Our History

Grow Brooklyn’s mission is to enable community members to grow and preserve their assets, thereby securing their economic future. Though we were born and raised in Brooklyn, we offer professional services including free tax preparation, housing counseling, and direct legal services to the overwhelmingly low-income residents and minority neighborhoods Citywide. We’re committed to be available for the duration and vow to remain closely attuned to the rhythms of our communities. Though our focus began hyperlocal, specifically located in Central Brooklyn (Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York, Crown Heights, and Brownsville), we have expanded to also offer programming in Bronx, Lower East Side in Manhattan, and in NYS Counties outside of New York City.

Grow Brooklyn emerged organically in response to deeply consequential community needs. We are an affiliate of Brooklyn Coop Federal Credit Union, a non-profit financial institution founded in 2001 that provides just and affordable financial services in neighborhoods long neglected by mainstream financial institutions.

2002
Free Tax Prep Services Added
To protect taxpayers from predatory tax prep providers, the first VITA site in Bushwick launched in 2003 with a single volunteer who prepared 72 tax returns. Over the last 18 years, we have expanded to offer Free Tax Prep to over 6,000 clients annually across 13 site locations. We are the largest noncommercial tax preparer in Kings County.
2007
Grow Brooklyn Founded
Grow Brooklyn was formally incorporated in order to expand programs to help remove the technical or legal obstacles that prevent families from building or maintaining their wealth.
2008
Homebuyer Education Services Added
Grow Brooklyn becomes a HUD-approved Housing Counseling agency and begins to offer Homebuyer Education to prospective homebuyers. It receives 501c3 tax-exempt status from the IRS.
2015
Legal Services Added
Over the years of providing foreclosure defense legal services, we found about 20% of troubled homeowners had concurrent title-related issues which would result in a loss of the home even if the foreclosure threat was resolved. In order to prevent these irreversible negative effects on families, GB expanded its legal services to include preparing petitions and representing clients in Kings County Surrogates Court as part of a program we call Protect your Treasure. To date, we have preserved $25.2 million in assets.
2016
Financial Coaching Services Added
We expand our wide-ranging counseling services to work with families across the financial spectrum, whether homeowners facing foreclosure, people preparing to purchase a home, or clients interested in improving their general financial management. For many years, each of these types of counseling was offered by different staff who were tracking narrow outcomes. Yet the lack of comprehensiveness became a hindrance. Financial Capability Coaching was developed to take a holistic approach to a client’s finances and help build long term goals and relationship with clients.
2019
Grow Brooklyn Featured
Our Protect Your Treasure program was featured in a Practitioner’s Guide to Culturally Relevant Financial Capability, a project of NALCAB that aims to provide non-profit organizations with examples of successful tools to preserve assets in low-income communities.
2020
Services for Seniors Added
Grow Brooklyn deploys programming focused on addressing the needs of Older Adults in our community. Through intensive outreach, compassionate counseling, and direct assistance we aim to keep older adult homeowners in their homes in the face of financial exploitation.