Alliance Video Series – CEO Conversations: Addressing the Wealth Gap at Scale
Ellis Carr is now the president and CEO of Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance. Kurt Chilcott, formerly president and CEO of CDC Small Business Finance, has transitioned to Board Chair of the combined organization. We invite you to learn more about our new…
Alliance Video Series – CEO Conversations: A New Alliance
Ellis Carr is now the president and CEO of Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance. Kurt Chilcott, formerly president and CEO of CDC Small Business Finance, has transitioned to Board Chair of the combined organization. We invite you to learn more about our new…
Learning to Change: Reflections of the CDFI Racial Equity Collaborative on Education
This post was written by OFN Blog guest authors and OFN members BlueHub Capital, Capital Impact Partners, IFF, Nonprofit Finance Fund, LISC, Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), Reinvestment Fund, and Self-Help Introduction In recent years, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and similar mission-oriented financial services organizations have…
Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance Announce Alliance
As of July 1, 2021, Ellis Carr is now the president and CEO of Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance. Kurt Chilcott, formerly president and CEO of CDC Small Business Finance, is transitioning to Board Chair of both organizations. In 2020, Kurt Chilcott…
Audio Blog: Expanding Opportunity for Real Estate Developers of Color in the Time of COVID-19
Editor’s note: This conversation took place virtually to protect all participants during the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be sound issues, as this was a live webinar. As COVID-19 continues to disproportionately impact communities of color, it is important that supporting developers of color does not…
Capital Impact Partners’ Response to Recent Violence Against Black Lives
By Ellis Carr, President and CEO The events of the past weeks have been incredibly painful to witness. While in the midst of a global health crisis, the disease of racism reared its ugly head to create a crisis within a crisis in which unarmed Black…
Racial Inequity – as cause and effect – in the time of COVID-19
By Michelle Betton, Writer “Structural racism has always been a pre-existing condition for communities of color.” -Race Forward People in disinvested communities, often communities of color, understand this statement too well. It has rung true for generations. Structural racism affects more than just health; systemic…
2019 Annual Report Letter: Through Crisis, We Partner with Communities to Build Strength and Sustainability
By Ellis Carr, President & CEO, and Daniel Varner, Board Chair Over the past several weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the world for all of us. Our hearts go out to everyone who has been—and will continue to be—affected by this devastating event.…
Capital Impact Partners’ Response to COVID-19
By Ellis Carr, President & CEO Friends and Partners - Since I last reached out on behalf of the team here at Capital Impact, our country has changed dramatically as a result of the unprecedented health crisis we are all facing. Across the country, communities…
COVID-19 Response: An Open Letter from CDFI Leaders to Our Supporters
“Those closest to the problem are closest to the solutions.” Bryan Stevenson Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) were first certified by the U.S. Treasury 25 years ago to provide financing in communities left behind by the mainstream financial system. CDFIs have long been “first responders”…
COVID-19 Relief Programs and Resources for Nonprofits
American small businesses and nonprofits are facing an unprecedented economic disruption due to the COVID-19 outbreak. The Paycheck Protection Program is open again to small businesses across the country, including nonprofits. This time, lenders proximate to communities have the opportunity to lend to businesses and…
Voting Rights Have the Power to Break Down Injustice and Build Places of Opportunity
By Michelle Betton, Writer “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” -President Lyndon B. Johnson when he signed the Voting Rights Act…
Community Reinvestment Act: Ensuring the Financial Inclusion of Disinvested Communities
By Scott Berman, Director, Policy and Development The civil rights movement sought to end legalized racial discrimination against Black-American individuals and communities. For generations, Black Americans were systematically denied opportunities that their White counterparts experienced, from the ability to buy homes to accessing quality education…
Mission-driven Organizations Continue Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Work for Democracy and Equity (Video)
By Michelle Betton, Writer Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy is one of challenging the systems that keep people from benefitting from the democracy that this country is supposed to provide to all of its citizens. The people for whom he fought were often people of…
Centering Equity and Our Civil Rights Roots in 2020 and Beyond
By Ellis Carr, President & CEO Throughout the year, I have thought a lot about what equity means to me and the work we do at Capital Impact. At its most basic, dictionary.com defines “equity” as “the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality.”…
We Are All Immigrants: Centering the Needs of Immigrant Families Ensures That All of Our Communities Thrive
