Designed to Deliver:
Designed to Deliver:
Designed to Deliver:
We are operating at a critical moment. Policy rollbacks and economic pressures have created a dangerous combination: just as low-wage workers are losing essential consumer financial protections and access to safety net programs including critical healthcare and food assistance, they’re also facing deliberate efforts to erode trust in the very institutions designed to help them.
Neighborhood Trust is responding with bold action and strategic collaboration. We’re leveraging our proven model and deep partnerships with customers and social sector allies to expand access to trusted financial coaching precisely when workers need it most. In these pivotal times, we’re not just defending against threats—we’re proactively building solutions that help workers make ends meet and build the financial security and resilience needed to weather this environment without falling deeper into poverty or debt.
We are operating at a critical moment. Policy rollbacks and economic pressures have created a dangerous combination: just as low-wage workers are losing essential consumer financial protections and access to safety net programs including critical healthcare and food assistance, they’re also facing deliberate efforts to erode trust in the very institutions designed to help them.
Neighborhood Trust is responding with bold action and strategic collaboration. We’re leveraging our proven model and deep partnerships with customers and social sector allies to expand access to trusted financial coaching precisely when workers need it most. In these pivotal times, we’re not just defending against threats—we’re proactively building solutions that help workers make ends meet and build the financial security and resilience needed to weather this environment without falling deeper into poverty or debt.
The Crisis and Its Costs
With so many pressures converging on workers, Neighborhood Trust is focusing on three urgent threats—and investing in targeted solutions designed to address each of these challenges.
Threats to vital government agencies and programs
The paramount example: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Since its founding, the CFPB has served as a critical consumer watchdog in workers’ corners. Despite surviving a court-ordered halt earlier this year, the Bureau has since seen budget and staff cuts, and halted enforcement, among other changes. The CFPB has historically helped workers reclaim unjust fines and fees and monitored the market for bad actors, preventing the proliferation of predatory financial services. With recent pushes to cut its funding further, its capacity to support workers is under threat.
Increased cash flow challenges and financial pressures on low-wage workers
Workers are under mounting financial pressure as the cost of everyday life remains high while vital supports disappear or face cuts—including public benefits, student loan repayment programs, and community nonprofits. This leaves workers with less cash to make ends meet—forcing further reliance on harmful, predatory financial products that often lead to debilitating debt.
Erosion of trust
Recent policies targeting marginalized communities—particularly immigrants and communities of color—have stoked widespread fear and distrust in institutions. This environment deters people from engaging with nonprofits and other organizations designed to serve them.
Our Approach, Anchored in Trust
We are responding to this crisis by reinforcing Neighborhood Trust’s proven strategy that directly addresses both the trust deficit and service gap. Workers facing mounting stress and uncertainty need reliable access to trusted support.
Our organizational model is rooted in deep collaboration with our customers, and now faced with the need to reach even more workers. We are now leveraging our strategic channel partnerships to maximize our reach. To sustain and scale our work, we are engaging in nonprofit coalition-building to develop new relationships with organizations that share our values and sense of urgency. Finally, we’re adapting our service delivery to ensure that when workers reach us, we can offer the most effective, responsive support to help them eliminate debt and build financial security.
Strategic Channel Partnerships
Strategic Channel Partnerships
Meeting Workers Where They Are
Meeting Workers Where They Are
Strategic Channel Partnerships
Meeting Workers Where They Are
Neighborhood Trust operates as a social enterprise, embedding our financial coaching services within the customer institutions workers already trust and engage with regularly—including mission-aligned financial institutions, employers, and allied worker organizations. These customers provide us with channels that help us to reach hundreds of thousands of workers.
We see several practical and powerful advantages of these customer partnerships:
This approach relies on channel partnerships that align with our financial goals and our values. Here’s a closer look at the customers that help sustain and scale our interventions.
Mission-Aligned Financial Institutions
These customers are CDFIs, credit unions, Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs), fintechs, and other socially responsible financial institutions that serve local, low-income constituencies and share our mission of delivering financial security and mobility, as well as connecting people with good financial products.
We embed TrustPlus and Pathways as coaching services that complement these institutions’ existing offerings, adding value for their clients and giving Neighborhood Trust greater visibility and nationwide reach.
