EARN in the News

ABC7 reporter David Louie interviews EARN Savers over the years and explores our first 10 years of impact and success. "Dametra Williams was homeless a few years ago. With EARN's help, she now runs her own in-home health care service. 'I currently have a staff team of 15.'"
 

EARN’s Jill Sturm tells The Nonprofit  Quarterly, “Given where the banking sector is headed, the nonprofit sector needs to step it up a bit when it comes to the use of mobile in low income communities.” Sturm adds, “Nonprofits tend to be high-touch. In reaching out to low income consumers, we need to be careful we’re not leaving parts of our community behind.”   

Muchos padres de familia se sienten abrumados y desalentados al luchar por proveer para satisfacer las necesidades y alcanzar las metas de sus familias. La Dra. Marisol y nuestros invitados exploran programas y presentan pasos a tomar para hacer frente a los desafíos financieros que enfrentamos en estos tiempos.

Many families are facing tough choices during the continuing economic recession. From foreclosures to job losses, more than ever it’s necessary to spend wisely and save for that rainy day. Join Nurse Rona and guests, Olivia Beltran of EARN and Joel Lacayo of Mission Asset Fund, as they discuss financial options for families.

At minute 38:00, EARN CEO Ben Mangan joins Forum to weigh in on how EARN’s work helps low-income families in Marin. Ben says, “We are helping people to save and invest in the kinds of assets that create prosperity across generations. Savings is a vehicle for aspiration… it gives people a sense of control about their future.” 

Listen to Britt Bravo's interview with EARN CEO Ben Mangan on her Have Fun Do Good blog. "I think that when you take a strengths-based approach to working with folks who are struggling in some way, it's part of the way that you build optimism. It's one of the most important ways that you position the people that you're serving to be successful over time," says Ben.

EARN CEO Ben Mangan's blog post: Optimism is America's secret sauce, and we'll stagnate permanently without it. The puzzle for our leaders and policy makers is how to square our need for optimism with our need for fairness. (Good luck!)

EARN's Ben Mangan tells Talk of the Nation, "Saving is one of the greatest predictors of people leaving the bottom 20% of the economy." Ben and other experts discuss paths out of poverty.

In this article, the Nonprofit Quarterly describes how EARN and the City of San Francisco are working on mechanisms to fight poverty in a number of ways, one of which is to build the assets of lower-income people. 

"With the help of EARN, she started a matched savings account for a down payment on a home. She also got financial advice... Now that she's got her house, Edwards says she can focus on other things, such as finishing her college education."

NPR Morning Edition explores the nation’s growing racial wealth gap -- now 20 to 1 for white vs. black families -- through two contrasting stories. EARN Saver Dametra Williams, an African-American single mother, was once homeless with her daughter. Stephanie Upp is a white mother of two (and is EARN’s former Vice President).

EARN CEO Ben Mangan interviewed by CBS5's ConsumerWatch. According to Ben, many new graduates simply aren’t earning enough to pay their loans.

Ben Mangan of EARN describes Citi's five essential communications pegs for nonprofits.

Financial Planning Magazine recognizes the community work of Saundra Davis, a pro bono advisor of EARN's Wealthcare coaching program, with the inaugural Pro Bono Planners of the Year Awards.

The gap is widening between the wealth of white families and the wealth of African-Americans and Hispanics. But EARN Saver Helena Edwards is a new homeowner. "Edwards, who is African-American, was able to eventually buy a home with the help of a nonprofit group called EARN, which promotes savings by low-income families."

As recent graduates struggle to find jobs, they do so with an alarming amount of student debt. To start a dialogue around this issue, EARN launched mydebtstory.com. It's a website that features testimonials from student loan borrowers.

A US News and World Report blogger directs people to MyDebtStory.com, EARN's newest website, to share their student debt stories.

US News and World Report examines innovative ways to pay for college, including EARN's student debt video contest at MyDebtStory.com.

Ben Mangan addresses how student borrowers' voices aren't being included in the national conversation on education debt and announces MyDebtStory.com, a new EARN project.

EARN profiled in the San Francisco Business Times. Mission, milestones, challenges, missed opportunities, and more.

"A long-term financial crisis is brewing in Marin as a result of mounting levels of education debt, according to a nonprofit working with the Marin Community Foundation in a quest to end poverty in the county."

