About Us
What We Do
Build Wealth partners with local communities and businesses to provide families with supportive financial programs and services.
We project truth to make change and use education to improve lives. Our clients take control of their finances. Their knowledge is power.
Who We Are
Our mission is simple: We strengthen communities by empowering families to build sustainable social and economic wealth. We educate, coach and provide access to financial services.
Build Wealth Minnesota is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with years of experience helping our clients embrace new approaches for giving, saving, banking, investing, homeownership and creating generational wealth.
What We’re Up To
Our latest initiative, 9000 Equities, is a collaboration of community partners aiming to reduce the wealth equity and homeownership gap by 15% by financing 9000 new black homeowners in 5 to 7 years. The disparity in homeownership between Minnesota’s African American and White households equals 52%. The 9000 Equities Fund will provide affordable first mortgages, or equivalent financing opportunities, to households struggling to access mortgages in historically underserved communities of color.
Get To Know Us
We are seasoned professionals who treat our clients like family. Our number one priority is building caring, invested relationships with our clients and our communities.
Meet Our Leaders
Directors
Department Leads
Staff
We Transform Families
Each year, Build Wealth enrolls more than 1,000 new families into our collective financial programs and services. Together, we develop long-term, personal solutions that work.
Our Stories
Build Wealth educational benefits last a lifetime and for generations to come. We are the catalyst that helps our clients overcome the disparities in their community.
Our numbers
The average Build Wealth household creates $57,000 in equity.
Every year, Build Wealth helps hundreds of families become homeowners.
Board of Directors
Monique Bulson-Bratton, Chair
Rochelle Washington, Secretary
Rene Isuk, Treasurer
Franklin Stovall, Director
Loretta Smith, Director
David McGee, Executive Director
Vision:
Utilize public, private, and foundational resources to develop and provide programs and service that will empower individuals, families, and communities to embrace a new way of viewing their lives in the area of financial literacy, debt reduction, minimizing the cost of money and wealth creation for generations to come.
Organization Overview:
Build Wealth Mn, Inc.’s (BWM) programs and services are targeted to low-to-moderate income families. The emphasis is placed on those in the “emerging markets” and underserved communities. Current market conditions have made it difficult and costly for these populations.
Circumstance caused by the housing industry crisis: credit restraints, sub-prime and predatory lending practices, as well as the rapidly increasing market of costly easily attainable credit (such as title and payday loans, check cashing centers, wire transfer services and various other products) have added to the onslaught of poverty on these communities.
Studies show that the number one cause of divorce and the weakening of the family structure are directly related to money and finances. This has resulted in the deterioration of many neighborhoods and in more and more cases the dismantling of family.
Although there are several existing and emerging programs, products, and services available to combat this, BWM has found that access to, marketing of, and the acknowledgment of the existence of these resources by its target group has been historically challenging.
BWM is taking a long-term holistic approach to providing support to families in these neighborhoods. The organization will directly provide and align resources and added access in four areas to help strengthen families and revitalize communities:
- Culturally Sensitive Financial Products & Services
- Financial Literacy, Budgeting & Counseling Programming
- Sustainable Affordable Housing
- Residential & Commercial Development
HUD
CDFI
LISC Financial Opportunity Center
Fair Housing Provider
Fair Housing Lender
Freddie Mac Credit Smart
Financial Capability & Homeownership
National Industry Standards for Homeownership Education and Counseling