Credit used to be about character. Then the algorithms arrived, and character stopped counting.

We're building the system that brings it back.

OUR MISSION

Giving Credit is built to get low-income communities access to the wealth-building credit they've always deserved, starting where the mainstream system stops: understanding their full financial picture.

OUR STORY

Our founder watched his mother's money move through people, not banks

David Henderson grew up watching his Panamanian mother receive money from family back home. It moved through trusted hands, between people who knew each other's character. It kept families stable, met real needs, and carried real obligation. And it never once appeared on a credit report.

The data confirmed what communities already knew

That observation became a question: how much of this is actually happening? In 2022, David received a fellowship at Princeton University, where he began researching community finance in earnest. He spent months interviewing people engaged in peer lending, listening to how they thought about loans, repayment, and trust. Those conversations became the foundation of everything that followed.

That work led David to a fellowship at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where he co-authored a research brief on peer-to-peer household credit. The answer: an estimated $200 billion in peer lending happening every year across the country, completely invisible to the mainstream credit system.

Then he saw it happening at scale

Years later, David and his co-founder, Ashley Sherwin, were working together at UpTogether, running cash transfer programs across the country. They kept seeing the same pattern: people receiving funds would turn around and lend them to others in their networks. Real loans. Real repayment. Real character. Not a single credit bureau could see any of it.

Billions in transactions and millions of people left out of the credit system entirely. So we set out to build one that included them.

Our Founders

David Henderson

Founder

David Henderson has spent the entirety of his career in the social sector, working at the intersections of U.S. social welfare policy, data analytics, and software engineering. David spent eight years as Chief Technology Officer at UpTogether, building technology infrastructure for one of the country's largest cash transfer programs. In 2022, he began a fellowship at Princeton University, where he researched how low-income communities engage in peer lending before going on to serve as a Visiting Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. David leads product and research at Giving Credit.

Co-Founder

Ashley Sherwin

Ashley Sherwin has spent over two decades working at the intersection of financial inclusion, technology, and social policy before co-founding Giving Credit. She has led revenue generation, partnerships, and operations across national nonprofits, raising hundreds of millions of dollars toward economic mobility initiatives. She also holds an MBA from Brandeis University focused on social impact management. Ashley leads sales and partnerships at Giving Credit.