“I Am Thankful”

– A Thanksgiving Message from Board Chairman John Holdsclaw, IV –

As I begin my final months as Board Chair of the CDFI Coalition, I am filled with a range of emotions and gratitude. Being Board Chair and working with my fellow Directors and the Rapoza staff has been one of the highest honors of my professional career.

During this unprecedented time in history, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) have answered the call of marginalized communities and small businesses through participation in the paycheck protection program (PPP) and delivering innovative financial products and programs to provide loans, and investments; capacity building; training and technical assistance services; and promoting development services efforts that bring credit and capital to individuals and communities.

In addition, through our collective advocacy efforts, CDFIs have received more than $12+ billion in appropriations and $60 billion in New Market Tax Credit allocation authority.

During my time as a Board member, I want to thank you for joining me on my diversity, equity, and inclusion journey. I remain indebted to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for laying the foundation of that journey by asking me to sit on a panel during their Racial Equity track at the 2017 SOCAP (Social Capital Markets) and for my continuing education ever since.

The past year of racial and social reckoning has proven that we all have a long way to go. Today, my journey is now DEI and J (Justice). Over the next few months, I am inviting Coalition Board members and other partners in good to provide blog posts on what DEIJ means to them and how it is best illustrated in their work and where we can improve. Stay tuned for more on this effort.

Lastly, I want to thank Chuck Snyder, NCB’s Chief Executive Officer who unexpectedly passed away in early November. He was a hero in the cooperative world and to me personally.  He taught my colleagues and I that we must “do well to do good” and that is what the Bank has worked to do under his leadership for 30+ years. But Chuck also thought doing well goes beyond financial performance, it also means fighting against the injustices against humanity.

Novelist James Baldwin once said, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” We must do all we can to lower the costs that poverty places on the communities we serve. I am thankful and looking forward to staying in the fight with each one of you. Let’s get to work.