 Empowering Through Financial Education Common Wealth Charlotte provides trauma-informed financial education, empowering clients through classroom and one-on-one settings to make informed financial decisions. CWC's curriculum recognizes both the physical, psychological and emotional trauma brought on by poverty and a lifetime of scarcity, but also the healing than can occur when the trauma is replaced by positive, uplifting experiences. |
 Expanding Access to Banking Common Wealth Charlotte provides clients access to second-chance, full-service checking accounts and other attractive asset-building programs through our credit union and bank partners. |
 Providing Opportunity Loans CWC Opportunity Loans offer second-chance access to credit for clients with credit scores under 500. Interest is pre-paid at a rate significantly below market, and made available through a 100% donor-provided fund. This helps a client refinance predatory loans, provide rental deposits for housing and manage other financial emergencies while improving his or her credit score throughout repayment. |
Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC), an innovative non-profit started in April 2015, provides financial empowerment to Charlotte's low-wage workers through financial education coupled with access to specially designed re-banking and emergency loan products. Our trauma-informed financial education curriculum (TIFE) meets people where they are, and results in long-lasting change and enhanced opportunities for upward mobility for financially-educated low-wage workers. TIFE is an emerging best practice, incorporating a deep understanding and recognition of the physical, psychological, and emotional trauma caused by scarcity and experienced by Charlotte's 150,000 people working full-time (or full-time equivalent) and earning 30-35% of area median income (AMI). Workshops and counseling are provided on-location for more than 45 nonprofit, workforce development and county partners, and offer an environment of safety, trustworthiness, transparency, peer support, mutual respect, consumer choice, and culturally relevant discourse.