July 20, 2021

Building on our three-decade history of leadership in worker financial health and justice, Neighborhood Trust is thrilled to introduce the Worker Insights Initiative!

Trusted guidance and dialogue have always been at the core of our work to empower workers on the path to financial security, especially workers of color who face systemic barriers to wealth creation and disproportionately hold low-wage jobs–the majority of the people we serve. Now, through our worker benefit TrustPlus, we will harness the stories and opinions, goals and worries that TrustPlus gathers daily to generate a more nuanced and complete profile of workers’ financial lives.

Through innovation in our service model, linked to a new, dynamic data mining system, we will bring the lived reality and complex financial lives of low-wage workers more powerfully to the market. We will engage workers as collaborators in our effort to drive product innovation and policy change.

We will harness client insights and data to create feedback loops for financial institutions, FinTechs, benefits providers, and human resources departments, so they can design and deliver more inclusive and productive financial solutions that promote worker financial health.

And, we will deepen our impact by surfacing data, trends, and stories to be shared with advocates, economic justice and job quality organizations in support of our complementary missions.

The Worker Insights Initiative draws on our experience as a direct service provider of personal, one-on-one financial coaching through our programs, including Pathways to Financial Empowerment which integrates coaching into credit unions nationwide in partnership with Inclusiv; Financial Empowerment Centers, which focus on New York City; and TrustPlus, which delivers financial coaching, tools, and products to workers through over 200 employers, benefits providers, FinTech and CDFI customers across 40 states.

It expands on our partnerships with Aspen Institute’s Consumer Insights Collaborative, Commonwealth, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and One Fair Wage, among other mission-aligned partners.

And, most importantly, it ensures worker voices will be at the forefront of creating a financial and economic system that meets the needs of all workers.

The Worker Insights Initiative is possible thanks to the support of Oak Foundation.

Published by Justine Zinkin, CEO of Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners

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