Finance Justice Fund Directs Capital Where It’s Needed Most Through CDFIs
Opportunity Finance Network reaches more than $150 million deployed in long-term, low-cost capital to help member CDFIs invest where mainstream finance doesn’t traditionally reach
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Photo: The Amistad team, borrower of Finance Justice Fund recipient Genesis Community Loan Fund, delivers meal to those in need in Portland, Maine.
Nationwide, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) provide fair and responsible financing to people and places traditional banks often don’t serve. Launched in November 2020, the Finance Justice Fund aims to support CDFIs in their work to help close the racial wealth gap and direct much-needed capital to communities experiencing disproportionately high rates of persistent poverty.
The Finance Justice Fund helps make it possible for organizations like Amistad in Portland, Maine, to better serve people experiencing homelessness, hunger, substance use and behavioral health challenges, and disproportionate barriers to treatment and care; for people like Anique and Ali Russel to expand their food enterprise in Columbus, Ohio; for tribes like the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa to restore more than 28,000 acres of land within reservation boundaries back to tribal ownership; and for so many others to achieve their full potential.
Latest Finance Justice Fund Recipients
With support from Finance Justice Fund partners, including Twitter, Wells Fargo, Truist, Focusing Philanthropy, MacArthur Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, PNC, Nextdoor, the Finance Justice Fund is closer to its goal of bringing more than $1 billion in long-term, flexible capital to CDFIs to address longstanding disinvestment issues, the racial wealth gap, and persistent poverty nationwide.
OFN is pleased to announce recent Finance Justice Fund recipients. Based in diverse communities across the country, including New York’s Hudson Valley, Northern California, and rural southwest Georgia, these CDFIs help finance good and equitable jobs, small businesses, microenterprises, minority-led startups, affordable housing, and more.
- BlueHub Loan Fund helps connect low-income communities, many of them communities of color, with flexible financing to generate equitable and inclusive economic opportunity.
- Capital for Change serves people, nonprofits, small businesses, and public institutions. Their high-impact programs and products broaden access to affordable housing, energy efficiency, and job opportunities for underserved communities in the Connecticut region.
- Colorado Enterprise Fund provides business consulting services and connects budding small businesses and entrepreneurs to relevant resources.
- Community Capital of New York is a mission-driven lender that provides flexible, affordable, and responsible financing to support small businesses and affordable housing across the Hudson Valley and New York State.
- Dakota Resources builds financial and leadership capacity for communities to design the future they choose. Programs include Learning Networking, Community Coaching, Rural X, New Markets Tax Credits, and Community Development Loans.
- Finance Fund is a mission-guided, nonprofit organization that drives capital, real estate development, and other resources to low- and moderate-income communities to improve quality of life.
- Housing Assistance Council is a national nonprofit that supports affordable housing efforts throughout rural America.
- Impact Loan Fund offers loans to business owners and landlords in lower Northeast Philadelphia and across the city in order to attract businesses to their target area, support area redevelopment, and finance existing business growth to create jobs for neighborhood residents.
- New Hampshire Community Loan Fund serves as a catalyst, leveraging financial, human, and civic resources to enable traditionally underserved people to participate more fully in New Hampshire’s economy.
- Pacific Community Ventures is an impact investor that supports small business owners and their communities in the fight for economic, racial, and gender justice.
- San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund offers fast, flexible capital for affordable housing development that bridges between other funding sources to make sure every project, no matter how complex, gets across the finish line.
- Southwest Georgia United Empowerment Zone, Inc. helps individuals, organizations, and communities set the stage for sustainable growth and development while protecting the natural, cultural, and historic character of the area.
These latest recipients bring the Finance Justice Fund to 66 loans closed totaling $141.3 million and 62 grants disbursed totaling $11.6 million.
Visit OFN’s website to see the full list of CDFIs that have received Finance Justice Fund loans and grants to date.
Want to Learn More about the Finance Justice Fund?
Corporations and philanthropies interested in investing in the Finance Justice Fund, please contact Andrea Longton, senior vice president, development & capitalization at OFN.
CDFIs interested in learning more about the Finance Justice Fund, visit OFN’s Finance Justice Fund page or contact Lisa Wright, senior vice president of financial services.