Nonprofit Finance Fund and Capital Impact Partners, two Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), came together in 2019 to build racial equity in to our lending practices via the Catalyzing Finance for Racial Equity Project. Supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, this collaboration allowed us to connect with CDFIs of all sizes about their journeys with equitable lending, and deeply examined our own practices. Working together through the pandemic and shifts in our respective organizational structures forced us to share learnings, form deeper relationships, and use a framework of five building blocks of equitable lending. We’ll highlight successes/challenges in operationalizing the framework into our racial equity strategies at an enterprise level. We will also share ideas to advance sector knowledge and field building and discuss barriers that reinforce inequities at the systemic level, including the experience of the CEO at Native Community Capital.