Customer Spotlight: Baltimore Community Lending
Baltimore Community Lending (BCL) provides crucial capital to disadvantaged small businesses that can’t access traditional lending, often due to personal credit barriers. Three years ago, BCL implemented Neighborhood Trust’s TrustPlus service to address this gap, referring entrepreneurs whose credit issues either prevent loan approval or require remediation as a funding condition.
The partnership has delivered remarkable results, with 69 entrepreneurs participating in the program over the past year alone. One recent success story involves an entrepreneur who approached BCL with severe credit problems. After seven months of TrustPlus coaching, his credit score jumped over 100 points, transforming a certain rejection into an expected loan approval. By filling the personal credit counseling gap that BCL doesn’t address as a business lender, TrustPlus enables entrepreneurs to unlock the capital essential for growth and economic development.
Neighborhood Trust operates as a social enterprise, embedding our financial coaching services within the customer institutions workers already trust and engage with regularly—including mission-aligned financial institutions, employers, and allied worker organizations. These customers provide us with channels that help us to reach hundreds of thousands of workers.
We see several practical and powerful advantages of these customer partnerships:
This approach relies on channel partnerships that align with our financial goals and our values. Here’s a closer look at the customers that help sustain and scale our interventions.
Mission-Aligned Financial Institutions
These customers are CDFIs, credit unions, Minority Depository Institutions (MDIs), fintechs, and other socially responsible financial institutions that serve local, low-income constituencies and share our mission of delivering financial security and mobility, as well as connecting people with good financial products.
We embed TrustPlus and Pathways as coaching services that complement these institutions’ existing offerings, adding value for their clients and giving Neighborhood Trust greater visibility and nationwide reach.
Baltimore Community Lending (BCL) provides crucial capital to disadvantaged small businesses that can’t access traditional lending, often due to personal credit barriers. Three years ago, BCL implemented Neighborhood Trust’s TrustPlus service to address this gap, referring entrepreneurs whose credit issues either prevent loan approval or require remediation as a funding condition.
The partnership has delivered remarkable results, with 69 entrepreneurs participating in the program over the past year alone. One recent success story involves an entrepreneur who approached BCL with severe credit problems. After seven months of TrustPlus coaching, his credit score jumped over 100 points, transforming a certain rejection into an expected loan approval. By filling the personal credit counseling gap that BCL doesn’t address as a business lender, TrustPlus enables entrepreneurs to unlock the capital essential for growth and economic development.
Employers
Our employer partners—from large companies to small businesses across sectors to national nonprofits—share a commitment to boosting worker productivity and retention by providing tools that strengthen financial resilience and security.
Employers offer TrustPlus as a workplace benefit, allowing employees to easily engage with trusted financial guides to develop practical, action-based plans to reduce debt, strengthen credit, and ultimately hold onto more of their hard-earned paychecks. We also share our aggregate data and insights with employers to help them better respond to their workers’ challenges.
“What we’re hearing from employers right now is clear: workers are under real financial stress. HR and payroll teams are fielding questions about withholdings, student loans, and even payroll advances. Our financial coaching steps in to meet those needs, providing employees trusted, practical support and taking the pressure off internal teams. Employers value us not just for the impact we have on their workforce, but for the human-first, high-touch service we deliver. We’re not just a vendor—we’re a partner in navigating today’s economic challenges.”
—Brendon Kinney | Manager, Customer Implementation & Account Management
Employers
Our employer partners—from large companies to small businesses across sectors to national nonprofits—share a commitment to boosting worker productivity and retention by providing tools that strengthen financial resilience and security.
Employers offer TrustPlus as a workplace benefit, allowing employees to easily engage with trusted financial guides to develop practical, action-based plans to reduce debt, strengthen credit, and ultimately hold onto more of their hard-earned paychecks. We also share our aggregate data and insights with employers to help them better respond to their workers’ challenges.
—Brendon Kinney | Manager, Customer Implementation & Account Management
Allied Worker Organizations
Allied worker organizations empower and support the rights, well-being and economic stability of individuals in low-wage and low-power jobs—the precise audience for our financial coaching solutions.
These groups offer TrustPlus alongside standard services such as legal assistance, policy advocacy, workforce training, and leadership development. When worker organization membership is more financially secure and able to build assets, they can also build influence and power in the marketplace.
