Since our investment activity began in 2011, we have been steadily growing our investment portfolio each year. By 2020, SCF had made 20 unique investments into 13 organizations with a total portfolio of 12 investments worth $3.1 million.
Since our investment activity began in 2011, we have been steadily growing our investment portfolio each year. By 2020, SCF had made 20 unique investments into 13 organizations with a total portfolio of 12 investments worth $3.1 million.
Investment Term: 9/17/2019 – 9/17/2025
Loan Amount: $300,000
Area Served: Southern Michigan
This capital supports NI’s small business lending activities targeting “diverse” populations—women, minorities, and veterans—within NI’s more recent service expansion areas within lower Michigan’s rural and minor urban areas. The loans funded will be capped at $60,000 in order to target to serve small and emerging businesses—a sector that has been largely underserved, and even more so as it relates to women and minorities. As part of its efforts to increase its lending to more diverse populations, NI will incorporate flexible underwriting criteria, heightened outreach efforts (including opening new offices), develop language and culturally appropriate materials. NI also anticipates that it will need to provide these new entrepreneurs with higher levels of training and business technical assistance services in order for them to achieve stability, growth and success.
Investment Term: 9/6/2019 – 9/6/2025
Loan Amount: $200,000
Area Served: Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina
This capital provides disaster recovery loans to small businesses located within FEMA designated disaster areas in seven southern coastal states of the US (Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina). In recent years, these states have experienced increased occurrences of climate-related large-scale disasters. These disasters severely affect the business community which slows recovery efforts as general resources and services remain in low supply post-disaster as well as community economic development can be stagnated if these businesses are hampered in reopening and growing as needed (40% of businesses never reopen after a disaster). These loan funds will be used for up to 3 years post disaster designation to assist with the immediate business disaster response and recovery within the affected regions.
Investment Term: 9/6/2019 – 9/6/2025
Loan Amount: $200,000
Area Served: 13 southern states: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas
This program provides micro- to small-business loans of up to $25,000, deployed across LiftFund’s 13-state southern region service area. LiftUp uses LiftFund’s unique MMS risk modeling platform, which is based on over 10 years of loan performance data, to assess borrower eligibility. This program targets to serve emerging small businesses that may have less track record and sophisticated systems and likely have difficulties producing traditional forms of documentation needed to complete a loan process. The LiftUp program was funded by SCF’s earlier loan (2017-2019) and was created as an outgrowth of its prototype Promise Loan program developed to serve clients that LiftFund was unable to service using its existing platform of loan programs.
Investment Term: 7/29/2019 – 7/29/2023
Loan Amount: $300,000
Area Served: Appalachia: Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Alabama, Maryland
This program targets to increase FAHE’s affordable housing and community facility development lending capacity across Appalachia. Fahe manages its own community serving loan programs, as well as deploys resources to its membership network of 50+ entities in 6 Appalachian states. This service region has been experiencing a chronic economic depression, with poverty rates that are double and with incomes that are half the national rates. This is coupled with a loss of its historic economic drivers (i.e. mining) causing high permanent job losses and vast under-investment to address long-standing social and economic challenges. FAHE’s work and investments seeks to counter these trends by supporting organizations that are building healthier and more connected rural communities.
Investment Term: 12/21/2018 – 12/21/2029
Investment Amount: $400,000
Area Served: National; Focus on Northeast region
This private equity fund was created to invest in (acquire or recapitalize) growth-stage, privately held companies located in rural and other underserved sectors of the US. These are the areas where growth equity capital is scarce yet necessary to compliment the debt capital that has sustained many of these companies. BHGCF will focus its national investment scope in the Northeast & Mid-Atlantic regions. BHGCF invests in small, middle-market companies—the growth engine that drives the rural economy and helps generate job growth. This is the first fund for Blue Highway Capital, a women-led partnership that also seeks to support women-led companies through its investments.
Investment Term: 8/9/2018 – 8/9/2021
Loan Amount: $350,000
Area Served: Texas
This program targets “growth businesses” in Texas operated by women and minorities by utilizing flexible underwriting criteria (i.e. lower credit scores, lower LTV, smaller businesses, lower net worth, etc.) and intensive technical assistance. The goal of this program is to address long-standing wealth gaps and financing disparities for the most underserved populations. SCF has targeted a portion of its funds to be lent to BCL’s “Tranche 1” businesses which typically are newer enterprises with less track record and that require the most flexible underwriting parameters to qualify for loans. BCL is headquartered in Dallas with an office in Austin and it serves all of Texas
Investment Term: 7/30/2018 – 7/30/2022
Loan Amount: $300,000
Area Served: National; Focus on Native Americans and Tribal Areas
SCF invested in NAB’s holding company (Native American Bancorp) because NAB is part of a small but important list of mission-oriented banks—it is one of only 18 Native banks and the only one with a national footprint. NAB is a Native CDFI and a Minority Depository Institution because of its cooperative ownership by over 30 tribal nations/entities. NAB’s pursuit of diversifying native economies and creating sustainable communities in rural poor regions is of critical importance. SCF’s loan to NAB provides them with growth capital to achieve their 5-year strategic growth goals. Importantly, SCF’s $300,000 investment into the holding company allows for these funds to be leveraged 1:11 which opens the opportunity for NAB to raise an additional $3.3M, thus greatly increasing their overall lending capacity.
