literacy program, we strongly urge that they do to prevent their getting into the situation in the future.

Hi Judith,
Thank you fro your response, it is very helpful. Do you have the client got through any Financial Literacy / Money Management education?

I just re-read you message and saw that I did not address your question. Once we established the relationship, we opened a savings account with the credit union. When we have an individual who we want to loan money to, we go to the credit union and give the name, address, amount of loan and repayment terms to the loan officer who has us sign a…[Read more]