The CDFI Fund

The CDFI Fund invests in organizations with sound strategies, making awards through a competitive assessment of strategic business plans. The CDFI Fund meets the opportunity finance industry's needs for equity capital and for investment in institutional capacity building. It supports permanent institutions with specialized market knowledge and expertise, and is the only federal source of equity capital available to all CDFIs, regardless of location or lending sector. It is a unique, proven program.

In the changing political landscape, there is a rare opportunity to develop, propose, and enact policies that would simultaneously reflect the structural and systemic changes of our industry and define the next generation of our work. The policies outlined below would result in substantially more capital flowing through CDFIs and other opportunity finance institutions, and would involve fundamental changes in the structures and systems by which that capital moves.

Recommendations:

• Support increased funding for the CDFI Fund. It is strongly recommended that the CDFI Fund receive a minimum of $250 million per year.

• Make CDFIs eligible applicants for all federal community development grant and loan programs.

• Within the CDFI Fund, a research and development program should be established. This "innovation bank" would function as a new source for product creation and system change to lead promising ideas and products to scale. The opportunity finance industry has been the leader for sustainable innovation for our nation's poorest communities for decades, but it has the potential to facilitate even greater levels of change. It is time to put resources into research and development for CDFIs.

Read more about the CDFI Fund at www.nextamericanopportunity.org/ffi/cdfi-fund/.