History
EARN was founded in 2001 by a group of prominent individuals and organizations, including financier F. Warren Hellman, California State Senator Mark Leno, Bob Friedman, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and San Francisco County Supervisor Roberta Achtenberg, and Saundra Hernandez, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation. Ben Mangan, EARN's current President and CEO, is also a co-founder of the organization. The organization was the 2005 winner of the Fast Company Magazine/Monitor Group Social Capitalist of the Year Award and was named one of the ten finalists for the Amazon.com Non Profit Innovation Award that same year. In 2008, EARN was among the winners of the Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. Since 2002, thousands of members have collectively saved more than $10M.
Specialties
EARN is an award-winning California-based nonprofit that gives low-income workers the power to create economic prosperity for their families for generations to come. Since 2001, EARN has helped tens of thousands of low-wage families through innovative financial products including matched savings accounts, checking accounts for the unbanked, micro-loans, and money management coaching. Our powerful combination of lasting assets and financial know-how enables families to build wealth and achieve life-changing goals such as saving for college, purchasing first homes, or starting small businesses. Through our policy and research arm, EARN evaluates our impact and reports on new data regularly, sharing lessons learned and best practices in order to champion effective public policies. EARN's ultimate vision is that millions of well-informed, low-income American families will achieve financial success through proven strategies, fair public policy, and their own hard work.