Wacif Awarded $400,000 National Grant for Community Development

WASHINGTON, September 21, 2018 (Newswire.com) - The Washington Area Community Investment Fund, Inc. (Wacif) announced today that it was awarded competitive funding from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund to increase lending to underserved entrepreneurs in the Washington, DC region.

“Wacif is honored to receive this industry award from the CDFI Fund,” said Wacif Executive Director Harold Pettigrew. “It is a highly competitive grant, and we will leverage it to drive our focus on inclusive entrepreneurship, equitable economic development, and community wealth-building throughout the Washington region.”

This year’s CDFI Awards were highly competitive, with a nationwide pool of 432 applicants and 264 awardees. Wacif is one of only four organizations in Washington, DC to receive the CDFI Fund’s Financial Assistance (FA) award, an award that builds the capacity of CDFIs to sustain and expand their financial products and services. CDFIs aim to expand economic opportunities in low-income communities by providing access to financial products and services for residents and businesses.

With more than $7.3B in planned development in Washington’s Wards 7 and 8 alone, it’s critical that local entrepreneurs have the resources to seize economic opportunity, and this award helps Wacif make those resources available. In the last seven years, Wacif has closed more than $9.2 million in loans and assisted over 2,000 entrepreneurs with coaching and technical assistance, sustaining more than 300 local jobs. In 1996, Wacif was one of the first loan funds in the country to be CDFI certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

On Oct. 4, Wacif will celebrate its 31st Annual Celebration with the launch of new small business initiatives. For more information about sponsoring or attending the celebration, please visit www.wacif.org.

About the Washington Area Community Investment Fund

The Washington Area Community Investment Fund, Inc. (Wacif) is one of the Washington, DC metropolitan area’s leading Community Development Financial Institution’s (CDFI) focused on small business development. Wacif’s mission is to increase equity and economic opportunity in underserved communities in the Washington, DC area by investing knowledge, social, and financial capital in low- and moderate-income entrepreneurs. Since 1987, Wacif has invested over $32 million throughout the region, sustaining more than 1,500 local jobs. Learn more at http://wacif.org.

About the CDFI Fund

Since its creation in 1994, the CDFI Fund has awarded more than $3 billion to CDFIs, community development organizations, and financial institutions through: the BEA Program; the Capital Magnet Fund, the Community Development Financial Institutions Program, including the Healthy Food Financing Initiative; the Financial Education and Counseling Pilot Program; and the Native American CDFI Assistance Program. In addition, the CDFI Fund has allocated $54 billion in tax credit allocation authority to Community Development Entities through the New Markets Tax Credit Program, and closed guaranteed bonds in the amount of $1.36 billion through the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program.

To learn more about the CDFI Fund and its programs, please visit the CDFI Fund’s website at http://cdfifund.gov.

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Source: Washington Area Community Investment Fund