Thank you to our partners at Inclusive and CDBA for sharing data on CDFI Bank and CDFI Credit Union branch locations. In addition, about 100 of our CDFI Stories come from OFN’s story database.
I have watched how CDFIs support small business owners and home owners where banks and credit unions could not. The amount banks charge is often above what people can pay, CDFIs that are nonprofits even the playing field for them by investing in the people and not company profits.
CDFIs are mission-driven financial institutions rooted in community. They exist to expand economic participation, particularly in places that have long been excluded from traditional financing systems. In many ways, BII has operated with a CDFI mindset from the start: investing in local entrepreneurs, supporting community-owned enterprises, and helping to close persistent gaps in access to capital.
CDFIs are critical to increasing access to capital in communities across the country. Here at Communities Unlimited, we are filling gaps that the market cannot fill. Leveraging the CDFI Fund, we provide lending services that are critical to basic infrastructure in rural places, sparking entrepreneurship in small towns, and deploying capital to increase investment in homes and property in rural areas. Our lending portfolio includes rural and regional water and wastewater systems, small business loans for unserved entrepreneurs who cannot access a loan from a traditional bank, and consumer loans for home improvement, private wells, and private septic systems in rural places. The best part about our lending services: our clients pay them off. These are not handouts but loans. CU’s lending services, through the CDFI Fund, are critical for increasing access to capital and driving economic growth in rural places.
CDFIs stimulate the economy and is a vital segment of economic development and contributes directly to the GDP.