Redbud Financial Alternatives, Inc. turns credit from an obstacle to an opportunity for communities in Eastern Kentucky. Redbud's mission is to provide equitable consumer financial products that help clients achieve housing and overall financial stability. Redbud's services include individualized financial counseling and fair loans designed to enable clients to tackle snowballing debt, lower monthly payments, and improve borrowing behavior to increase credit scores. All of Redbud's services focus on guiding clients towards their financial and personal asset goals, such as homeownership, gainful employment, and savings accounts. Redbud works closely with community partners to increase their clients' rate of success; when clients of these partners are not yet eligible for the program offerings based on credit and debt issues, Redbud works with these clients to address their financial qualifications. For example: for clients applying to the homeownership programs of Housing Development Alliance, low credit scores and collections on credit reports can be a major barrier. For these individuals, Redbud provides individualized credit counseling to identify the lines and behaviors affecting their score and works with the client to create a plan to pay off the collections and improve borrowing habits. Regular check-ins help the client stay on track until they are eligible to apply to become a homeowner. Redbud is the only licensed non-profit consumer lender in Kentucky, and is one of few rurally-based, certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) consumer lenders in the nation and the only one in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields.