Publications

In 2016, OFN convened an Employer-Based Small Dollar Loan Knowledge Network to focus on expanding and replicating employer-based small dollar loans. This paper summarizes the strategies of the lenders in various aspects of offering employer-based small dollar loans, highlighting common themes and challenges as well as noting areas in which participants diverged. It is intended to present the learnings from the Knowledge Network and provide partners, researchers, and funders with understanding of the programs.

Since the Great Recession, income inequality has emerged as one of the leading economic development issues in the United States. CDFIs that support job creation can help bridge this income gap by working with businesses to create quality jobs that offer fair wages, good benefits, meaningful advancement, and wealth-building opportunities. Today, there are just a few CDFI small business lenders are focused on this critical issue. OFN interviewed five of them, along with five of their borrowers, to gain an understanding of the practical approaches and tools they use to promote quality job creation. Based on interviews with five CDFIs who are on the cutting edge of quality job promotion, and five of their borrowers, Reducing Income Inequality: How CDFIs Promote Job Quality, provides an understanding of the practical approaches and tools CDFIs can use to promote quality job creation.

The 18th Edition of Side by Side highlights essential peer groups and key statistics of the over 200 Opportunity Finance Network Member institutions with data from FY 2015. This reference guide - FREE to OFN Members and Allies - is essential for practitioners, investors, funders, and others who assess the activity and performance of the opportunity finance industry. It is also a valuable tool for CDFIs and can help to plan and better understand their organization’s performance relative to their peers. OFN Members and Allies, please contact Jacki Fox at jfox@ofn.org for the purchase code.

This report provides information on 221 OFN Member CDFIs. The vast majority (195) of these institutions are community development loan funds with the balance being 23 community development credit unions, two community development banks, and a single community development venture capital fund.

Using quantitative and qualitative research, CDFI Futures: An Industry at a Crossroads explores these questions and more, discussing this inflection point for community investment and its future challenges and opportunities. The groundbreaking research was motivated by a view among many practitioners and investors that the CDFI industry is at a critical time of change.

Community development financial institutions (CDFIs) have sometimes worked with one another to fulfill their primary mission of providing affordable, responsible capital, credit, and financial services to low-income, low-wealth, and other underserved people and communities. In recent years, the number and types of CDFI collaborations have increased markedly. Developing and sustaining a CDFI collaboration requires a substantial commitment among all of the partners involved and some collaboration efforts never truly get off the ground. Particularly at the state and regional level, there are CDFIs that are interested in collaborating with their peers but struggle to make it happen. Why are some CDFI collaboration initiatives successful while others are not? This paper seeks to answer this and related questions by studying 12 emerging, ongoing, and completed CDFI collaborations across the industry.

Download a printable 8.5"x11" Infographic of the 17th Edition of Side by Side.

CDFIs foster social and economic progress—all the while offering investors one of the safest investments in the financial community. Based on Opportunity Finance Network Member data, this study shows that OFN Member CDFIs demonstrated strong community impact and performance consistently throughout the 20-year period, even during the Great Recession.

The 17th Edition of Side by Side highlights essential peer groups and key statistics of the over 200 Opportunity Finance Network Member institutions with data from FY 2014. This reference guide - FREE to OFN Members and Allies - is essential for practitioners, investors, funders, and others who assess the activity and performance of the opportunity finance industry. It is also a valuable tool for CDFIs and can help to plan and better understand their organization’s performance relative to their peers. OFN Members and Allies, please contact Jacki Fox at jfox@ofn.org for the purchase code.

This report provides information on 226 CDFIs in the OFN membership. The vast majority (200) of these institutions are community development loan funds with the balance being 23 community development credit unions, two community development banks, and a single community development venture capital fund.