Partner Spotlight: Opportunity Initiative
Neighborhood Trust has launched a new collaboration with Opportunity Knocks and the Opportunity Initiative—a fiscally sponsored nonprofit and financial empowerment series on PBS that connects viewers in financial distress with timely and effective resources and works to rebuild trust for people who have experienced financial shame and exclusion by guiding them towards trustworthy, community-focused institutions like Neighborhood Trust.
“At a time when workers are facing stagnant wages, disappearing social supports, and weakened oversight of predatory financial services, our members need trusted allies,” said Angie Hughes, President of Opportunity Knocks. “Financial coaching is our viewers’ number one requested service, but finding values-aligned partners with real expertise is a challenge. Neighborhood Trust fills this gap—their roots in the credit union movement and commitment to trust give our viewers the tools and guidance to protect themselves from financial exploitation and build financial strength. This isn’t just a service—it’s critical economic protection for working families.”
Allied Worker Organizations
Allied worker organizations empower and support the rights, well-being and economic stability of individuals in low-wage and low-power jobs—the precise audience for our financial coaching solutions.
These groups offer TrustPlus alongside standard services such as legal assistance, policy advocacy, workforce training, and leadership development. When worker organization membership is more financially secure and able to build assets, they can also build influence and power in the marketplace.
Neighborhood Trust has launched a new collaboration with Opportunity Knocks and the Opportunity Initiative—a fiscally sponsored nonprofit and financial empowerment series on PBS that connects viewers in financial distress with timely and effective resources and works to rebuild trust for people who have experienced financial shame and exclusion by guiding them towards trustworthy, community-focused institutions like Neighborhood Trust.
“At a time when workers are facing stagnant wages, disappearing social supports, and weakened oversight of predatory financial services, our members need trusted allies,” said Angie Hughes, President of Opportunity Knocks. “Financial coaching is our viewers’ number one requested service, but finding values-aligned partners with real expertise is a challenge. Neighborhood Trust fills this gap—their roots in the credit union movement and commitment to trust give our viewers the tools and guidance to protect themselves from financial exploitation and build financial strength. This isn’t just a service—it’s critical economic protection for working families.”
Nonprofit Coalition-building
Nonprofit Coalition-building
Supporting the Resilience of the Social Sector
Supporting the Resilience of the Social Sector
Nonprofit Coalition-building
Supporting the Resilience of the Social Sector
The nonprofit sector is an essential pillar of American society, bridging the gap between government and private markets, acting as a safety net for the most vulnerable, fighting for social justice and economic fairness, and offering trusted services for all.
In this moment, however, not only are the most vulnerable individuals facing increased risks, but the reliability and strength of thousands of nonprofit organizations is in jeopardy.
To maintain our collective relevance to workers, reputations anchored in trust, and power to deliver on our missions, we believe that nonprofit organizations must come together and stand strong as a sector. Now is the time to share our expertise, capabilities, and information with each other to ensure we all can continue to retain our talented staff, execute our programs, measure our impact, and make a difference in the lives of the people we serve.
To that end, we are building a coalition of nonprofit organizations whose staff and program participants could benefit from our financial coaching services during this time of increased financial stress. As individuals and organizations face escalating pressure to do more with less, by sharing our turnkey coaching service, we hope to plant the seeds for deeper, longer-term collaboration while ensuring our services are visible and accessible to those who need them most.
Neighborhood Trust CEO, Justine Zinkin, called on our fellow nonprofits—from the grassroots to the national—to lean into our shared responsibility and collective strength as the rare set of institutions trusted by the individuals we serve, that have our feet on the ground in local communities, and that are able to motivate people to reach out and speak up. “We’re committed to showing that in the face of systematic efforts to cultivate mistrust and disengagement, nonprofits can stand together to provide both tangible results and the human connections that restore people’s faith in an inclusive financial system.”
Neighborhood Trust CEO, Justine Zinkin, called on our fellow nonprofits—from the grassroots to the national—to lean into our shared responsibility and collective strength as the rare set of institutions trusted by the individuals we serve, that have our feet on the ground in local communities, and that are able to motivate people to reach out and speak up. “We’re committed to showing that in the face of systematic efforts to cultivate mistrust and disengagement, nonprofits can stand together to provide both tangible results and the human connections that restore people’s faith in an inclusive financial system.”
