Monthly Archives

September 2021

Love1
By CNote, Migration V2

CNote Has Successfully Moved Over $100 Million Dollars into Financially Underserved Communities

CNote has deployed over $100 million dollars into financially underserved communities across America–a significant milestone for investments and deposits in Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), low-income designated credit unions, and other mission-aligned partners that previously were difficult for investors to access.

By making it easier for everyone from retail to institutional investors to invest in these institutions’ communities, CNote expands the pool of capital available to low-income, BIPOC, and underserved communities. That means more money to help individuals build credit and purchase their first car or home, provide capital and coaching to small business owners, finance affordable housing development, and make communities more economically resilient.

This access has been critical in the wake of COVID-19 and the movement for racial justice sparked by the murder of George Floyd. These events highlighted stark inequities in the United States. Corporations and institutional investors have risen to the challenge of supporting historically marginalized communities by investing to advance racial and social justice and further economic development.

This interest has started a new chapter for CDFIs and credit unions, CNote’s primary partners, which have seen investments from large corporations including Netflix, PayPal, Mastercard, and Google. Additionally, the White House recently announced a federal award of $1.25 Billion to CDFIs to help speed the economic recovery from COVID-19.

Capital that is invested or deposited into these community financial organizations supports entrepreneurs like Tanesha Sims-Summers, founder of Naughty but Nice Kettle Corn, a family-owned and -run kettle corn company based in Birmingham, Alabama. Tanesha received a loan from CNote CDFI partner TruFund in 2019 to complete the renovation of her food truck and provide some extra cushion for other expenses. “As entrepreneurs, we have to be intentional about utilizing services and asking for help, and TruFund is here to help us make changes to our businesses that impact our bottom lines and that align with our community investment goals,” Tanesha said.

Tanesha Sims-Summers (far right) and the Naughty but Nice Kettle Corn team

“While CNote is incredibly proud to have reached this milestone, the real success metric is seeing this money deployed into underserved communities. There it can build wealth and drive fundamental and enduring change,” said CNote CEO Catherine Berman.

“Our work is far from over,” she continued. “The data shows that economic recovery from COVID has not been equal, and that job losses continue for low-wage workers. The work of our credit union and CDFI partners is more important than ever, and we will continually innovate to support underserved communities and drive hundreds of millions in new capital investment for years to come.”

 

Love1
By Borrower Stories, Migration V1

Meet Cortaiga Collins, Whose Quest For Quality Childcare Led Her To Open Her Own Small Business

Cortaiga Collins, Founder of Good Shepherd Preschool

Cortaiga Collins never intended to open her own business, let alone her own early childhood education center. Instead, Cortaiga received her bachelor’s degree and was on track to become a CPA. However, when she had her second child in 2000, everything changed. After having her first child as a senior in high school, Cortaiga felt like she got a second chance at parenting. The St. Louis, Missouri-native wanted to do everything perfectly, but when her three months of maternity leave finished and it was time to find a daycare center for her son, Cortaiga discovered that it was difficult to find a place that she trusted with her baby. After a series of bad experiences at both commercial daycare centers and home-based operations, Cortaiga decided to quit her job at a city government agency to create a childcare solution that offered quality services to families.

Before Cortaiga could open her own center, she had to immerse herself in early childhood care. She enrolled in classes at community college and took an administrative job at her church’s elementary school. Soon after, she became the director of the school, where she gained valuable experience. Finally, in 2009, the then-single mother of two found herself on the brink of being licensed and opening her own center, Good Shepherd Preschool and Infant/Toddler Center, with the social mission to raise the standard of childcare and to create a quality early childhood program that equips children for school and the world. “Getting open was the most cumbersome part of it all,” Cortaiga said, “I had no experience with permits and licenses and inspectors and building requirements. I didn’t have thousands of dollars saved or a mentor. I got a $35,000 grant, but that wasn’t enough.”

