The Letter

Dear Senator/Dear Representative:

We write in support of a Fiscal Year 2026 appropriation of $324 million in level funding for the Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). This is the same amount enacted in PL 119-4, the Full Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025.

The CDFI Fund generates economic opportunity in distressed rural and urban areas by leveraging private investment and expanding access to credit, capital, and financial services through the investment in and assistance to a nationwide network of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). The CDFI Fund also supports the New Markets Tax Credit Program, which is awarded to approved community development entities across the nation, to leverage private capital investment in communities with high rates of poverty and unemployment.

In every state across the nation, CDFIs provide financial services to communities outside the economic mainstream. CDFIs provide patient flexible capital in urban and suburban neighborhoods and rural and tribal communities.

Through their unique public-private partnership model, CDFIs leverage over $8 in private capital for every $1 in federal support. CDFIs are filling the deep credit gap encountered in many communities providing financing to small businesses, affordable housing, and community facilities, creating jobs and business opportunities and promoting revitalization.

In FY 2023, with similar funding levels, CDFI Program Award recipients originated more than $57 billion in loans and investments—all in communities experiencing pervasive disinvestment. These resources have financed over 126,000 businesses and the development or preservation of over 76,000 affordable homes. There are 1,432 CDFIs, including 68 Native CDFIs, that have been certified to work in low-wealth communities nationwide as of February 2025. These include 569 loan funds, 491 credit unions, 162 depository institution holding companies, 197 banks or thrifts, and 13 venture capital funds in rural, urban and suburban areas in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

We strongly urge continued investment in the work of the CDFI Fund by providing it with an FY 2026 appropriation of at least $324 million.

Sincerely,