EARN is featured on page 2 of this article about getting out of a financial mess by getting out of denial.

In this article, the Chronicle of Philanthropy describes how EARN has set out an ambitious research agenda to improve its own offerings and help organizations across the country design better programs to help people climb out of poverty.

On the Consumer Watch, Julie Watts goes "unbanked" for two weeks to better understand the cost of living without a bank.

EARN President & CEO Ben Mangan interviewed about the launch of the EARN Research Institute.

"Karla Mejia heard through a friend about EARN, a local nonprofit offering eligible low-income workers special savings accounts... Two years later, she has a business plan, $5,000 in her IDA, a housekeeping/handyman business and a city contract."

There's a troubling trend in this nation: People are giving up their banks. Whether somebody has a bank account or not may not seem like such a big deal, but it costs a lot of money to live without a bank.

Yesterday saw the launch of Kindergarten to College, America's first publicly-funded college savings program. Over the next three years, about 1,200 San Francisco kindergartners will get new trust accounts from Citibank with an initial $50 deposit of city funds. Students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch will get $100.

Much of the money that is being "saved for college" is being socked into 401(k) retirement accounts. To access it come college time, parents say they'll borrow or withdraw money from those plans, as a full 24% of parents are today. Neither are particularly good options.

Today the City by the Bay unveiled its Kindergarten to College program – a city-bankrolled college savings plan that’s starting a special trust account with $50 for each of the 1,200 kindergartners enrolled in the program. The funds are set aside for use toward post-secondary education and the hope is that corporations and non-profit groups will also offer matching incentives that will encourage families to contribute to the accounts.

The city of San Francisco is making a direct investment in the educational future of the city's kindergartners. City officials joined with education and philanthropic officials to announce the Kindergarten to College program, which creates college savings accounts for the city's public school kindergartners.

Today, the City of San Francisco announced the start of a new low-cost program that offers both financial hope for students and a model for other municipalities, states, and the federal government to impact long-term issues of college affordability, access, and completion. The Kindergarten-to-College (K2C) program will provide a system of universal college savings accounts to every kindergartener entering the City’s public schools.

A new program to help youngsters pay for their college education is getting underway in San Francisco. It's called Kindergarten to College. San Francisco is the first city in the nation to create a city-funded savings account for school children. The pilot program will kick off with 1,200 kindergartners or about one-fourth of those enrolled in public schools.

The troubled economy has meant more people need financial planning but can't afford it. Franke Pare and Saundra Davis are among those stepping in to help.

In this video, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom officially introduces Kindergarten to College, an innovative partnership between the City of San Francisco and EARN.

An estimated 9 million American households are "unbanked," with neither checking nor savings accounts, according to a 2009 survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Fairly overlooked by the mainstream media, individual development accounts -- a special type of personal savings account -- are available in every state and offer poor people the chance to finally get ahead.

Dametria Williams started her financial life as a statistic — a poor single mom, just like her mother and grandmother before her. But the San Francisco healthcare worker decided to break the cycle of poverty. Now the 38-year-old is a college graduate on the cusp of opening her own business. She is also raising a high-achieving teenager who is in position to win merit-based college scholarships.

With tuition on the rise, it's getting more and more difficult for families to scrape together enough dough to fund degrees. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is trying to change that. Newsom has introduced a new program called Kindergarten to College (K2C), which would open savings accounts for kindergartners enrolled in the public school system. K2C aims to help families afford their children's higher education and teach kids about the importance of saving.

We're not talking about learning how to make a budget (although that's part of it). This is a way to make sure your finances match up with your values and dreams. Financial coaching is a relatively new concept, and it's available -- free -- to folks who realize they're headed for trouble as well as to those in crisis situations like collections or foreclosure.

Starting this fall, a percentage of children entering kindergarten in San Francisco will be set up with a college savings account. The accounts are a new pilot program enacted by Mayor Gavin Newsom to encourage all children to go to college. Associate Producer Lacey Daniell spoke with Jill Sturm, the asset services director with EARN, a San Francisco non-profit that is partnering with the city to raise funds for the accounts.

