CDFI Fund Releases Analysis and Data from over 200 CDFIs

July 18, 2007

The CDFI Fund released today “Growth, Diversity, Impact: A Snapshot of CDFIs in FY 2003.” The report contains the first comprehensive analysis of performance data submitted annually by community development financial institutions (CDFIs) through the CDFI Fund’s data collection system known as the Community Investment Impact System (CIIS). The report examines annual performance and compliance information by type, age, and size of 223 CDFIs. The CDFI Fund launched CIIS in June 2004.

The data confirms the mission of the CDFI Fund: to provide financial services in economic distressed areas and to individuals and others that lack access to credit. Proving their value in the communities they serve, the report demonstrates that CDFIs are dynamic organizations, increasing their size and finances over time. In fiscal year 2003 alone, the 223 CDFIs showed combined assets of $5.1 billion. Apart from increasing financial services, the report illustrates that these CDFIs helped create nearly 8,000 new jobs, 40,000 new housing units and provided loans to 3,000 first-time homeowners, among other impacts.

Background
As part of compliance requirements, award recipients under the Fund’s CDFI Program are required to submit information through CIIS after the close of their fiscal year. This includes the Institution Level Report (ILR) and the Transaction Level Report (TLR). Providing a window into the organization’s financial activity on the whole, the ILR examines the ownership characteristics, staffing levels and composition, technical assistance, training services and loan sales of each CDFI. The TLR looks at CDFIs on the micro-level, detailing each loan or investment a CDFI makes, including borrower and project addresses, borrower socioeconomic characteristics, loan or investment terms, repayment status, and community development outcomes. At the time the data for this report was collected CDFIs were not required to submit Transaction Level Reports. In the future, the TLR data to be released to the public will be masked to protect the identity of individual borrowers.