VITA Latino is a component of Common Wealth Charlotte’s (CWC) Spanish initiative, Buenas Finanzas Carolinas (BFC). This program delivers a comprehensive range of financial literacy and capability services while being tailored through a culturally sensitive approach to more effectively serve Charlotte’s expanding and underserved Latinx community. Since inception, VITA Latino has returned a total of $2,150,238 in tax refunds – and the financial impact continues to grow. 

CWC proves every day that a dedicated client can successfully move away from continual reliance on government or charitable assistance into graduated tiers of financial capability. And this Financial Literacy Month, CWC hosted a fundraiser in celebration of its 10^th birthday, The Faces of Change, highlighting a 10-Year retrospective of Charlotte's quest for upward economic mobility. 

Common Wealth Charlotte is excited to announce the addition of our newest staff member, Elena Blackwell! Elena joins CWC’s Latinx initiative, Buenas Finanzas Carolinas, as Financial Counselor. In this role, she will provide client engagement as well as community outreach for the VITA Latino program.  

Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC) has announced it has received a $60,000 multiyear grant from the U.S. Bank Foundation. This grant will enable CWC to continue its vital mission of supporting Charlotte’s low-income wage earners and fostering financial capability as a genuine pathway to economic mobility. 

CWC is excited to announce the addition of our newest staff member, Meleny Peña-Johnson! Meleny joins Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC) as a Financial Counselor. In this role she will assist financial and credit counseling with clients to help them obtain their long-term goal of greater financial wellness. 

As we recently evaluated our former financial counseling process, we identified areas to enhance and better align with CWC's mission and our clients' financial journeys. Designed with five key financial planning milestones, our updated counseling framework lays out clear goals and milestones, ensuring every client has a roadmap to financial capability.

CWC is excited to announce the addition of our newest staff member, Julie Drinkhahn! Julie joins Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC) as Grants Manager, providing oversight of CWC's core fundraising efforts.

Common Wealth Charlotte is excited to announce the addition of four new members to the CWC Board of Directors!

Financial Health Workplace is designed to help hourly wage earners at small and medium sized businesses move from financial insecurity to financial capability through access to CWC’s programs and services at their workplace.   

For those facing economic difficulties and financial instability, tax season can add extra pressure, stress, and financial strain. Although preparing taxes is an annual necessity, the associated costs can be overwhelming to many and a barrier to filing. Understanding the need to alleviate this burden for many in Charlotte's Latinx community, Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC) introduced the VITA Latino tax filing program in 2022. Since this program was launched just two years ago, it has grown exponentially and has had a powerful, positive impact on the financial lives of its recipients.

In celebration of Financial Literacy Month, Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC) teamed up with Charlotte Historian Tom Hanchett and the Brooklyn Collective to explore Charlotte’s history of economic segregation, leaving guests with a better understanding of how Charlotte - America’s prosperous, second-largest financial center - is also one of our country’s least economically mobile communities, where hundreds of thousands of people struggle with financial instability.

CWC is excited to announce the addition of our newest staff member, Patrick Wilde! Patrick joins Common Wealth Charlotte as Manager, Financial Health Workplace. In this role, he is responsible for promoting financial literacy and wellness in places of employment, helping organizations realize the value of investing in their employees' financial well-being.

CWC is excited to announce the addition of our newest staff member, Sarah Wise! Sarah joins Common Wealth Charlotte as a Financial Counselor. In this role, she will assist financial and credit counseling with clients to help them obtain their long-term goal of greater financial wellness. 

Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC), a Charlotte-based nonprofit dedicated to equipping low-income wage earners with increased financial capability, recently completed a year-long training course offered by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing (NCMW). As a national organization working to ensure mental wellbeing is a reality for all, NCMW drives policy and social change on behalf of over 3,100 mental health and substance use treatment organizations; and to more than 10 million children, adults and families nationwide.

Common Wealth Charlotte (CWC), a Charlotte-based nonprofit dedicated to helping clients rise out of financial insecurity, recently launched KnowMore, a 12-episode podcast that will provide a forum for in-depth conversations regarding local economic hardships faced by Charlotte’s underserved communities.  

As most of you know, Mary Quinn has served as CWC’s Director of Financial Education for 7 years, was named the 2021 Heart of Charlotte Community Educator of the Year and is widely known in the Charlotte area as a recognized expert in trauma-informed financial education. We wanted to take this time to share with you that Mary has moved to Australia with her fiancé and will thus be leaving our team later this summer. We have long considered our financial education led by Mary to be one of CWC’s greatest strengths; however, with change comes opportunity, and we are now in the process of re-tooling our education process.

First offered by the IRS nationally in 1971, VITA – Volunteer Income Tax Assistance - helps low- to moderate-income individuals, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and limited English speakers file their taxes for free each year. Here in Mecklenburg County, VITA Latino specifically reaches a population of our community that has faced tax preparation barriers.

Michelle Boudin from WCNC Charlotte interviewed one of our clients, Jesse, about how Common Wealth Charlotte entered his life and got him working with a certified counselor in order to buy a new car. At Common Wealth Charlotte, we are committed to helping individuals (like Jesse) deepen their financial literacy while providing the necessary tools to empower them into mapping a new financial future.

Check out Jesse’s success story by clicking the link below!