Last week's Labor Department report showing that 411,000 of 431,000 new jobs created in April were for short-term census workers was just one more reason for despair. The number of long-term unemployed -- people out of work for 27 weeks or more -- remains at its worst since the government began collecting such data in the 1940s. And unless we begin to pursue a comprehensive set of new economic strategies, we face the very real possibility that long-term joblessness may become a structural problem. 

At a time when many people short on income are calling on their inner entrepreneurs, some start-ups are finding relief in a little-known resource—individual development accounts. These accounts, which have grown in popularity since their inception more than 10 years ago, aim to help low-income individuals purchase homes, pay for higher education or develop a small business. 

Should cities help families save for their kids' college education? San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom thinks so. Newsom wants to create college savings accounts for all of San Francisco's kindergartners and make small initial deposits to get them started -- even as the city grapples with a massive budget shortfall. 

Some say everyone should go to college. Mayor Gavin Newsom is trying to ensure that's the case in San Francisco. Every child who enters kindergarten at one of San Francisco's public schools will get his or her own city-funded college savings account under a groundbreaking program officials plan to begin rolling out this fall, despite the current budget woes that will force layoffs and service cuts in other areas.

Camille Busette, Vice President of EARN, describes how her organization helped a young woman rebuild her life and reclaim her son.

Tyrone Hopper, a Navy veteran who works at a Safeway deli counter in San Francisco's Sunset neighborhood, can now rent a car, pay his bills online and withdraw money at an automated teller machine. That wasn't the case four years ago, and Hopper credits an innovative city program that has helped thousands of San Franciscans with low incomes and credit problems open bank accounts and get debit cards rather than use expensive check-cashing services. Now President Obama's administration is looking at taking the program nationwide.

Schiller’s contention that “ ‘sociological processes’ including media coverage, may be the driving force behind booms and busts in housing" is spot on. There are particular psychological factors that are unique to the economic values of the United States. These factors profoundly influence the way Americans consider the institution of homeownership. The American ethos around homeownership is deeply anchored by emotion, in a way that is different from other investments that Americans make (think mom and applie pie vs. stock certificates and tax advisors). 

The number two person at the Federal Reserve is in San Francisco, warning that the economic recovery has a way to go. Donald Kohn, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, says the pace of recovery is going to be restrained. He shared his economic outlook with Bay Area community leaders Thursday. 

With the subprime market in ruins, affordable housing advocates are looking at new ways to promote responsible homeownership for low and moderate income families. While many policy makers would resign low and moderate income families to rental housing, a new study makes a case for keeping the door open to homeownership at all income levels.

'Individual development account' programs teach you how to put money away -- and then double or triple your savings as you reach for a home, business or new career.

America's second-largest minority is probably not what you think. It's low-income workers. More than one in four working Americans is low-income according to the Census Bureau, even though on average they are working the equivalent of 1¼ full-time jobs. To help these families, most of our social programs have focused on the income side of the equation, providing benefits to help families meet basic needs. But the history of prosperity clearly shows that what these families need is help overcoming their "asset poverty." Education, small-business ownership and homeownership are what ultimately lift people out of poverty.

Today's sobering unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes as particularly disheartening news for America's low-wage workers. We've lost millions of jobs that won't be coming back. And many of those who have been hit the hardest were already considered low-income workers even before our recession began. In this climate, it's important to remember that our unemployment woes are not just about job creation. We need to create a foundation that will sustain us in future downturns. 

While the majority of the underbanked likely live paycheque to paycheque, with bank accounts come an impetus toward savings, with savings come assets, with assets – such as pursuit of a college degree, founding of a micro-enterprise, or even the purchase of a first home – comes hope for a brighter financial future. It is asset building – saving, investing and planning for future goals – that ultimately lifts people out of poverty.

A new nonprofit wants to reward low-income savers everywhere. But for now, as it grows, it’s mostly rewarding savers in the Bay Area, since this region is innovating the matched-savings movement.

How often do you catch yourself saying “microfinance” when you really mean “microcredit?” Let’s face it – in the world of microfinance, lending represents the lion’s share of financial activity, with savings and other services the poor second cousins. However, in San Francisco, EARN has flipped that equation, with microsavings playing the leading role. I interviewed EARN CEO, Ben Mangan, to learn about their program, savings and sustainability, and the role played by public policy.

