This Nonprofit Leader Found a Simple Way to Encourage Immigrant Assimilation

For generations, those without access to banks and credit cards have depended on one another for loans and funding. As a result, millions of immigrants don’t have a credit score, even though they have plenty of credit history. “People were involved in very informal lending circles,” says José Quiñonez, chief executive officer of Mission Asset Fund. “We thought we could create a process to formalize that lending so that we could report it to the credit bureaus.”

Without a credit score, it’s hard to obtain a credit card, let alone lease a car, fund a child’s education, or buy a home—all hallmarks of successful American life. Under Quiñonez, MAF began tracking these off-the-books loan payments and giving that data to credit bureaus. “He’s influenced an entire field by making the parts visible that create financial identity and track records,” says Ida Rademacher, a vice president at the Aspen Institute, which hosts a financial technology group Quiñonez has attended. “Lending circles have been around forever, but his innovation was to broker the relationship with credit bureaus.”