Microfinance Through the Eyes of an Intern, or What I Learned at CGF this Summer
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Authored by Julie Siwicki
For one: credit reports are complicated. As a summer intern, one of my first tasks involved finding resources about building credit. CGF staff planned to study them, internalize them, and then begin providing credit counseling to our borrowers. With the help of an asset-building organization in St. Louis, MO, Justine Petersen, LLC, CGF received several trainings in reading credit reports. We learned a lot – like how long it takes for a bad line of credit to fall off your score, and why starting a new line can be better than paying off old debt. I was baffled by the amount of information each sample report contained. The trainings made me feel much more confident about my personal finances, and I realized that Providence’s low-income residents stand to benefit from them markedly more than I did.
