Community Financial Resources

Year Founded: 2005

CFR’s work rests on three pillars: Product Design & Delivery, Partnerships, and Shifting Power & Mindsets.

They design safe, affordable financial tools like banking services and credit-building solutions that reduce the cost of poverty and give people more control over their finances. Through partnerships with over 100 community organizations and employers, they deliver trusted services that meet urgent local needs. CFR challenges harmful financial narratives and advocates for fairer systems that redistribute resources more equitably, centering dignity and systemic change in all their work.

Community Financial Resources was founded in 2005 by a reformed banker who  after more than 20 years in commercial banking, was driven by a clear recognition that low-income communities were systematically excluded from safe, affordable financial products. CFR was the first nonprofit to offer a banking product enrollment option on-site at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites nationwide, ensuring families could securely receive tax refunds without predatory costs. Since then, CFR has continued to pair product innovation with an economic justice lens—banking over 60,000 low-wealth individuals, launching credit building and behavior-based financial coaching tools like MoneyGoals, and supporting over 40 Guaranteed Income pilots, including the nation’s first mayoral-led demonstration in Stockton, CA  and county-led initiative in Santa Clara County, California.