Community Investment Management (CIM)

Overview

Despite record credit expansion in the U.S. economy, affordable financing for small businesses and historically underserved communities remains largely inaccessible from traditional lenders. Small businesses are the principal engine of jobs, economic growth, and innovation in the U.S. and while critical to the economy, small business owners cite access to capital as one of their top constraints to growth due to limited availability of financing from banks. The decline in bank lending has fostered significant innovation with financial technology. Certain alternative lenders provide high interest, short-term loans, often without transparent terms. However, also addressing this market opportunity are select technology-driven lenders using innovative approaches to efficiently acquire, underwrite, and service creditworthy borrowers with transparent loan terms. Community Investment Management (CIM) is an impact investment manager that provides strategic debt funding to scale and demonstrate responsible innovation in lending. Through partnerships with innovative, technology-enabled lending platforms (such as Street Shares, Lighter Capital, CircleUp, and others) that demonstrate strong financial performance and a commitment to responsible, transparent, and borrower-centric lending practices, CIM provides financing to underserved borrowers in need.  The team at CIM is committed to its multiple-bottom line mission. The organization established itself as a leading voice for responsible lending practices through its roles in the launch of the Guidelines for Investing in Responsible Digital Financial Services, as a co-founding signatory of the IFC’s Operating Principles for Impact Management, a member of the Executive Committee of the Responsible Business Lending Coalition, the Financial Health Network (formerly CFSI), Impact Capital Managers, and the Global Impact Investment Network’s Investors’ Council, and as chair of the Marketplace Lending Association’s Investors’ Council.