Investment Term: 12/15/2017 – 12/15/2022
Investment Amount: $350,000
Area Served: 13 states; 19 branches
GASBF is a new investment vehicle created to enhance and streamline large-scale capital raising for Grameen America Inc.’s (GAI) US-based small-business microloan program for low-income women. Organizationally, GAI’s targeted capital growth will enable it to achieve both corporate and branch-level financial sustainability by 2020. Programmatically, increased funding allows GAI to significantly increase its lending to low-income, female small-business owners characterized as having no source of affordable capital and no access to the banking system or financial education. Borrowers receive starting loans of $1,500 with no collateral requirements. The loans are structured as a group loan with five other friend or family borrowers, each with an individual loan. GAI’s program goals and outcomes include increasing business income, growing personal savings, asset building, credit building, increasing employment, and building more educated entrepreneurs.
SCF’s capital has funded 370 loans totaling over $970,000 (2.8x its investment)
Investment Term: 7/12/2017 – 7/12/2022
Loan Amount: $100,000
Area Served: San Francisco – East Bay Area
Runway Project Oakland is part of a national initiative solving the “Friends & Family” seed funding gap for African American entrepreneurs. This program strives to fix the broken infrastructure surrounding African American entrepreneurs. It provides early-stage funding using a flexible underwriting process and holistic high-touch business support. Loans are low-interest and capped at $20,000. Runway Project builds and leverages a connected ecosystem of funders and business service providers as a wealth-building strategy for the entrepreneur. Core partners in the Oakland-based prototype program include: Self Help Federal Credit Union, Impact Hub Oakland, Uptima and other entrepreneur bootcamps. Between the launch of the program in October 2017 and December 31, 2019, twenty one loans had been made to African American entrepreneurs and additional capital is also being raised to continue to grow this investment fund.
Investment Term: 10/27/2017 – 4/26/2020
Loan Amount: $258,640
Area Served: Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas
Hope Credit Union (HCU) is a CDFI designated as a low-income serving credit union by the National Credit Union Administration. HCU’s core function is to provide affordable credit and to advance financial equity for low-income and underserved communities. HCU works in some of the highest poverty areas of the country—75% of their branches are located in high-poverty areas and 2/3 of all nationally-identified persistent poverty counties exist within their service area. HCU delivers on its mission: 47% of its business loans are made to minority- and women-led businesses; 67% of consumer loans were made in economically-distressed areas; 87% of home mortgages were made to first-time homeowners; and, their loans have resulted in food becoming available for purchase for 14,000 people living in food deserts. SCF’s investment provides general support to the organization to grow its array of critical loan programs benefitting low-income and underserved populations.
Term: 2016 – 2020
Loan Amount: $120,000
Area Served: Seattle, WA; Portland, OR
Mercy Corps Northwest (MCNW) programs work to increase economic self-sufficiency and community integration through microenterprise development and self-employment. MCNW assists low-income, current and aspiring small-business owners throughout Oregon and Washington in order to reduce unemployment, grow personal incomes and assets, and increase economic growth. MCNW provides high-touch technical assistance to prepare prospect borrowers to launch and grow their businesses before and after their loans of under $50,000 are disbursed. SCF invested in MCNW by targeting to grow its loan fund to serve more low-income clients and to support its efforts to expand its service area, especially within its newer Seattle region.
Investment Term: 7/12/2015 – 1/12/2020
Loan Amount: $254,649
Area Served: California, Illinois, Florida
SCF made an initial $250,000 Certificate of Deposit investment into the Self Help Federal Credit Union (SHFCU) general loan fund.The loans include auto, unsecured, and mortgage loans as well as affordable consumer loans like Dreamer, Citizenship and Just Right loans. Traditionally, loans from SHFCU have been distributed to 86% low-income borrowers, 93% to people of color, 33% to women; 63% of all loans have been made into distressed areas. The geographic scope of SHFCU’s lending has greatly expanded and loans are now being deployed within California, Illinois and Florida. As a CDFI, SHFCU has positioned itself as a national leader in providing financial services to low-income and underserved populations.
Investment Term: 7/31/2015 – 7/31/2019
Loan Amount: $200,000
Area Served: Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee
In 2015, SCF loaned $200,000 to support LiftFund’s Promise Loan Program. This prototype micro-lending program incorporated a unique underwriting system designed to fund early-stage low-income business owners that LiftFund’s existing programs were not previously able to serve. After 3-4 years of testing and revising the program to overcome high losses, LiftFund tightened its underwriting criteria to reduce Promise Loan defaults. Consequently, SCF’s capital was not being adequately deployed to end-users due to the tightened lending standards and resulting lower deployments overall. SCF’s loan to LiftFund was subsequently modified in October 2017 to allow its funds to support the newer LiftUp loan program. LiftUp loans were developed to serve clientele similar to the Promise Loan program but by utilizing LiftFund’s standard underwriting parameters (these standards had been loosened on some important criteria based on learnings gained from the Promise Loan Program).
