Resource Access

Description
A first-of-its-kind research publication offering a deep dive into CDFI loan funds. The study, based on interviews with 15 CDFI loan fund leaders from 13 states, examines how loan funds operate and create value for their customers.  It offers valuable insights to help stakeholders — funders, policymakers, and investors — better understand this essential model for rural, urban, and Native community investment and transformation.

Description
This brief examines the financing activity, financial performance, and efficiency and operations of Opportunity Finance Network’s member CDFIs that served as Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) lenders. These members devoted a substantial portion of their fiscal year 2021 lending activity to PPP, had higher self-sufficiency and change in net assets than non-PPP lenders, and achieved high rates of operational efficiency.

Description
CDFIs have a shared vision of a more inclusive financial system, but CDFIs and their stakeholders differ on how to best track progress. To foster more alignment, this paper outlines a proposed research agenda — mainly from the perspective of CDFI loan funds — to facilitate a better understanding of how CDFIs contribute to the nation’s financial inclusion ecosystem.

Description
Given changes in the community development financial institution (CDFI) industry and broader economic context, this brief examines CDFI activity, performance, and outcomes among all OFN members from 2017 through 2021. Where appropriate, for additional insights, we restrict the sample to members that have consistently reported data for the last five years.

Description
This fact sheet provides information on as many as 368 CDFIs in the OFN membership, depending on the data point.

Description
Side by Side is an annual reference guide for industry practitioners, investors, and others interested in assessing the activity and performance of the opportunity finance industry. It presents data from 368 CDFIs in the OFN membership and includes peer group analyses for the primary financing sectors.

Description
CDFIs have a shared vision of a more inclusive financial system, but CDFIs and their stakeholders differ on how to best track progress. To foster more alignment, this paper outlines a proposed research agenda — mainly from the perspective of CDFI loan funds — to facilitate a better understanding of how CDFIs contribute to the nation’s financial inclusion ecosystem.

Description
In new research supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Opportunity Finance Network shows the traditional measure of persistent poverty by county severely undercounts the number of Americans living in entrenched poverty and is less geographically inclusive of rural and urban communities alike.
The paper posits that measuring persistent poverty at a census tract level offers a more equitable and accurate methodology and has profound implications for many CDFIs.

A county measure suggests that nearly half of CDFIs have no lending activity in these areas. A census tract measure shows that the vast majority of CDFIs lend in persistent poverty areas and that nearly 40 percent of all CDFI lending is in these areas, a testament to the CDFI industry’s targeting of highly vulnerable rural and urban communities.

Description
Did you know the formation of the CDFI industry is rooted in the civil rights, worker rights, and social justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s? And that women religious provided seminal support to CDFIs? Or that Saturday Night Live once did a skit that mentioned the CDFI Fund? OFN's CDFI 101 history toolkit covers this content and much more!