CDFIs are essential to ensuring all communities and residents have access to safe, affordable credit when traditional financial institutions are not able to do so. These market-based institutions know their communities needs best and leverage private sector investment. Building bridges between the public and private sectors is what CDFIs do well and we need to preserve the expertise of these organizations by ensuring a robust funding of $324 million for the CDFI Fund.
Our local CDFI has been essential to supporting our organization, our members and so many people in our community who have struggled to access capital and financial services. They understand how to work with our communities and have assisted so many first time home-buyers and new businesses in getting on track and being financially stable. For many of our members this is where they’ve opened their first bank account and learned how to manage their finances.
CDFIs stand in the gap for communities that have long been overlooked, offering the tools, capital, and support that empower people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. From revitalizing main streets to helping families buy their first homes, CDFIs turn potential into progress. With timely and full support from the Treasury Department, these institutions can continue delivering measurable impact, fueling self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and generational change in America’s most underinvested communities