Northeast Entrepreneur Fund Stories and Data

CDFIs drive economic mobility in a way that positively transforms communities in many ways. It’s relevant for folks with a business/economy-first mentality to know: CDFIs create small businesses, develop financially stable households, and increase low-come families’ spending power. These are metrics that are meaningful to people of all political views. Investing in the CDFI Fund pays dividends to the broader economy. This is not a politically divisive line item in the budget. Fund the CDFI Fund!

I am a real estate broker and development consultant working with emerging developers, small businesses and nonprofits. Many of my clients cannot finance their projects with traditional debt and equity because they don’t come from generational wealth and because their projects are more challenging because they are in markets that are not achieving their full potential yet or meeting critical community needs that don’t produce quite as much profit. CDFI lending has stepped in the gap to solve dozens of critical projects that just need a little boost to get to the finish line, and CDFIs are critical partners to Platform’s work.

As a CDFI, we support areas that have had historical underinvestment and see a transformative impact to those communities over time. The CDFI fund has an excellent private investment track record that accompanies the Treasury investment, leveraging the funds at an $8 or more for every $1 from the CDFI fund. This helps incentivize investment in these communities, bringing greater prosperity to all and putting all Americans to work that can access these programs.