Who we are

Giving Credit is a public benefit corporation on a mission to reveal, capitalize, and recognize community finance. We are the premier credit reporting agency for community finance, and through our technology, we aggregate peer lending in trusted social networks, leveraging social underwriting to expand access to mainstream credit for financially excluded communities.

Why our work matters

Everyone has credit.

People have credit with their financial institutions and with their friends and family. In fact, 90% of low-to-moderate income individuals participate in peer lending among their trusted social networks.

Yet, our exclusionary mainstream credit system does not recognize these financial transactions. 45 million people in the United States are credit-invisible. A credit history and score are needed to access financial products and services to build wealth.

We must redesign the credit system and create wealth-building opportunities for all by recognizing peer lending and borrowing as a true financial system. We achieve this by underwriting mainstream financial products with peer lending data and developing integrated financial products across the financial systems: mainstream and community.

The result is financial inclusion - a financial system designed for everyone.

Maria Eneida Andrade was the informal banker in her community. She knew who was a good credit risk.

Our Founding Story

Giving Credit is led by Founder, David Henderson and Co-Founder, Ashley Sherwin. We have spent the entirety of our careers in the social impact sector, working at the intersections of U.S. social welfare policy, technology, and innovation.

While working together at UpTogether, a national nonprofit technology organization, we saw how people would lend the cash they received to others, highlighting hidden banking networks. This professional insight mirrored David’s personal life as the son of a Panamanian mother who often remitted money to family back home. Years later, he saw how the financial system exploited her, leaving her in financial ruin.

David started incubating Giving Credit in 2022 through Princeton University, where he was a Sugarman Practitioner in Residence and a START Innovator. In 2024, after receiving an Emerging Leaders Award from Unorthodox Philanthropy, David brought Ashley on as a co-founder. 

Ultimately, we are building Giving Credit for communities like David’s, for his mother, for his late wife's family who immigrated to the United States from Mexico, and the millions more like them.

Small business owner Patty Ortiz has no formal credit. Instead, she borrows and lends with family and friends, like millions of people in the U.S.

Advisors

Frederick Wherry, Ph.D

1917 Professor of Sociology
Vice Dean for Diversity & Inclusion
Princeton University

Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Computer Science
Princeton University

Eldar Shafir, Ph.D

Class of 1987 Professor in Behavioral
Science and Public Policy
Princeton University

Jennie Lai

Former Head of UX Research
Google

Tawanna Dillahunt, Ph.D

Associate Professor of Information
and Computer Science
University of Michigan

Christine Gigi Hyland

Executive Director Emerita
National Credit Union Foundation