The U.S. Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) awarded NDC’s Grow America Fund, Inc. (GAF) a $1.75 million grant under its financial assistance program. The announcement was part of $160 million to more than 150 organizations who applied for the fiscal year 2014 round of the CDFI Program. The CDFI Fund’s Financial Assistance Program creates opportunity in America’s underserved communities by providing access to affordable financial products and services by investing in private, for-profit and nonprofit organizations serving rural and urban low-income people and communities across the nation that lack access to affordable financial products and services.
This is the fifth award from the CDFI Fund to GAF. The grant funds will be used to make loans to small business in more than fifty distressed communities across the United States. GAF is the nation’s first and until recently was the only U.S. Small Business Administration-licensed small business lending company (SBLC) owned and operated by a nonprofit organization. GAF’s mission is aligned with the parent organization, National Development Council, to create jobs, stimulate investment, and build the strength of the entrepreneurial and small business base in low-income communities by lending to small businesses.