Investment Term: 10/12/2017 – 7/31/2019
Loan Amount: $100,000
Area Served: Houston, Texas; surrounding affected areas
At the same time the LiftUp modification was being negotiated (see above LiftFund profile), Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, Texas in August 2017. The business community in Houston and surrounding communities—a core marketplace for LiftFund—were devastated. SCF responded by becoming one of the first funders of LiftFund’s new rapid-response disaster recovery fund by providing an additional $100,000 in loan capital for this program. This program created a suite of post-emergency loan relief and new loan programs with high flexibility, no interest, and rapid deployment timelines to assist small businesses to quickly rebuild and recover after this catastrophic hurricane.
The Fund’s Impact Profile
Two years after the the Fund was launched its impacts were:
Term: 2014 – 2019
Loan Amount: $75,000
Area Served: 12 counties in rural Upper Michigan
SCF provided Northern Initiatives (NI), a CDFI, with a loan to support its new Regional Revolving Loan Fund program (RRLF) in Michigan. The RRLF lends to low-to-moderate income small-business owners in upstate rural Michigan. Funds from this investment are coupled with approximately $4.25 million in Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG) funds from 12 rural Michigan counties. CDBG is a federal government sponsored program designed to provide low-to-moderate income people and businesses with funds to support various economic and community development activities. The pairing of SCF funds with CDBG funds provides NI with greater flexibility to deploy loans. SCF’s funds are able to be used for loan activities that are needed by the borrowers to achieve success but excluded by CDBG loan parameters. NI’s overall investment portfolio consists of 40% women-owned businesses, 60% microloans, and 20% start-up businesses.
Term: 2015 – 2016
Loan Amount: $150,000
Area: International /Developing Countries
SCF’s investment in this US-based capital-raising arm of Oikocredit International provided general funding for Oikocredit International to grow its development financing and technical assistance to its 800+ partner organizations—microfinance institutions, fair trade co-ops, renewable energy initiatives and social enterprises—in over 60+ developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Term: 2015 – 2016
Loan Amount: $150,000
Area: International/Developing Countries
SCF provided $66,000 in seed capital for its $100,000 prototype mortgage fund. The Habitat Michigan Fund provides mortgages to people earning 60%-80% below AMI and the ACMP used a securitization structure to vastly reduce capital raising needs and to expedite the payback mortgage funds to Habitat Michigan Fund to 30-90 days, as opposed to the standard 20 to 30-year mortgage payback structure. This facilitates rapid re-use of funds for further home building and purchase activity. ACMP partners included Cinnaire and Michigan State Housing Development Authority and SCF required a matching investment of $34,000 from Habitat for Humanity Michigan.
Term: 2011 – 2015
Loan Amount: $27,000
Area Served: San Antonio,Texas
SCF’s $27,000 loan supported low-income business owners in San Antonio, Texas, allowing LiftFund to increase its lending capacity in a well-established market region with unmet loan capital needs. SCF selected LiftFund (previously Accion Texas, Inc.) given it status as a U.S. small business microloan industry leader. Our capital was targeted to grow LiftFund’s lending within its historic and to expand to new geographic markets, as well as to continue serving low-income, minority, and underserved populations. LiftFund’s borrowers are typically low-income small-business owners, of which over 80% were minorities and 35% were women (at the time of investment).
Term: 2011 – 2015
Loan Amount: $44,000
Area Served: Louisiana
SCF’s $44,000 loan increased small-business loans to low-income owners in New Orleans, Shreveport, and Alexandria, Louisiana. These were new expansion regions for LiftFund where there existed unmet lending needs. SCF selected LiftFund (previously Accion Texas, Inc.) given its status as a U.S. small business microloan industry leader. Our capital was targeted to grow LiftFund’s lending within its historic and to expand to new geographic markets, as well as to continue serving low-income, minority, and underserved populations. LiftFund’s borrowers are typically low-income small-business owners, of which over 80% were minorities and 35% were women (at the time of investment).
Term: 2011 – 2012
Loan Amount: $37,500
Area Served: Haiti
SCF invested in FINCA International (FI) shortly after the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010 and to provide loan capital for micro-businesses in Haiti to support recovery efforts. Loans averaging $170 are issued to extremely poor women individually or as part of “village banking group loans” where members’ loan performance is tied together. Haiti is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world—more than half of its population lives on less than $2 a day. Haiti was one of FINCA’s highest risk and most underfunded Affiliate micro-loan programs given its long-standing political instability, faltering economy, and the destruction and destabilization caused by the earthquake in 2010.