The Marin Community Foundation this week announced a five-year, $15 million effort aimed at "breaking the cycle of poverty in Marin." "Through this new initiative," said foundation President Thomas Peters, "we'll fund efforts to help people learn new job skills, understand personal finances, benefit from financial services that meet their needs, receive support to start their own business and avoid economic crises."

"Marin Community Foundation has committed $15 million to fight poverty.

The five-year initiative will focus on saving plans, business development, financial services and increased wages. Earned Assets Resource Network, a San Francisco nonprofit, is partnering with MCF to help Marin families set up Individual Development Accounts. Every dollar that participants save is matched by the foundation. EARN expects to enroll 500 Marin households over five years, said Ben Mangan, EARN’s founder and CEO."

If you're having trouble sticking to your plan, don't go it alone. Jill Sturm, an assets service director at EARN, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps families with saving strategies, recommends finding a "saving buddy." That's a friend or family member who is as committed as you are to saving more, with whom you can compare notes and share progress reports.

Many people joke about stashing their cash under the mattress, but what if that were really the only option? Bank on San Francisco, a public-private partnership formed by the city and several financial organizations, gives citizens access to bank accounts and financial education. When the pilot launched in September 2006, there were 50,000 unbanked households in the city. After two years, 25,000 of them had signed up for accounts. 

Struggling families and adults just starting out in the real world might draw some helpful inspiration from the low-wage workers in a program offered by EARN.

In this KISS-FM radio segment, Nurse Rona interviews Jill Sturm, EARN's Financial Services Director, on how low-income workers are saving money during the recession.

As people contemplate their own economic straits, the not-so-funny line you often hear these days is: “O.K., where is my bailout?” Few of us will ever get the financial breaks now being given to big companies, but there is a groundswell among financial professionals and policy makers to provide another sort of remedy. As the economy sputters — and the news of crazy mortgages, escalating foreclosures and personal debt mounts — there is a growing impetus to give millions of Americans something they badly need: financial advice.

Helping people cultivate their own resourcefulness is what Ben Mangan is all about. He's the CEO and co-founder of EARN, which helps low income people save money to invest in education, businesses and homes. It's part of the movement to bridge the wealth and asset gap by helping move folks out of poverty. Ben Mangan told us that average people aren't yet feeling the recovery.

A large Wachovia banner hangs over the entrance to the Oakland Museum of California, a proud proclamation of corporate commitment to the civic institution. What that commitment means after the takeover of Washington Mutual by J.P. Morgan Chase, and potential purchase of Wachovia — first apparently by Citigroup, but now possibly by Wells Fargo — is uncertain. It has the museum, and every other Bay Area nonprofit that counted on support from financial firms, riveted by Wall Street’s soap opera.

If someone supporting a family of four on about $35,000 a year in pricey San Francisco can manage to save a big chunk of income, what's stopping the rest of us from saving more? That's a question for another column, but there's no doubt we can learn a few lessons, or at least get some savings inspiration, from the low-wage workers participating in a program offered by Earn, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps low-income people save money for specific assets. 

Can the stock market break the cycle of poverty? That's exactly what's happening through the San Francisco-based non-profit EARN. CEO Ben Mangan talks about asset building as a sustainable, and realistic, way to help low-income earners.

Here's an alarming statistic for the financial well-being of Americans: the Bureau of Economic Advisors says we saved less than 1 percent of our incomes in 2007. But there is a tool some low-income people can use to help them save. Peter Granitz tells us about the Individual Development Account.

The Bay Area has so much to offer families, but the cost of living here is one of the highest in the country. What resources are available to families working hard to become financially self-sufficient and afford all they need to raise healthy, happy kids? Guests: Stephanie Upp, Vice President of EARN, and Lorne Needle, Vice President of Community Investment at the United Way of the Bay Area.

It was the summer of 2000, and Ben Mangan was treading water at his job, looking anxiously around for the next thing. He had spent much of his 20s cycling through various careers, trying to find one that fit: he worked as a teacher, a college admissions officer, an assistant on an archeological dig in Minnesota, a consultant at Ernst & Young, and, after moving to San Francisco, as a dot-com apparatchik for a company that was rapidly going to hell. Then he heard about EARN. 

Ayodele Kinchen lived with her mother and cut back on buying clothes and going to movies to help save for the El Sobrante house she now owns. Bettina Mok brought a roommate into her cramped studio apartment to save money to help buy the Oakland condo near Lake Merritt she calls home. While Kinchen and Mok used different saving strategies to achieve their dream of home ownership, one thing they shared was signing up for an Individual Development Account.

