Center for Responsible Lending (CRL)

As of July 2026, CRL was fiscally sponsoring the Julian Bond Institute for Financial Equity Research, which primarily focuses on financial issues from a lens of racial disparity. It shares many of its core issues with CRL, including weather-dependent energy advocacy and student loan reform research.   ³

CRL has controversially received funding from the Sandler Foundation of Herb and Marion Sandler. Herb Sandler is a banker who has been criticized for mortgage lending practices in advance of the 2008 financial crisis.  ⁴

Background

The Center for Responsible Lending is a left-of-center advocacy and educational nonprofit based in North Carolina. The group highlights “families of color, rural residents, women, military personnel, low-income borrowers, low-wealth individuals, and early-career workers” as its core target demographics.  ⁵

The Center is part of a large web of related entities, most bearing the name “Self-Help,” in reference to another nonprofit known as the Center for Community Self-Help, founded by Martin Eakes in 1980. The four main organizations under the auspices of the Center for Community Self-Help include the Self-Help Credit Union, the Self-Help Federal Credit Union, the Self-Help Ventures Fund, and CRL. Additionally, there are other smaller affiliated nonprofits of which the Center for Community Self-Help is the direct controlling entity, such as the Self-Help Services Corporation, the Self-Help Assistance Corporation, and Self-Help Economic Development Inc., the only of these organizations to be based in California, whereas the others are based in North Carolina.  ^{6  7}

The Self-Help Credit Union held nearly $2 billion in total assets in 2024, and in 2023 was awarded a $10 million grant by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.  ^{8  9}

The group advocates for the critical race theory-influenced concept of equity, stating that part of its mission is to ensure that “the benefits of the nation’s clean energy transition are safely and equitably available to underserved consumers and communities” and seeks to “move the nation toward racial and economic equity.” The group also claims to have spearheaded a coalition that led to President Joe Biden to cancel over $136 billion of student debt.  ⁵

In 2015, a Washington Post article that fact-checked CRL research regarding auto loan costs identified “a lack of transparency” on CRL’s part about the basis for its calculations.  ¹⁰ In 2012, David Stoesz published a paper looking at how, in its criticisms of payday lenders, “CRL misrepresents data in order to further its reform agenda.”  ¹¹

Issue Areas

The Center for Responsible Lending focuses on various economic issues, primarily from a left-of-center viewpoint. These issues include advocating for transitioning to non-traditional energy sources, such as solar power for homes and electric vehicles; student loan cancellation, especially for Black Americans; debt forgiveness advocacy coalitions; adopting a cap of 36 percent APR on consumer loans like payday loans; and reducing bank overdraft fees.  ¹²

Julian Bond Institute

As of July 2026, the Julian Bond Institute for Financial Equity Research was a fiscally sponsored project of the Center for Responsible Lending, sharing its tax-exempt status and EIN with the organization.  ³

The institute primarily focuses on financial issues from a lens of racial disparity. It shares many of its core issues with CRL, including renewable energy advocacy and student loan reform research.  ³

As of July 2026, Sara Weiss was the executive director of the Julian Bond Institute.  ³

Funding

The Sandler Foundation, founded by Herb and Marion Sandler, has been a consistent supporter of CRL.  ⁴ Following reporting by the New York Times in 2008 on the relationship between the Sandlers and CRL, ⁴ which portrayed Herb Sandler as inspiring CRL’s leadership to make a CRL a nationally active organization, CRL made a public statement to clarify certain details. A CRL spokesperson told TIME Magazine that “Certainly he [Sandler] stepped forward to provide the funds that founded the center, but the vision and work of the center already existed.… So while he gave the seed money to start the organization, that money went to fund an effort already underway.” ¹³

After the financial crash of 2008, the New York Times published an article about Herb and Marion Sandler and the mortgage lender they founded, World Savings Bank, which later merged with Wachovia. ⁴  The Sandlers disputed aspects of the New York Times article, and in 2009, sent a letter to the Times that quoted in part an email from CRL’s Martin Eakes which defended the Sandlers.  ¹⁴

Consumer Protection Advisory Council

On October 3, 2022, New York State Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris announced that the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) had relaunched its New York Consumer Protection Advisory Council, a body meant to assist the DFS with “work related to the financial wellbeing of households and small business in New York.” The Council was announced to have an expanded membership, with Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending, being amongst the new and existing members. Other named members included Joseph Canovas, affiliated with the AFL-CIO; Carolyn Fast of the Century Foundation; Beth Finkel, the New York State Director of AARP; and Mark E. Blue, President of the Buffalo branch of the NAACP.  According to Superintendent Harris’ statement, the new council “will aid the Department in making decisions that are transparent and fair, and in surfacing the best solutions for individuals, families, and small businesses, no matter their location, age, gender, sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity.” ¹⁵

People

As of July 2026, co-founder Martin Eakes was the CEO of the Center for Responsible Lending and the related organization Center for Community Self-Help (often shortened to “Self-Help”). He was also on the Bank of America National Community Advisory Council. Eakes was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and was previously a trustee of the Ford Foundation.  ^{16  17}

Barbra Wright was a co-founder of the organization and the wife of Eakes.  ¹⁸

As of July 2026, Mike Calhoun was the president of the CRL. Previously, Calhoun was the general counsel for CRL and Self-Help from 1996 to 2006, a partner at Gulley and Calhoun from 1985 to 2003, and a senior attorney at the North Central Legal Assistance Program from 1978 to 1985. He has also been a chair of the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Advisory Council.  ^{19  20}

As of July 2026, Sara Weiss was the executive director of the Julian Bond Institute, a fiscally sponsored project of CRL, and the vice president and director of research at CRL. Previously, she was a senior consultant and project manager at Technical Assent and an associate director at the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.  ²¹

As of July 2026, CRL’s board of directors included LaShawn Warren, a chief policy officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center; Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance; Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates; Sarah Ludwig, co-director of New Economy Project; and Wade Henderson, who was previously the Washington Bureau Director for the NAACP.  ²²