Financial Opportunity Centers

Helping Families Build Assets

Financial Opportunity Centers help families build wealth for themselves and their communities.

VIDEO: LISC's Financial Opportunity Centers
BLOG: SSIR, "Scaling smarter, scaling for keeps"

Financial Opportunity Centers are unique both for their approach and their impact. They bundle services like employment training and placement, budgeting, debt management, and financial coaching in one location to help clients navigate complicated tax and benefits programs.

Thirty-three Financial Opportunity Centers are already up and running around the country—two of which are in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The two Twin Cities Centers were established in 2007 with leadership from Twin Cities LISC, working with a range of partners. The St. Paul Center is housed in the East Side Financial Center and managed by Lutheran Social Services. In Minneapolis, the Center is part of Project for Pride in Living.

The success of these centers has been recognized at the federal level and the Obama Administration recently awarded LISC a $4.2 million Social Innovation Fund grant to support the growth of these centers in cities where LISC works. Part of that funding is being used to expand existing, and establish new, centers here in the Twin Cities with partners CommonBond Communities, Communidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (CLUES), Emerge Community Development, Lutheran Social Services, and Project for Pride in Living (PPL).