Newborns typically are mailed birth certificates and Social Security cards within weeks of leaving the hospital. In at least two states they could soon be receiving other important documents: savings account statements.

The San Francisco Business Times interviews Ben Mangan about serving as the CEO of EARN.

Between 35 and 40 million Americans are considered the working poor. They work, but they are unable to save or to buy a home or afford college educations. ABC7 salutes a group that's trying to change that. 

"I don't think poverty is an intractable problem," insists Helga Lempke. "I think it's a question of will and putting resources toward the problem, because there're certainly a lot of strategies that we know are successful in helping to combat poverty."

In the early 1990s, Cecila Bueso was living just outside the capital of Honduras, teaching disabled adults and living with her entire family in a small shack with no indoor bathrooms or running water. Electricity was intermittent at best, and new clothes were "unimaginable luxuries."

The San Francisco chapter of the Denver-based Financial Planning Association last week launched a pro bono program that matches financial planning graduate students at Golden Gate University with certified financial planners to help lowwage workers who need financial guidance. The program is set up as a class that allows students at Golden Gate in San Francisco to employ their education in real-life situations under the mentorship of experienced planners. The advice beneficiaries are participants in EARN, a non-profit organization in San Francisco that helps working-poor families build assets.

Karina Wong spent her childhood helping out in the Chicago restaurant run by her Chinese immigrant parents. But it wasn't until she started working at an economic development agency in New York's Chinatown that she started thinking about the unique cultural issues facing immigrant entrepreneurs.

While a report from the Commerce Department this month showed the first negative savings rate since 1933, nonprofits around the nation are showing that turning this trend around is not as hard as it might seem, even among those with the lowest incomes. In fact, there is growing evidence that the poorest among us can and will save -- if provided incentives and structure. Encouraging and enabling savings, especially among the working poor, is a powerful tool for the economy that deserves the attention of local policymakers now.

The road to saving money and preparing for retirement is steep these days. Many Americans lack the willpower to set aside for the future.

Cesilia Bueso, an immigrant from Honduras, started out working in the fields around Stockton. She moved up to a better job at a car wash and moved up again to work as an instructor for the developmentally disabled. With a little help from a San Francisco nonprofit agency called EARN, Bueso also recently moved up from a rented apartment to a four-bedroom home of her own in the Sunnyside neighborhood.

Most Americans don't save beans. A recent Commerce Department report says that savings rates nationwide are the lowest they have been since the Great Depression. Yet a San Francisco nonprofit has families with annual incomes of $17,000 saving an average of $75 a month.

While a report from the Commerce Department this week showed the national savings rate at 0%, EARN (Earned Assets Resource Network), a San Francisco-based non-profit, shows that over 700 of the Bay Area's poorest households are saving at rates consistently above 5%.

The bad news first. California now ranks last nationally in home ownership. It also has the fourth worst "asset poverty" rate in the nation, meaning that nearly a third of the state's households are on such a financial brink that they'd fall below the poverty level within three months after an unexpeted hardship like a job loss or medical emergency.

Ben Mangan's plan to combat poverty starts with savings. The key is an investment vehicle called the individual development account (IDA), open only to those making less than twice the federal poverty level.

Working poor people in the Bay Area neglected to claim an estimated $75 million a year in federal income tax credits. This year, San Francisco officials think they have a creative way to start to change that -- by offering city residents local cash incentives.

How long has it been since you were surprised by hope? As you browsed the morning newspaper, when did you last feel a sense that the world was becoming a better place? That the forces propelling the future were on the right track? That the power of imagination was serving those with healing ideals rather than those with darker agendas?

Creating a nest egg is considered key for people trying to beat poverty. An experimental program called IDAs — individual development accounts — help low-income people save money. The program matches savings twice — up to $2,000 — by the federal government and a community- based non-profit. IDAs have helped some 20,000 working-poor families begin to accumulate assets. 

A fourth-generation native of San Francisco’s troubled Bayview District, Utuma witnessed her family and community endure decades of social, economic, and environmental hardship. In 2005, Utima was shot in gang crossfire and spent months convalescing and exhausting her small savings.