The Rocket Community Fund in Detroit and Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) in New York have created the Rocket Wealth Accelerator Program to serve resident clients in Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Atlanta.
The Rocket Wealth Accelerator, through a $2 million investment by the Rocket Community Fund, will provide clients with coaches who will work with them to improve their ability to meet emergency needs, build their credit, and grow generational wealth.
Over the next 12 months, LISC staff will onboard and train coaches, connect with community members eager to build savings, establish incentives programming and develop the necessary infrastructure to launch, and roll out the program in each market through local community partners.
In addition to coaching, the program also provides matching dollars for participants’ savings plans, with up to $500 for people with large-dollar goals such as purchasing a home or vehicle, and up to $300 for those with short-term or emergency savings goals.
“The Rocket Wealth Accelerator is a small step toward leveling the playing field for Black and minority families who have endured a system that prevents them from accumulating wealth, or passing that wealth onto the next generation,” said Laura Grannemann, vice president of the Rocket Community Fund, the philanthropic partner of Rocket Cos.
“By providing residents with coaching, as well as directly investing in their futures through our one-to-one savings account match program, the Rocket Wealth Accelerator will help put participants on a sustainable path to homeownership.”
The Rocket Wealth Accelerator is available to any income-qualified family, but specifically aims to address systemic racism and racial injustice that have decimated Black wealth. Nearly half of all Black and Hispanic households are unbanked or underbanked, and Black Americans are twice as likely to be denied for credit.
The Rocket Wealth Accelerator additionally hopes to put participants on a path to homeownership, combating the Black-white homeownership gap that is wider today than it was when race-based discrimination against homebuyers was legal.
The Rocket Wealth Accelerator leverages the infrastructure of LISCs Financial Opportunity
Center (FOC) network in Detroit, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Milwaukee. LISC has a network of
more than 130 centers embedded in community-based organizations across the country, which offer job training and placement services, financial coaching and education, income supports, and other services aimed to help families boost their savings, build credit, reduce expenses, and make sound financial decisions that increase assets.In Detroit, the Rocket Wealth Accelerator will be offered at SER-Metro Detroit, Wayne Metro Community Action Agency, and the International Institute.
“For far too many, the American dream of financial security feels out of reach,” says Lisa Glover, CEO of LISC. “Our partnership with the Rocket Community Fund, which is focused on pairing financial coaching with products designed to accelerate savings, is exactly the kind of investment in economic empowerment that can help close our country’s widening wealth gaps and equip more families of color to build generational wealth.”
The Rocket Wealth Accelerator will focus primarily on building savings in the short-, medium-, and long-term. In the short-term, the accelerator will provide coaching and matching incentives to help clients prepare for emergency needs. It then will increase opportunities for savings and credit counseling to facilitate and complement savings goals. Finally, it will lay the groundwork for long-term planning, including retirement, estate planning, and more that will aid in the generational transfer of wealth.
This is especially critical as more than 40 percent of Black households have no emergency savings, almost 45 percent have less than a month of income saved, and only 15 percent have at least one month of income saved, the lowest among all racial demographics.
Participants in the Rocket Wealth Accelerator also will receive access to a free, three-month
subscription to Rocket Money, a part of Rocket Cos. Rocket Money, formerly known as
Truebill, empowers people to live their best financial lives by managing subscriptions, lowering their bills, building budgets, and other valuable services saving them time and money. With Rocket Money, Rocket Wealth Accelerator participants will have a better understanding of their current economic situation while they work with coaches to improve their outlook on their path to homeownership and wealth creation.
Once the program is launched in each of the Rocket Wealth Accelerator cities, those interested in becoming potential clients can visit one of the participating FOC locations and sit with a financial coach, who will work with them to understand their long-term goals. Qualified clients include those who are striving toward homeownership, a car purchase or increasing emergency and short-term savings.Over the next three years, the Rocket Wealth Accelerator aims to:
- Serve more than 2,000 clients, including 80 percent of people of color.
- Have 1,000 clients create a spending plan with their financial coaches, building their
financial know-how and creating savings goals. - Assist 500 clients in increasing their credit score.
- Work with 750 clients in increasing their short-term savings, with 60 percent of those
increasing their savings by at least 25 percent.
Future details about Rocket Wealth Accelerator’s community impact will be available at lisc.org.
