CDFI Stories Stories and Data

K-V-A-T Food Stores, Inc.
Two Rivers Lumber Company
Cristo Rey Fort Worth STEAM Center
La Placita: An Economic, Health Care and Community Resilience Hub (1751 Alum Rock, LLC)

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.

CDFI Investment Map

Mapped CDFI investment data (2005-2023), via the CDFI Coalition's partnership with CDFI Friendly America.

CDFI Advocacy App

Want more state data? Check out CDFI Friendly America's mobile-friendly CDFI Advocacy App for impacts from 2005-2023.

Testimonials

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.

Ines Polonius, Communities Unlimited, Fayetteville, AR

The CDFI industry has grown thanks to broad bipartisan support over the last 25 years. We’re counting on Congress to keep this essential economic development engine moving forward.

Meagan Weatherby, Cooperative Federal, Syracuse, NY

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.

Victoria E. Stein, Otis Street Advisors LLC, Newton MA, MA

Throughout our tenure as a CDFI, (since 2010), KyHFH CDFI has been able to support our 31 nonprofit affordable housing entities with 0-2% loans for the construction of affordable single family housing units, capital equipment, staffing needs, energy efficiency upgrades, land acquisition, infrastructure, commercial property and neighborhood revitalization. Without the funding, support and brand of the CDFI, serving low-income clients, neighborhoods and entire counties in Kentucky would not be possible. To date, Habitat in KY has provided close to 8,000 units of affordable housing that serves a population who earn 80% and below the AMI, but also, our largest client base earns 30-60% AMI. Many of our clients transition from renters to first-time homebuyers as well as moving from a pre-1976 mobile home to a traditionally built housing unit, making their lives safer, more affordable and energy efficient. Who else could provide this type of support as well as improvements to our communities than a CDFI. Without the CDFI Fund, none of this would have taken place in the past, currently or in the future.

Mary Shearer, KY Habitat for Humanity Inc., Louisville, KY