CDFI Innovation Initiative
Opportunity Next: CDFI Innovation Initiative
Community development finance stands at a pivotal crossroads—with historic tailwinds and relentless headwinds—from economic opportunities and disruptions to political support and volatility, to accelerating climate solutions and persistent threats. Yet, amid these challenges, the mission of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) has become not only more urgent, but more visible—and more viable—as a solution to market failure that centers access and impact in communities.
Our future will be defined by our willingness to innovate—and our ability to do so on our own terms. The decisions we make now will shape whether CDFIs remain on the margins of the financial system or move boldly into the center of American economic life.
That’s why OFN launched the CDFI Innovation Initiative—a sustained investment to institutionalize innovation, reimagine the structuring of community development finance, and develop new tools to deepen impact across the country. The CDFI Innovation Initiative will run through 2029 and will achieve this by focusing on three core pillars.
Innovation Council
A collaborative forum of experts, CDFI leaders, funders, and thinkers who will shape the direction of innovation across the industry.
Innovation Center
An action tank will seed innovation and accelerate promising solutions.
Innovative Capital Solutions
A blended capital pool designed to capitalize high-potential ideas from concept to scale, ensuring innovations reach the communities that need them most.
Through strategic investment in four foundational areas, the CDFI Innovation Initiative aims to build long-term capacity and systemic transformation.
Capital solutions that drive new capital and financing solutions to help CDFIs attract more capital and new investor types. OFN is positioning CDFIs to access flexible, low-cost, long-term capital, coupled with philanthropic support, to grow their balance sheets or financing tools.
Financing products that expand access to capital in low-income and underserved communities. OFN is developing gap-filling financing products for CDFIs; examples include technical products like working capital for small businesses, products to support community asset ownership, disaster recovery, and resilient infrastructure.
Technology and operational efficiency innovations that transform how CDFIs do business. OFN is positioning CDFIs to take advantage of advances in ethical AI, shared services models, and technology to improve productivity and operating models.
Data, systems, and analytics that increase performance, track outcomes, and capture narratives to support CDFI scale, investment, and impact.
The CDFI Innovation Initiative will include a variety of programming and funding opportunities to support the development of solutions for the CDFI industry.
Current Opportunities
CDFI Financial Product Lab
A cohort focused on developing and scaling innovative CDFI financial products for small business borrowers, focusing on first-time borrowers and undercapitalized entrepreneurs.
Applications now closed.
Interest Rate Buydown Pilot
A pilot program to support a limited group of OFN members who have received term sheets for new opportunities to raise debt capital from lenders.
Applications now closed.
Innovation Council
The Innovation Council provides OFN with strategic insights and advice to strengthen CDFIs and help shape industry solutions across the initiative’s four foundational areas. The inaugural Council members include:
- Marcus Berkowitz, Chief Product and Innovation Officer, Grameen America
- Jonathan Brereton, CEO, Scale Link
- Sandy Fernandez, Global Head of Philanthropy, BNY
- Bulbul Gupta, President and CEO, Pacific Community Ventures
- Julie Mahowald, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Partnerships & Strategy, Housing Trust Silicon Valley
- Liz Roberts, Head of Impact Investing, MassMutual
- Matt Roth, President and CEO, Community Reinvestment Fund
- Aaron Seybert, Managing Director of Social Investments, Kresge Foundation
- Anna Smukowski, Managing Director, Impact Investing, Enterprise Community Loan Fund
Innovation Center
The Innovation Center shepherds solutions from ideation through development and launch to address longstanding problems for CDFIs. Through research, working groups, hackathons, incubators, and accelerators, the Center develops and advances innovative capital solutions with new thinking, better tools, and bold partnerships.
The Innovation Center also promotes adoption and replication of new models by amplifying and disseminating promising products, services, and operating models.
The Innovation Center has launched two opportunities and will offer additional programming throughout the year.
CDFI Financial Product Lab
The CDFI Financial Product Lab is an 18-month program focused on implementing and scaling innovative CDFI financial products for small business borrowers, focusing on first-time borrowers and undercapitalized entrepreneurs.
