Erica Plasencia (she/her/ella) is a first-generation daughter of Mexican immigrants. She grew up in a small rural town in Northern California, where she experienced the clear impacts of limited access to resources and education, and its implications on social and economic mobility for communities of color. As the Program Manager for Economic Equity at Greenlining, Erica leads bank accountability efforts at the federal level using the Community Reinvestment Act, an anti-redlining law that obligates banks to serve the needs of low and moderate income communities and reinvest in these communities in order to combat the racial wealth gap and segregation.
Prior to joining The Greenlining Institute, she worked at California Community Builders where she helped address economic and racial justice issues through community education efforts on redlining and policy advocacy focused on access to homeownership for people of color. In addition to her non profit work, Erica has worked in various higher education settings helping address the Latinx educational pipeline by assisting students with college readiness skills, retention programs, and implementing culturally relevant curriculums.
Erica enjoys going home to her mom's home cooked meals, dancing, playing volleyball, and going on hikes with her fiance.
Rawan Elhalaby (she/her/hers) is the Associate Director of Economic Equity at the Greenlining Institute where she oversees bank accountability efforts using the Community Reinvestment Act. As the daughter of working class refugees, Rawan is all too familiar with the obstacles to achieving self-sufficiency in the United States for low-income and immigrant families. As such, she has spent her career addressing these obstacles at Greenlining and one-on-one with recently arrived refugees from Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Afghanistan (among others) to San Diego at the International Rescue Committee. She has also worked as a policy consultant to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the County of San Diego, the Western Regional Advocacy Project, and the Dellums Institute for Social Justice. Rawan holds a degree in Political Science from San Diego State University and a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy.
Economic EquityPolicyStaff
For decades, the financial industry legally denied communities of color access to credit, capital, and pathways to wealth-building through homeownership through redlining. While redlining was officially outlawed in 1977, the impacts persist to this day.
As the federal government weakens economic safeguards that provide critical consumer protections and the racial wealth gap continues to grow, banks have a critical role to play in repairing harm, rebuilding trust, and directing investment where it is needed most.
The Greenlined Banking Standards – developed in partnership with banks, community-based organizations, and advocates – offer a clear, practical framework for banks to play a role in advancing economic equity through their practices, products, investments, and partnerships.
These standards translate The Greenlining Institute’s 30 years of experience partnering with communities of color and the financial services industry to combat the impacts of redlining into a roadmap for community-centered banking.
The Greenlined Banking Standards focus on seven key areas where banks can advance economic equity through their practices:
Small Business
Community Development Financial Institution Partnerships