Directory of Organizations
Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County
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For the past three years, Catholic Charities has collaborated with six other community-based organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area to form the Assets for All Program alliance. Since 1999, the alliance has set up Individual Development Matched Savings Accounts (IDAs) for more than 600 clients during this time. Two hundred of these savers are young people ages 18 to 30; all of them are low income and the majority are newly arrived refugees and/or single parents.
The program provides 30 hours of money-management classes taught in five languages. The new savers gain practical financial knowledge including how to:
- Develop and stick to household budgets
- Establish credit worthiness
- Save for an asset
Catholic Charities' Investing For All IDA program helps young minority savers to obtain an asset—such as a house or higher education—through a two-to-one savings match up to $2,000 for a total of $6,000. Asset development empowers young people to break the poverty cycle by becoming economically self-sufficient.
In 2003, Investing for All helped seventeen young adult minority savers strengthen their families' economic stability by teaching them long-term investment and financial planning skills. In addition to financial education and advice, the program provides successful participants with stipends they use to practice and master their newly acquired investment skills.
Merrill Lynch funding supports the expansion of Investing for All initiative, which helps participants build upon the basic skills developed in the Assets for All.
"We're launching Investing for All in partnership with Merrill Lynch. Together, we'll demonstrate how the right education and the right tools can help people marginalized by poverty move into the mainstream financial systems of our society."
- Sister Marilyn Lacey, Director, Immigration,
Refugee & Employment Services
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Contact Information:
Diane Pelosi Saign
Chief Executive Officer
Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County
2625 Zanker Road, Suite 200
San Jose, CA 95134-2107
Phone: 408.468.0100
Fax: 408.944.0275
E-mail: dsaign@ccsj.org
Website: www.ccsj.org
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Program Contact Information:
Louise Wen
Financial Education Coordinator
Phone: 408.325.5254
Fax: 408.944.0275
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