Participants in the Lab will receive:
- Targeted support to design, refine, and implement innovative products that better meet the needs of small businesses in their markets, and
- Grant funding for lending to small businesses.
Applicants will be assessed on the quality and potential impact of their innovative financial product, in addition to their lending history, pipeline, and ability to quickly deploy funds to small businesses.
This iteration of the Lab is only open to OFN members. CDFIs with pipeline in communities across the following states are eligible to apply:
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Applications are now closed as of June 3, 2026.
Other Opportunities:
The CDFI Capital Solutions Accelerator is a six-month program that pairs CDFIs and other entities that have early-stage ideas with technical experts, peer learning opportunities, and connections to funder networks to develop and advance transformative solutions for the industry.
The CDFI Capital Solutions Accelerator is addressing one of the most urgent challenges and opportunities facing our field: reimagining the capital that community development finance needs to thrive.
Innovation ideas will explore ways to:
- Unlock new sources of capital.
- Reduce barriers to flexible, affordable, long-term funding across the field.
- Create capitalization models that strengthen mission-driven financing.
The first cohort of the accelerator has a focus on reimagining and expanding capitalization strategies for small business lenders. The participants of the first cohort are:
- Ascendus
- Impact Ventures
- JUST Community
- Metropolitan Economic Development Agency (MEDA)
- Next Street
- Northern Initiatives
- Prosperity Now
Applications for this program are currently closed.
Innovative Capital Solutions
OFN will provide funding for innovative solutions and market transformations supporting the CDFI industry across all four areas of the Innovation Initiative (capital solutions, financing products, technology and operational efficiency, and data, systems, and analytics).
The first funding opportunities have launched. See below to learn more.
Interest Rate Buydown Pilot Program
This spring, OFN is inviting member CDFI loan funds with less than $100 million in total assets to apply to the Interest Rate Buydown Pilot Program. This program will offer grant awards to selected CDFIs that have received term sheets for promising new debt opportunities but that entail higher rates than what has been available in recent years. The proceeds of these grant awards are solely to be used to help cover interest payments under the new debt opportunities for which awardees applied for support, thereby reducing the effective interest rate. Through this program, OFN expects to be able to offer awards averaging around $150,000 to approximately 10 CDFIs.
You may find more information about this program, as well as the link to the application, on the Members-Only Resources page of CDFI Connect.
Applications are now closed as of May 22, 2026.
If you have additional questions, please see FAQs below, or email [email protected] and an OFN team member will get back to you as quickly as possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
As we have specific opportunities or needs related to the Innovation Initiative, we will share them through our communications channels. Please subscribe to our newsletter to be among the first to know.
If you have a specific inquiry, please send us an email at [email protected].
For more information and FAQs on one of our current opportunities, please refer to the links provided under the specific opportunity’s description. These will take you to a page on OFN’s CDFI Connect that contains application materials as well as a list of frequently asked questions.
If you still have questions, please contact us at [email protected].
OFN will soon open applications for the CDFI Financial Product Lab. Stay tuned for additional programming in 2026 and beyond.
Yes, the Innovation Initiative will have opportunities for lenders focused on different asset classes, including housing. The Interest Rate Buydown Pilot, for example, is open to housing-focused lenders.
OFN is currently offering three funding opportunities:
- Interest Rate Buydown Program,
- CDFI Financial Product Lab, which includes both coaching and funding, and
- Funding for existing participants of the CDFI Capital Solutions Accelerator
OFN will provide additional funding opportunities over the course of the initiative and will provide information on eligibility and requirements to access each funding opportunity.
Yes, you may apply for both opportunities of the Innovation Initiative. However, OFN will seek to prioritize awards to organizations who have not received funding through the Innovation Initiative.
Thank you for submitting your idea! The Call for Innovations is helping us to identify opportunities or solutions on which different programming of the Innovation Initiative may focus. We are currently in the process of diving into our research and strategic planning. As we progress, we may contact you for more information about your idea.
Please note that the Call for Innovation ideas was not an application for funding.
The CDFI Innovation Initiative is made possible thanks to generous support from the following partners:
