The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund today awarded more than $10.8 million in grants through the 2021 Small Dollar Loan Program. The program provides grants for loan loss reserves to enable a certified CDFI to establish a loan loss reserve fund to help defray the costs of establishing or maintaining a small-dollar loan program, and to provide technical assistance for technology, staff support and other eligible activities related to small-dollar loan programs.
Eleven banks received $2.8 million in funding, while 28 loan funds received $5.2 million, and 13 credit unions received $2.8 million. The award recipients included five minority depository institutions. More than $3 million of the funding went to “persistent poverty counties,” which are defined as those that have experienced poverty rates of at least 20% over the past 30 years according to Census Bureau data.
