Good Credit Where Credit is Due
Good Credit Where Credit is Due
One of the most important ways we help our clients achieve the American Dream is by teaching them the importance of having a good credit score. In our workshops, and in one-on-ones with clients, we help clients understand that a good credit score opens access to everything from getting a mortgage, to renting an apartment or a storefront, to getting a car loan, all the way to getting a cell phone plan. In fact, there are very few financial transactions that are not affected by how good your credit score is. (scroll down to see a video with one client’s story)
A poor credit score can cost a person $240,000 or more over their lifetime, according to research done by Credit Builders Alliance (CBA) – a nonprofit that supports organizations like BCNA help clients establish higher credit scores. That’s because having a low credit score increases the cost of interest and fees for loans and other credit products.
That is why BCNA offers Credit Builder loans of $500 to $2,000 to clients who have low – or no – credit scores. The reasons for their lack of good 
credit history could be anything from late payments to incorrect information sent to the credit bureaus (a surprisingly common problem for immigrants with language barriers, names translated different ways from a non-Western alphabet, or other people with similar names living at the same address.) In providing these Credit Builder loans over the past ten years, we have learned that a small loan of $500, repaid to BCNA over a period six months, can help our client raise their score from zero to approximately 640 points. And with additional regular and positive financial activity, most of our clients have been able to raise their scores even higher.
Many of our clients are unfamiliar with the concept of a credit score because it is not something that exists in their home countries. BCNA’s Credit Builder workshops like "Basics of Money & Assets for New Americans," which are led by Aaron Lackman, BCNA’s Manager of the Refugee Program and Francess Smith, Manager of the IDA Program, can therefore be life-changing for them.
At the annual celebration for graduates of BCNA’s IDA Program, several of clients who had taken the workshops, asked if they could share their experiences. Ramatoulaye Sow, who emigrated to the U.S. from the Republic of Guinea, spoke particularly eloquently what she learned from BCNA’s workshops. With a few simple steps she was able increase her credit score so that she qualified for a no-interest loan from Toyota. That meant she could purchase a car for her son, a college student who works part time job as a car service driver, instead of paying high fees for a leased vehicle, saving over a thousand dollars a month in payments.
"In today’s economy, a good credit score may be a business owners most important asset," Elaine Edgcomb, Director of the Aspen Institute’s FIELD Program, wrote in the Huffington Post.
We look forward to helping our clients increase their credit scores and achieve similar successes that put them on the road to reaching their own financial goals.
BCNA’s peer networking groups for female entrepreneurs are funded by a grant from the New York Women’s Foundation, a cross-cultural alliance of women catalyzing partnerships and leveraging human and financial capital to achieve sustained economic security and justice for women and girls. Click here to learn more about the New York Women’s Foundation.
Click here to see our upcoming workshops.