CDFIs provided necessary funding and support to communities, including small businesses. Economic opportunity is the path to a unified society.
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.
CDFIs provided necessary funding and support to communities, including small businesses. Economic opportunity is the path to a unified society.
We are a nonprofit Chamber of Commerce that does microlending for small businesses. We work with a CDFI bank and are trying to get CDFI certification.
We have seen thousands of businesses receive grants and loans through CDFIs that have gone on to become successful businesses, contributing significantly to their local economies. Most of these businesses would not have received this capital from other financial institutions, so without this CDFI funding these thousands of businesses would not have been started or would have run out of initial funding before hitting the critical mass necessary to be successful. It means thousands of businesses, employers and employees are now gainfully employed, contributing to the economy and paying taxes that otherwise would not have happened.
CDFIs are critical to our economy. They step in where banks can’t – or wont – go. They leverage hundreds of millions of private dollars every year and invest them in underserved businesses and communities, based on need and impact. This is an effective, efficient public-private solution to pressing social and economic issues throughout our country.