#CDFIFund25 Stories and Data

Built to Scale: Designing a Business with Scale in Mind
St. John Manor
Catonsville CO-OP brings together food, community, and local businesses
A Grand Opening Like No Other

Testimonials

I strongly urge Congress to support the funding for the Department of the Treasury’s CDFI Fund….As a governing board member of Central States Development Partners, Inc., a national, certified Community Development Entity (CDE), I can personally attest to the measurable and lasting impact the CDFI Fund programs have on Main Street America. In my work with both Economic Growth Corporation and Central States Development Partners, I have witnessed firsthand how targeted federal investment through the CDFI Fund acts as a catalyst for private-sector growth in communities that need it most. These dollars support job-creating projects, from manufacturing, healthcare, and community facilities that increase access to vital community services needed within severely and deeply distressed communities.

-Denise Isaac, Economic Growth Corporation, Washington, DC

As an emerging CDFI serving the state of MN with small dollar consumer lending, this funding is essential to us to help combat predatory lending that strips wealth from low-income communities and allows us to provide stabilizing capital to communities to stay housed, employed, and (re)build credit to reach their asset building goals (e.g. car and home ownership) for the future.

-Anne Leland, Exodus Financial Services (dba Exodus Lending), Saint Paul, MN

Funding through the CDFI fund is essential to our home ownership, home ownership preservation and multifamily housing development programs. CDFI funding provides flexible, low-cost funds that fill the financing gaps in projects that provide affordable, safe, and healthy housing to our clients.

-Brent Ekstrom, CommunityWorks North Dakota, Mandan, ND