Fortunately, Cortaiga was able to get the rest of the capital that she needed to open her business from Justine PETERSEN, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that connects institutional resources with the needs of low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in Missouri, helping them to build assets and create enduring community change. CNote partners with CDFIs like Justine PETERSEN in communities across the country, funding loans and empowering local entrepreneurs like Cortaiga. With capital from Justine PETERSEN, Cortaiga was able to finish renovations to her space and open the doors to Good Shepherd. The CDFI also connected her with an accountant that she continues to work with today.

Since it got up and running, Cortaiga’s business has been full steam ahead. Good Shepherd opened in March 2009, and by Halloween, it’d already outgrown its space. Cortaiga decided to open a second location, and again, Justine PETERSEN provided funding to help Cortaiga with her expansion. Then, in 2018, Cortaiga bought land in the same low-income community to build a $2.5 million state-of-the-art childcare center that would bring both of her centers together under one roof. The new development is set to open in October 2021, and with the larger space, Cortaiga will be able to grow her team from 14 employees to over 20. Better yet, the larger facility has the capacity to serve over 100 children at a time. “I never knew that this journey would take me to where I am and where I’m going,” Cortaiga said. “I’m just a former single mom who wanted a safe place to take her kid. Now, I’m in uncharted waters with this space. It’s scary and exciting, but you know what they say: ‘if you build it, they’ll come.’ I’m counting on them coming.”

Investing in the Future

While it’s incredible how far Cortaiga — and her business — have come since she quit her job 21 years ago, all of that success was nearly erased by the COVID-19 pandemic. The perfect storm of shutdowns, remote work, fear, and uncertainty almost shuttered Good Shepherd, and according to Cortaiga, despite the fact that she was able to begin to bring a limited number of infants and toddlers back into her centers last November, she’s still working her way toward full capacity. “At one point,” she said, “I began to prepare my staff and my parents that we were going to have to lay off everybody if we didn’t fill our available slots. For months and months, we were dangerously close to having to shut our doors.”

Thankfully, Cortaiga didn’t have to close her business. Instead, she and her team are preparing to move into their new expanded center. To help get the word out, Cortaiga has been getting digital marketing assistance from a marketing and social impact consultant introduced to her through Pacific Community Ventures (PCV), another local CDFI referred by Justine PETERSEN. After tackling her business’s website and social media presence, Cortaiga said that she plans to work with a PCV-provided business mentor to help her with more Human Resources-related elements of her small business. According to her, recruiting and retaining qualified employees are her biggest challenges. Despite those headaches, Cortaiga says it’s the children that keep her motivated to run her business. “No matter what’s going on, kids just love so freely,” she said. “They’re so forgiving and resilient, and seeing their emotional and academic development and progress makes it all worth it.”

From Kids to Community Development

When asked about the future of Good Shepherd Preschool and Infant/Toddler Center, Cortaiga doesn’t just share her dreams for her small business, she shares her dreams for her community. Through her more than two decades of working with children in her community, Cortaiga has learned that it’s not just children who need care — it’s entire families. That led her to launch a nonprofit called Foundation for Strengthening Families with the goal to help families rise above poverty through education. Not only does the organization offer early childhood education programs, but it also has adult education classes on topics such as health and wellness and financial literacy. “They say if your dreams don’t scare you, then they’re not big enough,” Cortaiga said. “I see me in a lot of people in this community — especially the single moms. I grew up in poverty, and I know how my life has changed as a result of not living in poverty anymore.”

Cortaiga’s vision for her slice of St. Louis — and her desire to help families break out of generational cycles of poverty and to purchase local homes  — is inspired by the work being done by the Harlem Children’s Zone in New York and the East Durham Childhood Initiative in North Carolina. As much as she’s looking at communities across the country to see where she can borrow from already established community development playbooks, Cortaiga is hoping to forge local partnerships to bring her vision to fruition, including with Mayor Tishaura Jones, the city’s first Black woman mayor. “No one organization can get all this done,” she said. “Collaboration is such an integral part of being able to create lasting change in a community. We want to rebuild and restructure this community by rebuilding the residents so that this can be a thriving place to live.”

