Founded in 2010, this nonprofit runs savings and financial coaching programmes for low-income families, partners on the HUD Family Self-Sufficiency programme, and advises practitioners and policymakers.
Compass Working Capital is a nonprofit financial services organisation founded in 2010 that works to end asset poverty among families with low incomes and to narrow the racial and gender wealth divides. Its programmes are client-centred by design and are tailored in particular to families led by Black and/or Latina women. The organisation operates through partnerships with affordable housing providers and other practitioners in the asset-building field.
Central to its work is the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) programme, run in partnership with affordable housing providers on behalf of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; it is the country's largest asset-building programme for families with low incomes. Compass has partnered with more than 7,300 families since 2010. Alongside this, its client-centred savings programmes have helped participating families build more than $35 million in savings, and one-on-one financial coaching - aimed at raising earnings, building assets and improving financial security - has produced over $50 million in earnings increases for the families served.
Beyond direct service, Compass provides training and technical assistance to other practitioners in the asset-building field and develops policy solutions intended to remove barriers to asset building for families with low incomes. This combination of programme delivery, practitioner support and policy work covers asset-building programme design, financial coaching, wealth-gap analysis and policy development.
The organisation is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with an additional office in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and carries out policy and practitioner work at a national level across the United States. It describes itself as a mission-driven, collaborative partner, combining direct service with systemic change through policy advocacy.
