NEW YORK – The MacArthur Foundation announced $15 million in Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions, including a $2 million grant for the Center for Responsible Lending, the consumer lobby affiliate of Self-Help CU.
The Center, which said it is one of the leaders in the fight against predatory lending, will use the $2 million grant to build a permanent endowment and create a strategic plan to continue to successfully advocate for safe and sustainable financial products and expand its focus beyond mortgages to student loans, reverse mortgages and other consumer financial products.
The Center lobbied for anti-predatory mortgage legislation in North Carolina and published one of the first reports documenting the rapid deterioration of subprime mortgages and projected millions of foreclosures nationwide in 2006. Its work documenting the subprime mortgage crisis contributed to the 2010 passage of the Dodd–Frank Bill and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Center was created in 2002 by the Center for Community Self-Help, which also runs North Carolina’s Self-Help CU, California’s Self-Help FCU and the Self-Help Ventures Fund.
Other MacArthur grantees include: Center for Investigative Reporting ($1 million); Chicago’s Community Investment Corp. ($2 million); National Juvenile Defender Center, ($750,000) and California’s Conservation Strategy Fund ($750,000).
