Nonprofit Lender Seeks Federal Designation
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowCDFI Friendly Bloomington is one of three Indiana nonprofits awarded a $125,000 grant from the U.S. Department of the Treasury as the organizations progress towards certification as a community development financial institution. A CDFI is a lender that primarily focuses on business development efforts in poorer local communities.
The Bloomington-based organization says the funding will allow it to hire additional staff, “and expand our capacity to serve the unmet capital needs of the nonprofits, small businesses, and residents of our community,” said CDFI Friendly Bloomington Executive Director Brian Payne.
Federal certification would make CDFI Friendly Bloomington eligible to receive direct investments from the Treasury Department’s CDFI Fund, which would then allow it to promote financial inclusion and economic development among poorer communities in and around Bloomington.
The other two Indiana recipients of $125,000 CDFI grants are CANI’s Center for Community and Economic Development, Inc. which does business as Brightpoint Development Fund and Union Baptist Church FCU, both are in Fort Wayne.
“Now CDFI Friendly strategies in Bloomington and elsewhere will have access to equity financing to innovate, grow, and serve their communities,” said Mark Pinsky, founding partner of CDFI Friendly America.
CDFI Friendly America, which partnered with the Bloomington community to create CDFI Friendly Bloomington, is working to replicate the Bloomington model in more than a dozen states.
Under the grant guidelines, CDFI Friendly Bloomington will work toward achieving federal certification by 2025.
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