The Trenton Times published the following article on May 8, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Isles Financial Solutions gets $160,000 development grant

By Alyssa Mease/The Times of Trenton 
on May 08, 2013 at 8:20 AM

TRENTON — Isles Financial Solutions Inc. (FIS) which fosters environmentally-friendly urban development and self-reliance, has been awarded a $160,000 Citi Community Development grant to expand its initiative with low-paid workers at Princeton University.

“We’re honored and delighted that Citi would provide us the support to expand IFS services to more workers in Mercer County,” Isles Managing Director of Community Enterprises Peter Rose said in a news release.

Isles works with low-wage workers to reduce debt and build credit and savings. The grant will help coach new workers and continue working with employees at Princeton University, the release said.

Forty workers at Princeton University were invited to take part in a pilot project in 2012 to reduce their debt and build assets. All of the workers, who have either low or moderate incomes, put at least $500 into a savings account during the program, the release said.

The workers also learned how to create a household budget, improve their credit scores and reduce debt and reduce interest and fees, the release said.

Isles will use $10,000 of the grant to fund the Personal Finance Employee Education Foundation, a year-long study of how effective the IFS program is. The PFEEF will track improvements to employee financial capability, savings and credit scores. It also will monitor changes in workers’ productivity and financial distress, the release said.

“We’re excited about this opportunity to measure the effectiveness of our model, which we believe offers a unique blend of services that can rapidly help improve the financial capacity, increase savings and lower high-cost debt for lower wage workers,” Rose said in the release.

Trenton-based IFS, founded in 1981, is a self-help, urban green development organization with a mission to foster self-reliant families and healthy, sustainable communities.

It is an employer-based initiative, which means that only workers whose employers offer the program can participate.

Employees who are interesting in bringing IFS to their workplace should call Kit Patel at (609) 341-4740.

Contact Alyssa Mease at amease@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5673.