CDFI Capacity Building
The Center for Impact Finance strengthens the community development finance field by building the capacity of financial institutions through high-quality training, tailored advisory services, and applied research. We equip community lenders with the leadership, financial, and strategic skills needed to respond to evolving market conditions and community needs. Our work spans core operational challenges—such as risk management, capital raising, business planning, and technology adoption—while also addressing system-level opportunities through research and innovation. Together, these efforts help community lenders strengthen their organizations, scale their impact, and better serve communities over the long term.
Training and Advisory Services
Our training programs provide in-depth, evidence-based, university-quality training that 1) attracts talented people to the community development finance sector, 2) strengthens the leadership skills of those in the field, and 3) provides practical skills, strategies, and connections that community lenders can implement immediately. CIF offers training courses that enable community lenders to respond to evolving challenges and emerging opportunities, meeting the needs of their communities while increasing the resilience of their organization. Training topics include Risk and Portfolio Management, Raising Debt and Equity, Financial Analysis and Business Planning for Sustainable Lending Operations, CDFI Partnerships and Integration, and Technology, Automation and Artificial Intelligence for Community Finance Leaders. CIF also provides advisory services and technical assistance tailored to the specific needs of community-based lenders and practitioners.
Integration Project
Recently, the number of new CDFIs has increased dramatically while existing CDFIs have grown their business lines and portfolios. Few CDFIs, however, engage in a thoughtful evaluation of how to sustain their growing impact and whether integration, consolidation with a partner organization, or the use of shared operating platforms would enable them to achieve their organizational goals. CIF is researching past cases of CDFI mergers and provides training and advisory services designed to help CDFI leaders engage in strategic planning to maximize their organizations’ impact over time, including consideration of integration when appropriate. In July, CIF will host the 2026 Financial Innovations Roundtable in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to explore CDFI integration along with practitioners. Future research will aim to improve the understanding of how consolidation and integration decisions develop, how these decisions influence capital access and investor behavior, and what tools CDFIs need to make informed, mission-aligned decisions.
Equity Project
In addition to federal policy changes and funding cuts, CDFIs are facing an evolving capital market landscape. To help the sector respond to increasing demands for community finance, CIF has spent several years developing and piloting a practical pathway for CDFIs to access conventional equity markets through preferred equity instruments backed by seasoned loan portfolios. We partnered with Momentus Securities and the Housing Partnership Network (HPN) on Phase 1 of this work, to develop a trust-preferred model and test it with HPN on a $15 million preferred equity raise. In Phase 2, CIF will expand this model to individual CDFIs raising true equity against their own portfolios, develop aggregated multi-CDFI portfolio offerings to scale capital access across the sector, and build the market infrastructure, data standards, and investor confidence needed to move toward public capital markets.