Tracking the 2021 Georgia CDFI Fund Awards
January 4, 2022
By: LaDerrius Williams, GSIC Social Impact Fellow
On December 8th, 2021, the United States Department of the Treasury announced the recipients of $180.3M from its Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). These 2021 fiscal year awards are intended to help community development financial institutions expand their lending and investment activities in the communities they serve. 2021 saw the CDFI Fund disperse funds to 265 CDFIs nationally, ten in the state of Georgia. These CDFIs are Albany Community Together (Albany), Camilla Bancshares (Camilla), Carver Financial Corporation (Savannah), Columbus Housing Initiative (Columbus), Community Housing Capital Inc (Decatur), Community Redevelopment Loan & Investment Fund (Atlanta), Habitat for Humanity of Georgia (Columbus), NewTown Loans (Macon), South Georgia Bank Holding Company (Tifton), Southeast First National Bank (Summerville). All told, these CDFIs received $4.7M from the CDFI Fund.
The CDFI Fund has many grant and loan programs. The programs that were relevant in the state of Georgia were Base Financial Assistance (BASE-FA), Persistent Poverty Counties Financial Assistance (PPC-FA), Disability Financial Assistance (DF-FA), and Technical Financial Assistance (TA). BASE-FA awards require matching funds from non-federal sources. They are intended to be used by organizations for lending capital, loan loss reserves, capital reserves, financial services, development of services, and expanding operations, serving new target populations, and geographic expansion. Base-FA made up most of the funding distributed to Georgia CDFIs in 2021.
2021 saw the CDFI Fund diversify its funding in Georgia geographically. In 2020, Atlanta-metro based organizations made up 40% of the CDFIs that received funding. In 2021, that number dropped to 20%. South Georgia Bank Holding Company and Carver Financial Corporation were standouts. Carver led the way in funding with awards totaling $976,530. It was the lone organization to receive Disability Financial Assistance (D-FA). 2022 will present Georgia’s CDFIs with new opportunities and challenges.
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