By Jason Anderson, Senior Director, Communications As 2018 came to a close and many of us were focused on the holiday season, a headline came across the news wires that stopped us in our tracks. It had been reported that a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who…
Co-ops Have the Power to Transform the Future of Work and Racial Equity for Communities of Color
This blog originally appeared on the SOCAP19 blog. Click here to visit the original post. By Alison Powers, Manager, Cooperative and Community Initiatives Communities of color have experienced historical and structural disinvestment, which has led to an unprecedented racial wealth gap, historically low home ownership,…
Partnerships Hold Immense Power in Redeveloping Cities
By Ian Wiesner, Director, Business Development Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) have been bringing investment to Detroit for more than two decades. The mission-driven approach and unique tools that CDFIs bring to the market have played a critical role in the development of new housing…
Affordable Housing Integrated with Social Services Creates a Lifeline for Older Adults to Age in Community
By Candace Robinson, Director, Strategy for Aging in Community, Capital Impact Partners, and Amy Herr, Director, Health Policy, West Health Policy Center This blog originally appeared as a Fast Fact on the Build Healthy Places blog. Read the original blog here. Fact: On average, only 35…
Woodward Corridor Investment Fund: Fostering Sustainable Community Development in Detroit
By Elizabeth Luther, Detroit Program Manager Between 2000 and 2013, Detroit lost one-quarter of its population—more than 244,000 residents. When the city filed for bankruptcy in July 2013, the exodus continued, with residents leaving the city in record numbers. Vacant homes and shuttered businesses meant…
Amplifying Assets to Achieve Justice for Our Communities
By Ellis Carr, President and CEO, and Dan Varner, Board Chair Looking back at our journey through 2018, both as an organization and as a country, it is no surprise to us that Merriam-Webster’s “word of the year” was justice. The meaning and implications of…
Fostering Communities of Opportunity: Getting to Know Alaina Beverly, Capital Impact Board Member
Alaina Beverly has spent her career championing and empowering underserved communities and working with stakeholders to work toward justice and opportunity for all. She started her career as a litigator for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later worked in the Obama Administration…
Stay Midtown: Expanding Affordable Housing while Reducing Displacement of Detroit Residents
By Ashlee Cunningham, Detroit Housing & Community Development Specialist Long before Midtown Detroit—or Cass Corridor, as 39-year-old Wayne State University graduate and artist Rachel Barker prefers to call it—was booming with aesthetically pleasing coffee shops, hip art galleries and expensive retail stores, it was the neighborhood…
Innovation in Practice: How Capital Impact Transforms Values into Equitable, Inclusive Communities
By Lauren Counts, Senior Director, Strategy, Innovation, and Impact Management Innovation is an important tool for mission-driven organizations as they work within their communities to address issues of social, racial, and economic justice. Traditional thinking will not solve the problems that communities across the country experience…
Leaving Communities Behind: Examining Financial Vulnerability for Black Families
By Olivia Rebanal, Director, Inclusive Food Systems Despite positive headlines about the American economy, financial vulnerability is a reality for many people. This was brought into sharp focus during the government shutdown Communities rallied around their members and organizations provided support, but it became clear that…
How the Civil Rights Movement Gave Rise to Community Health Centers
By Michelle Betton, Writer With thousands in communities across the country, community health centers (CHCs) seem like a long-standing part of the national health care system. However, the origins of CHCs are relatively recent, born out of civil rights struggles that started 10,000 miles away.…
Reimagining Opportunity: Partnering for Economic Justice for Returning Citizens
This blog post originally appeared on the SOCAP website. For the original post, please visit this website. The challenges of mass incarceration and poverty are all too often intertwined in the U.S. Seventy million Americans currently have an arrest or conviction record and that number is…
Reflections on 1968: Fostering Equity and Justice in 2018 and Beyond
By Ellis Carr, President and CEO This has been a year of reflection and introspection for me. In 2017, Capital Impact Partners, a national Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), had its best year since our founding in the early 1980s. We implemented new programs and…
Living Our Values Within Our Communities: A Photo Essay
Each year at Capital Impact Partners, we host an offsite, where all staff comes together to discuss successes and challenges in our work, and strategizes how we can continue to commit to the communities that we serve for greater social impact. This year, we held…
Innovation as Culture: How Capital Impact Channels Its Values to Create Communities of Opportunity
By Lauren Counts, Senior Director, Strategy, Innovation, and Impact Management Mission-driven organizations face down some of the world’s biggest challenges – systemic poverty, inequality, and racial inequity, to name a few – as a matter of business practice. Certainly these are not easy issues to…
