Addressing Debt in Black Communities: A Comprehensive Report Exploring the Potential and Limitations of Services in the Realm of Financial Coaching is the first of three reports from Prosperity Now focused on Addressing Debt in Black/African American communities.
From 2018 to 2020, Prosperity Now worked in partnership with Black/African American-led community-based organizations to analyze debt as a feature of racial economic inequity and as a lens through which to explore the effectiveness of programs, products and services in addressing the socioeconomic status of Black/African American clients. Prosperity Now developed a series of three reports that represent the culmination of a multi-year, applied research, racial wealth divide initiative and savings and financial capability effort. This report:
- Provides analysis on how financial coaching programs might meet the expectations for guidance on debt and past-due bill issues.
- Helps stakeholders better understand how predominately Black/African American-led organizations that primarily serve Black/African American individuals are helping clients to strategically manage and repay debt and past-due bills.
- Explores responses that frontline nonprofit financial coaches and counselors are utilizing to address the causes and consequences of debt challenges faced by clients.
- Includes an analysis of promising program design and an overview of the limitations of individual-level services in solving debt challenges.
- Acknowledges that disproportionate debt in the Black/African American community is the result of racial economic inequity created and perpetuated by institutions, structural inequality and systemic racism – not by individual-level knowledge or behavior deficits.
This fall AFN is publishing a new brief on financial coaching through a racial equity lens. Join our mailing list to be notified when it’s released.
