The following resources produced by New York Appleseed and National Appleseed are designed to help individuals and communities build and protect financial assets more safely and efficiently. Included are financial literacy materials as well as studies of financial access issues.

Prepaid cards can be a safe and accessible financial tool for unbanked and underbanked individuals, perhaps even providing an inroad to mainstream financial services that are so vital to asset building and protection. As such, nonprofits may consider partnering with private companies to cobrand and offer prepaid cards to constituents.

This guide helps nonprofits understand the potential risks and benefits of such partnerships both to the organizations themselves and to the people they serve.

More and more consumers are facing debt litigation in New York courts, and few have the knowledge or means to protect themselves from unfair judgments or settlements. Of nearly 300,000 consumer debt defendant New York City in 2008, more than 90 percent were unrepresented.

This report identifies and proposes solutions to the many problems with consumer debt litigation: default judgments, “sewer service,” undeliverable summons, and above all, lack of representation for low-income defendants.

Without a doubt, the recent economic crisis has hit New York’s working underclass hardest. Yet those who toil in cash or self-employed industries - including babysitters, taxi drivers and street vendors - face significant obstacles in obtaining state earned income tax credits, despite eligibility for the program.

With The Financial Clinic, New York Appleseed is now advocating for fair access to the EIC. This briefing provides a road map for that effort.

The U.S. deported more than 358,000 immigrants in 2008, the sixth consecutive year of record-high deportations. Whether or not someone has a right to stay in the country, or an ability to enforce that right, he or she is entitled to a final paycheck and is not by law stripped of all financial rights or child custody.

This manual guides volunteer lawyers and non-lawyer practitioners through important financial and family rights threatened by the deportation process.