Q&A with Taylor Price, executive director of CDFI Friendly Evansville Region
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Earlier this year, CDFI Friendly Evansville Region named Taylor Price as its founding executive director. The newly formed not-for-profit organization appointed its founding board of directors in February.
CDFI Friendly America bridges the gap between community development financial institutions and prospective borrowers. CDFIs are experts in extending loans to individuals and communities that have historically been marginalized and undervalued.
Price is an Evansville native who brings banking, mortgage lending and not-for-profit experience to CDFI Friendly Evansville Region. She spoke with Inside INdiana Business about how her new role matches her skills and goals.
Tell me about your banking and mortgage lending experience.
I started in banking fresh out of college. I started with Fifth Third Bank in 2013, and I moved to the mortgage lending department in November 2017. I was a [Community Reinvestment Act] mortgage loan originator until November 2019.
Then, I was recruited by a company in Colorado called LeaderOne Financial. They gave me the opportunity to open and run my own office in Evansville… to work independently and brand myself. I got the beauty of learning to work remotely, but also in a time of COVID that hit directly after that.
About a year or two in, LeaderOne Financial became Luminate Home Loans. Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union had been trying to pique my interest to come over there and work. I knew whenever rates were rising, it was going to be important for me to go somewhere local. So in July 2022, I went to work for Evansville Teachers, and then they became Liberty Federal Credit Union. I was a [mortgage loan originator] for Liberty. And now I’m with CDFI.
What about your not-for-profit experience?
When I was in college, I started working with Abraham Brown. He was the director of the Latino Collaboration Table. When I joined, it wasn’t even a 501(c)(3) yet. So I worked with the team to get it to that position. We worked to provide English as a Second Language classes and other resources to Latinos.
Then, a couple of years later, HOLA Evansville was looking for somebody to fill the vice president position. They asked me, and I said, “Of course, I’d be happy to.” So I was vice president of HOLA for about a year. And now I’m leading this non-profit.
What are you most proud of in your career so far?
I’m most proud of helping Latino families buy homes. I’m bilingual. I speak Spanish, so that’s where my heart lies. Helping people who maybe aren’t citizens realize the American dream of homeownership. That was very important to me. And also helping people who are lower income or underserved, people who are maybe in a bad way to purchase a home.
I helped a family whose landlord had stopped making mortgage payments. They were still paying the landlord, but the home they were living in was being foreclosed on. They had someone knock on their door saying, “You better find somewhere else to live.” They gave them three months.
This woman came to me and she said, “Is there any way you can help me buy a home?” This was back when I worked at Fifth Third, and we had down payment assistance. She didn’t have any credit history. She didn’t even have a score generated. I helped her generate a credit score. I helped her with down payment assistance. And within two and a half, three months, she was the owner of her own home.
I knew mortgage lending in and of itself wasn’t for me. The game is to get the biggest loans; that’s where the money is. But that’s not where I wanted to be. I wanted to help with the smaller loans, the more complicated loans, the ones that no one else wanted. They were more gratifying.
Why is connecting prospective borrowers to CDFIs in the Evansville region important?
There was a group of community members who came together and found there was a need for CDFI lending. There is a big portion of the city that is underserved. They don’t have access to traditional credits and loan products due to systemic barriers. Because of that, CDFI has created niche lending products that can afford to take on more risk.
I can help people who don’t have a Social Security number, who maybe just have an [Individual Taxpayer Identification Number], get a loan. There was a CDFI that I work with that works with a lot of refugees. [CDFI lending] is big in our market. In the past 10 years, there’s been a slow decline in our population in Evansville. But in recent years, there was a slight uptick. And the reason is our immigrant population.
We have a large population of Haitian, Latino and Marshallese immigrants. We’re happy they are here to bring more people to the city to stimulate the economy. But we need to be investing more to take care of them with vaccinations, offers for homeownership or any kind of lending. CDFI gives me the opportunity to do that for them.
What are the challenges of making financing more accessible for underserved and under-resourced communities in southwestern Indiana?
Right now, it’s getting the word out that CDFI exists and everything it does.
CDFI needs to be both deep and wide. By having our talks that we had last May and with all of the community leaders and organization leaders there, that helps to get CDFI wide to spread the word about what it is. But to get it to be deep, the impact that we have with our families and nonprofit organizations, it’s going to be me getting in the trenches with people, figuring out where their needs are at and helping them meet those.
Why did you want to be the founding executive director of CDFI Friendly Evansville Region?
When the job was posted, Adina Abramowitz, one of the founders of CDFI Friendly America, emailed it to me. I remember opening it and reading they were looking for an executive director for CDFI Friendly Evansville. This person needed to have banking experience, lending experience, nonprofit experience, startup nonprofit experience, bilingual preference. I’m looking at all of these boxes and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, check, check, check, check, check.”
Other people have told me, “This position is perfect for you. I cannot imagine anyone else but you doing this.” And that’s honestly how I feel about it. I feel as if every step I’ve taken in my professional career has been the red carpet leading me to CDFI Friendly. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. And the fact that the hiring board and all the committees believe strongly in my ability to lead this organization, it is met with ineffable gratitude.
What are your short-term goals?
One of my short-term goals is we’re getting ready to attempt to write a grant through the Community Collaboration Fund of Indiana, and that’s through the [Indiana Economic Development Corporation]. I want to develop a program that will help Black entrepreneurs or business founders. I’m trying to figure out how that’s going to be structured.
I have ties to the Latino community, but people have been asking me, “How are you going to drive change in the Black community? How are you going to be that champion?” I tell them that my whole life I have been working to be an ally to the Black community, Latino community and every protected class. But it is a continued journey because there is no destination. It’s always changing. It’s always evolving.
What are your long-term goals?
My long-term goals are to hit all of the anticipated lending dollars that are set forth in our business plan. Hopefully, we’ll meet and exceed those. Then from there, just be a champion for all of those protected classes that I can be.
How will you work with the founding board of directors to advance the CDFI Friendly mission?
My board is full of warm-hearted people who want nothing more than to see me succeed. I’m in a room full of movers and shakers. They’re like, “You need help with this? I got you. You need an introduction to this person? I got you.” They have been more than willing and helpful in collaborating with me to be successful in meeting who I need to meet.
Bob Jones [retired CEO and chairman of Old National Bank] has been incredible as far as introducing me to key players who can hopefully make a commitment to CDFI Friendly in the future so I can start building those relationships and moving forward. Abraham Brown [director of Latino ministry at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church] has been helpful in connecting me with people within the Latino community who have reached out to him for lending assistance.
I already have one business owner looking to purchase a brick-and-mortar restaurant and expand. She has a food truck. She wants to open her own restaurant. Another one is a Latina woman who’s looking to buy a house for her family. I was speaking with her in Spanish on the phone, and I was telling her, “This is where I shine: mortgage. We can certainly help you with that.” What I love about CDFI is we never tell people no. We always say we will work with you.
What’s next for CDFI Friendly Evansville Region?
We’re trying to organize another big convening to talk about CDFI Friendly as it is and where it’s going. The meetings we’ve put together so far aren’t as big as the ones that we put together last May and September. They are geared more towards institutions that have made commitments, following up with them and telling them about the progress of CDFI and all the good things that we’re doing.
I want to have information sessions on a smaller level for the Latino and Black populations. When you’re in a room full of hundreds of people, you are hesitant to speak up and ask the questions you want to ask. So I want to have more intimate sessions for those protected classes. We’ll post upcoming events on social media. We’ll also reach out to people who have attended past sessions to see if they can spread the word.