About CDFI Collaborative
Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) had long evaluated academic performance based on standardized test results as a critical component of credit and mission alignment, but how might our due diligence look through a racial equity lens? What is our role as lenders in advocating for racial equity in the education sector generally, and with our school borrowers, specifically? How would employing an equity lens affect our lending criteria, loan volume, our risk, and relationships with borrowers? With these questions in mind, fellow members of Self-Help’s team presented to peer CDFIs at the 2017 Opportunity Finance Network conference. A lively Q&A session at the end of the presentation sparked the idea to standardize the consideration of racial equity in CDFIs’ lending to schools. Out of this idea, the CDFI Racial Equity Collaborative on Education was born. The eight members of the Collaborative—BlueHub Capital, Capital Impact Partners, IFF, Nonprofit Finance Fund, LISC, Low Income Investment Fund, Reinvestment Fund, and Self-Help—began our work together in earnest in spring 2018. Together we hired VOW, Discriminology, and we are (Working to Extend Anti-Racist Education, a nonprofit advancing anti-racist education) to develop an equity assessment tool that could be used during loan underwriting. By early 2019, the consultant team had created the Racial Equity Matrix (REM) and the REM Screening Tool for CDFIs and other stakeholders to better evaluate a school’s institutional commitments to equitable practices, referred to as “equity focus areas” in the REM. This work can seem daunting when we consider all the ways racism shows up from criminal justice to education to healthcare, but when we listen to those most affected, work together, and focus on our spheres of influence, we can achieve change. Now is the time to act boldly to end racism. We hope the CDFI Racial Equity Collaborative on Education inspires you to join us in the pursuit of more just and equitable communities.
Our Mission
The CDFI Racial Equity Collaborative on Education is a learning community of CDFIs focused on racial equity in education. We share ideas, information, and resources to help members assess borrowers’ commitment to racial equity, and the impact of school practices on students, families, and staff of color. We center race in our work because of the history of race-based oppression and injustice that created opportunity gaps in education, as well as the other sectors in which CDFIs operate. For this reason, we aim to influence others in our respective CDFIs and in the industry to develop race-conscious product development, implementation, and impact measurement.