The Nehemiah Gateway Community Development Corporation (CDC) successfully integrated credit building with free tax preparation in its Delaware EITC Campaign which served over 12,000 low income taxpayers last year in 20 community based tax sites throughout Delaware. The Delaware EITC Campaign is focused not only on tax preparation and tax credits, but it also provides its customers with an array of on-site financial services.  

During the 2006 tax preparation season, the campaign provided free credit reports along with brief credit education and referrals for credit counseling to the over 2,500 tax preparation clients who were interested. Specially trained “Cash Coordinator” volunteers engaged the waiting customers in conversation and were key in encouraging clients to make use of the free credit education service. They provided an overview of how to read the tri-merged credit report that includes the credit score and information on the meaning of the credit score along with additional literature and a referral for credit counseling. The tri-merged reports were accessed through Fannie Mae’s Home Counselor Online (HCO) system and customers who requested more in-depth credit counseling could be easily referred to one of five partnering home ownership counseling agencies who also use the HCO system.  Cash Coordinators pulled the credit reports and provided a five-minute credit review with each customer and offered customers priority referrals for more extensive credit-counseling sessions with partner agencies.

The Nehemiah Gateway Community Development Corporation is a project of Shiloh Baptist Church, Delaware’s oldest Black Baptist church.  Located in Wilmington, Nehemiah Gateway works predominantly with low- and moderate-income workers and business owners, especially people of color.  It collaborates with partners who share its goals of implementing projects that build assets, workforce capacity and business opportunities.