Description
Book SynopsisLending Power is the compelling story of the nonprofit Center for Community Self-Help, a community-oriented and civil rights-based financial institution that has helped provide loans to those who lacked access to traditional financing while fighting for consumer protection for all Americans.
Trade Review"
Lending Power is Howard Covington’s uplifting and compelling account of a credit union that champions the underserved.... This is a positive, inspiring look at a socially conscious, soundly managed mission-driven organization." -- Barry Silverstein * Foreword Reviews *
"The book offers important perspectives on the Great Recession mortgage crisis.... Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty."
-- E. C. Erickson * Choice *
"The story not just of the rise of a radical credit union but also of its role in the community that shaped it, which saw it work with churches, civil rights activists, maverick philanthropists and city planners to deliver change. . . . Lively and absorbing...." * Co-Op News *
"Howard Covington Jr.'s work provides an interesting and engaging description of Self-Help Credit Union and the CRL. . . .
Lending Power clearly provides an excellent example of social entrepreneurship that can provide valuable lessons for anyone working to accomplish a social objective." -- Stephen G. Morrissette * Business History Review *
"Covington’s account of an alternative model of banking, credit, and economic empowerment thus suggests both the historical and the political imperatives of excavating the voices who have long occupied the sidelines of debates about the organization of American capitalism. In this regard,
Lending Power is an important intervention." -- Alec Hickmott * Journal of Southern History *
Table of ContentsForeword / Darren Walker vii
1. Self-Help Who? 1
2. A First Step 9
3. A Financial Institution 23
4. Turning Point 37
5. Innovation 49
6. An "Aha" Moment 63
7. "We Did Not Have to Be Geniuses" 71
8.
Cy Pres 85
9. "Shit Disturbers" 97
10. A Box of Rattlesnakes 117
11. The Emperor's Naked 131
12. "We're Here Forever" 147
13. Self-Help Federal—A National Institution 159
14. The Mission 175
Final Notes 191
Notes 195
Index 205
