Innovation Initiative Resources

Opportunity Finance Network’s (OFN) CDFI Innovation Initiative seeks to increase the sustainability of the industry by improving the way that capital flows through CDFIs–from funders and investors to CDFIs, and ultimately, to borrowers. The initiative drives continuous innovation to increase the type and volume of investors in CDFIs, increase liquidity, and create supporting technology, data infrastructure, operating systems, and financial products that increase the efficiency with which capital moves.

This page contains resources produced by the Innovation Initiative, such as solution summaries, case studies, toolkits, among others.

The resources are for CDFIs and their stakeholders:

• CDFI Practitioners and Service Providers: should use this page to find information on solutions to consider for adoption and implementation.
• Funders and Investors: should use this page to identify ideas to support through the stages of development.
• Researchers: should use this page to surface solutions warranting further exploration.
• Policymakers: should use this page to identify solutions to incorporate in program design and implementation.

Searchable Resources

Solution Summaries: In 2025, OFN issued an open call to solicit ideas from industry leaders, practitioners, and partners. Based on the submissions and other input, OFN conducted secondary research on promising solutions to persistent problems in the CDFI industry. Each summary explores a certain solution, providing information on its benefits, backgrounds, evidence of success, potential challenges, bottom-line takeaways, and resources to learn more about the solution.

Additional Resources (Coming Soon!): OFN is developing additional research and resources on CDFI solutions, which will be added to this page over time.

If you would like to contribute information about a solution or learn more about the Innovation Initiative, please email [email protected].

How to use this page

Use the search filters to focus on solution and organizational characteristics.

Solution Characteristics:

1. Topic area includes the Innovation Initiative’s four areas: capital solutions, data and analytics, financing product, technology & operational efficiency. Resources are tagged by their primary focus.
2. Solution readiness is the solution’s level of maturity and the extent to which it has been tested or adopted by the CDFI industry. When using this filter, consider what you are attempting to solve and whether you are looking for solutions that have been previously implemented. The readiness scale has four levels: nascent, piloted, mature + piloted, and mature, not scaled.

Organizational Characteristics

1. Applicability to sector identifies which sector the solution applies to.
2. Asset size identifies a solution’s applicability to small versus large CDFIs.

Acknowledgements

We thank our funders and investors MassMutual Foundation and Mastercard Strive USA for their generous support of the Innovation Initiative.

Several current and former OFN staff supported the development and drafting of the information in the Solution Summaries. Specific gratitude goes out to the OFN team members who researched and drafted each report—Samuel Abers, Alexander Carther, Erick Montenegro, Lauryn Reynolds, Sydney Schoeller, and Stella Tompkins. Your dedication to finding sources and thinking critically about each solution and its application to the CDFI industry have resulted in a valuable resource.

We also appreciate current and former OFN staff who review and edited the summaries, including Amber Bell, Erika Fitzpatrick, Francisco Lopez, Adrienne Smith, Brent Howell, and Nicole Sonderegger.

Finally, we would like to thank CDFI staff and stakeholders who participated in our open call for submissions. Your ideas were the basis for the solution summaries and set us down a path of exploration to find promising solutions to pressing issues CDFIs face. We are grateful for your thoughtful submissions and willingness to discuss your ideas.