Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance are uniting operations to launch a transformative new enterprise and innovate how capital and investments flow into historically disinvested communities to advance economic empowerment and equitable wealth creation, according to a press release.
Leveraging their 80 years of combined efforts engaging with communities and nearly $3 billion in assets, Capital Impact Partners, one of the nation’s leading Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI), and CDC Small Business Finance, the nation’s leading mission-based small business lender are now operating as one under Capital Impact’s current President and Chief Executive Officer Ellis Carr.
Kurt Chilcott will transition from President and CEO of CDC Small Business Finance and continue his support of this vision by serving as Board Chair of both Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance.
Capital Impact and CDC Small Business Finance announced the beginning of their combined efforts in August 2020 with the decision to launch three pilot projects in Los Angeles, Detroit, and the Washington, D.C Metropolitan area. Lessons learned through that ongoing work have informed the broader strategy for aligning as a single team to advance high-touch solutions at scale and ensure that traditional and mainstream financial systems are equitably serving Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous communities.
With strong ties to both large financial institutions and community-based organizations, experience delivering a full suite of products and services, and an established position as advocates in Washington, D.C., the new operating model is uniquely suited to unleash solutions for communities that will break down longtime barriers to success.
Ellis Carr will manage this new enterprise under one national strategy designed to drive a holistic place-based approach to community and economic development at scale, centered around people and place, to address legacy issues:
- Growth of Economic Inequity: Current financial structures do not provide equitable opportunities and outcomes as the wealth gap continues to grow exponentially, specifically in communities of color.
- Lack of Place-Based, Community-Led Solutions: Trusted organizations that listen to and value community-led solutions and offer relevant place-based lending and investment products, and services are currently lacking.
- Disconnected Supply & Demand of Capital Between Investors and Communities: Institutional investors and community organizations are currently disconnected from efficiently leveraging the supply and demand of capital investments to drive real and scalable impact.
“Harnessing our shared values, the power of CDC Small Business Finance and Capital Impact Partners coming together is how well each organization’s business and unique skill sets complement the other,” Carr said. “Capital Impact Partners has a long track record of really understanding what’s needed in a community, and CDC Small Business Finance has a sustained and accomplished history of small business support in terms of lending and advising. Together we will be able to transform the system by rethinking how credit is evaluated and how capital flows into disinvested communities across the country.”
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