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A lack of access to capital, capacity-building resources, and technical assistance significantly constrains the ability of CDFIs led by people of color to achieve greater impact.

Requirements to be certified as a community development financial institution (CDFI) will soon change—and some lenders that qualified before might no longer.

When receiving bank funding, CDFIs often limit their investments in accordance with bank restrictions. How can reforms to the Community Reinvestment Act help center the needs of underserved communities?

  When more than 500 hundred people met for the Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Training Institute in Durham, NC, in late January, 1994, participants called this first official gathering […]

Community development financial institutions lend to micro- and small-business owners, but the jobs those businesses create are often minimum wage, part time, or otherwise low quality. What makes a job a good job, and what are CDFIs doing to help small-business borrowers create good jobs?

It has been a big year for community development financial institutions (CDFIs), the innovative, mission-driven organizations that provide much-needed financial services in underserved, low- and moderate-income communities across the United […]

Few books make me so angry that I must resist throwing them across the floor. One such book, published in 2002 (and since updated) was Greg Palast’s The Best Democracy […]

It should be a natural fit; what’s in the way?

At the Opportunity Finance Network conference in October, I finally got a chance to sit down and talk with Lisa Mensah, undersecretary for USDA rural development, whose energy and spirit […]

Three weeks ago I went to Philadelphia to attend the annual conference of the Opportunity Finance Network, the trade association for CDFIs, or community development financial institutions. I go to […]

The dual financial system affects not only Black and Brown consumers, but Black- and Brown-led firms. In the past two years, CDFIs have focused on shifting access to capital for developers.

In 2022, a government task force released an action plan about combating bias in the appraisal industry. How can CDFIs fight back against the damage caused by under-appraisals?