$5MM Awarded to Five CDFIs for Innovative Strategies to Drive Transformational Change
February 13 2018 - 1:00PM
Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) today announced five recipients
of the NEXT Fund for Innovation (NEXT Fund), a pilot program that
builds on ten years of innovation and impact driven by the Wells
Fargo NEXT Awards (NEXT Awards) for Opportunity Finance. Developed
with support from Wells Fargo and Prudential Financial, the program
funds business models, products, platforms, or processes holding
the ability to drive transformational change and scale in the
community development financial institution (CDFI) industry. The
NEXT Fund provides a new source of patient, flexible capital for
community development financial institution innovation.
“Over the course of ten years the NEXT Awards propelled CDFIs
ready for scale to achieve their vision. With the NEXT Fund we
recognize and reward emerging CDFI business models, platforms, or
processes with great potential—bringing flexible capital, including
equity and subordinated debt, into play at a critical stage. As a
result of the NEXT Fund CDFIs can achieve the 10x influence that is
needed to truly drive transformational change,” said Beth Lipson,
OFN Treasurer and Executive Vice President, Strategic
Initiatives.
“We’re proud to continue our work with OFN to help CDFIs
continue to innovate in the communities they serve,” said Megan
Teare, Senior Vice President and manager of CDFI investing at Wells
Fargo. “These five awardees have the potential to employ creative,
high-impact strategies that can drive change.”
The five CDFIs who are set to receive awards are:
- Building Hope, Washington, DC: Awarded
$1,000,000 to expand its charter school real estate development
practice into new markets such Texas and Tennessee, complementing
its growing charter school lending.
- CEI, Brunswick, ME: Awarded $1,500,000 for a
newly formed solar energy financing subsidiary, which will focus on
providing long-term debt and equity capital to mid-sized commercial
solar power projects.
- Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA),
Minneapolis, MN: Awarded $1,000,000 to provide a new,
patient equity-like capital product to support early-stage
minority-owned business in Minneapolis that have potential for high
growth.
- ROC USA, Concord, NH: Awarded $1,000,000 to
continue its transformational work converting manufacturing housing
community from investor-ownership to resident-ownership by
supporting a new product in the manufactured housing space to
address park-owned home and park-financed home portfolios.
- Reinvestment Fund, Philadelphia, PA: Awarded
$500,000 to invest in a newly-formed subsidiary that invests in
pay-for-success transactions that support the scaling of promising
policy innovations. The new PFS Fund will target investments in
housing, education, social services, and health care throughout the
U.S.
About OFN Opportunity Finance Network (OFN),
the national network of community development financial
institutions (CDFIs), strives to ensure low-income and other
under-resourced communities have access to affordable, responsible
financial products and services. Members of OFN are CDFIs that
deliver responsible lending to help low-income communities join the
economic mainstream. Through 2016, OFN’s network originated $54
billion in financing in rural, urban, and Native communities. This
financing has helped to create or maintain more than 1,202,000
jobs, start or expand more than 256,000 businesses and
microenterprises, and support the development or rehabilitation of
nearly 2 million housing units and more than 10,000 community
facility projects. For more information, visit www.ofn.org.
About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company
(NYSE:WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services
company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to
satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed
financially. The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked Wells Fargo No. 3
on its most recent list of the top corporate cash philanthropists.
In 2016, Wells Fargo donated $281.3 million to 14,900 nonprofits
and Wells Fargo team members volunteered 1.73 million hours with
50,000 nonprofits. Wells Fargo’s corporate social responsibility
efforts are focused on three priorities: economic empowerment in
underserved communities, environmental sustainability, and
advancing diversity and social inclusion. News, insights and
perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo
Stories.
Contact: Lina Page 267.639.0464
lpage@ofn.org
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