Adapting Our Service Delivery
Adapting Our Service Delivery
Key Projects to Meet the Moment
Key Projects to Meet the Moment
Adapting Our Service Delivery
Key Projects to Meet the Moment
We are leveraging our unique position as trusted guides embedded in every corner where working Americans access essential services to deliver urgent, up-to-date support in these critical times. Our proven financial coaching model is evolving to tackle workers’ most pressing pain points: navigating benefit losses, proactively avoiding unchecked predatory debt traps, and accessing safe cash flow alternatives in the face of rising costs and diminishing public support.
This moment of heightened financial vulnerability demands rapid, strategic action—and Neighborhood Trust is uniquely positioned to deliver.
Our infrastructure investments over the past year, combined with our new impact framework and predatory debt research, have created the operational foundation to both expand our reach and accelerate pathways out of exploitative debt precisely when workers need us most.
We’ve built the systems, trained the team, and unlocked the capacity to meet this critical moment with targeted urgency and evidence-based solutions.
These two priority efforts show how that foundation is already driving bold, worker-centered solutions:
Accelerating the path away from predatory debt
Given the shifting policy landscape and growing threat of exploitative financial services, we’re further focusing our broad suite of interventions to help workers specifically escape and avoid predatory debt. Our financial coaching now more proactively identifies predatory debts on clients’ balance sheets and connects them with products and solutions designed to eliminate those debts.
Coaching that understands cash flow realities
We have adjusted our financial coaching to meet workers where they are—especially those affected by lost benefits and tighter budgets. Our Financial Coaches connect workers with trusted financial products and resources, advocate for better rates and money-saving opportunities, and guide them toward safer alternatives to predatory options. Equipped with dynamic information flows and expanded partnership networks, our Financial Coaches act as frontline responders, evolving their approaches to meet the changing financial realities faced by workers every day.
We are leveraging our unique position as trusted guides embedded in every corner where working Americans access essential services to deliver urgent, up-to-date support in these critical times. Our proven financial coaching model is evolving to tackle workers’ most pressing pain points: navigating benefit losses, proactively avoiding unchecked predatory debt traps, and accessing safe cash flow alternatives in the face of rising costs and diminishing public support.
This moment of heightened financial vulnerability demands rapid, strategic action—and Neighborhood Trust is uniquely positioned to deliver.
Our infrastructure investments over the past year, combined with our new impact framework and predatory debt research, have created the operational foundation to both expand our reach and accelerate pathways out of exploitative debt precisely when workers need us most.
We’ve built the systems, trained the team, and unlocked the capacity to meet this critical moment with targeted urgency and evidence-based solutions.
These two priority efforts show how that foundation is already driving bold, worker-centered solutions:
Accelerating the path away from predatory debt
Given the shifting policy landscape and growing threat of exploitative financial services, we’re further focusing our broad suite of interventions to help workers specifically escape and avoid predatory debt. Our financial coaching now more proactively identifies predatory debts on clients’ balance sheets and connects them with products and solutions designed to eliminate those debts.
Coaching that understands cash flow realities
We have adjusted our financial coaching to meet workers where they are—especially those affected by lost benefits and tighter budgets. Our Financial Coaches connect workers with trusted financial products and resources, advocate for better rates and money-saving opportunities, and guide them toward safer alternatives to predatory options. Equipped with dynamic information flows and expanded partnership networks, our Financial Coaches act as frontline responders, evolving their approaches to meet the changing financial realities faced by workers every day.
Stay Connected. Stand with Us.
Neighborhood Trust is excited and hopeful about our progress and the collaborations and customer relationships we’ve forged so far to fulfill our vision of reaching hundreds of thousands of new workers in the years to come. And yet, so much more work needs to be done.
The convergence of policy rollbacks, economic pressures, and efforts to erode trust creates an urgent imperative for action. Workers can’t wait for political winds to shift or economic conditions to improve. They need trusted financial coaching and access to inclusive financial products now. Neighborhood Trust has the proven model, operational capacity, and strategic partnerships to meet this moment—and we need even more allies who share our commitment to financial empowerment for all.
We invite you to join us as we lead a unified front of trusted nonprofits to meet this moment, and reach as many workers as possible through our customer base and partnership networks. Together, we can ensure that workers have access to the trusted guidance and effective solutions they need to overcome debt and exploitative financial services, build financial security and reclaim economic power.
Follow Us