Learn More

  • Good Shepherd Preschool and Infant/Toddler Center
  • Pacific Community Ventures is an Oakland-based CDFI that empowers small business owners and helps impact investors make investments that create shared prosperity and sustainable communities through a “Good Jobs, Good Business” model.” 
  • Justine PETERSEN is a CDFI that connects institutional resources with the needs of low-to-moderate-income individuals and families in Missouri, helping them to build assets and create enduring community change.
  • CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like Pacific Community Ventures, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.
Love1
By Borrower Stories, Low Income Designated Credit Union, Migration V2

How Fern Street Circus is Bringing Social Change to the Streets of San Diego

John Highkin, Executive Director of Fern Street Circus

When most people think about social justice, they don’t think about circus arts; however, for John Highkin, social change is at the center of his community arts nonprofit, Fern Street Circus. John grew up in Los Angeles and became a musician before moving to England to get a master’s degree in English. In 1987, while in Europe, John had the opportunity to spend a few months at the world-famous Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin, where he became fascinated with both political and physical theater. By chance, when he returned to Southern California to intern at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, Cirque du Soleil happened to be in San Diego for a month during its first U.S. tour. “I looked at them,” he said, “and I thought I was seeing what circus could be. I really dreamed about being able to have my own circus one day.”

Following that dream, John went on the road as a production manager with a single-ring circus in St. Louis called Circus Flora. Although that led to other jobs with different shows in different states, including the bus-&-truck tour of The Soviet Acrobatic Revue, John always wanted to return to San Diego to start something of his own. In 1990, he learned about some local grant opportunities, and with the help of both his future wife, co-founder Cindy Zimmerman, and his favorite aunt, John started Fern Street Circus, a community-building social circus in San Diego’s Golden Hill neighborhood. The next year, the nonprofit unveiled its first show to more than 500 community members. “That’s what attracted me to circus,” John said. “It isn’t stuck in one building. Instead, it’s an art form where we could actually go out into neighborhoods and play in parks and play for people where they live, work, and learn. It’s something that transcends barriers between people of varying cultures and languages.”

For the next 13 years, John and Fern Street Circus continued to create memorable experiences in and around San Diego, and the community arts nonprofit quickly built a reputation for itself of providing people with unusual, albeit entertaining experiences close to home. Additionally, in 1993, Fern Street Circus launched a free-of-charge after-school program in the local recreation center. During that time, John learned a lot about how to create stories through circus and to make contact with diverse communities, and how to bring people together to mix and mingle around the spectacle, music, and acrobatics of his talented team of circus artists. “We want to talk to people in communities, and we want to be a way for people to come together,” John said. “Even if the story is subtle and doesn’t immediately hit people, it’s entertainment that they don’t usually see in their neighborhood parks.”

In 2003, however, John felt worn out. A looming budget crisis led to huge drops in government funding at the state and local levels. Despite the success of the organization, more than a decade of serving as the nonprofit’s de facto grant writer, artistic creator, financial officer, human resources director, and community relations guru left him ready for a change. John passed over the nonprofit’s reins to a committed group of internal stakeholders, moved to Kansas to be closer to Cindy’s family, and took a government arts job in the city of Salina.

It was ultimately grandchildren, not the circus, that brought John and Cindy back to San Diego in 2010. Although John became the executive director of an arts education organization called Young Audiences of San Diego and felt fulfilled by his work, he couldn’t escape his previous association with Fern Street Circus. According to him, people would come up to him on the street and ask him what happened to it, mentioning how much their kids loved the music, how much they missed the shows, or how much they enjoyed the quick-witted, bilingual ringmaster. At that time, the circus had been on a hiatus for a few years as it struggled to raise money. That didn’t stop John from wanting to bring it back to life. In 2014, John left his job, and with a new board of directors, Fern Street Circus kicked off a revival campaign. “We started basically from nothing again,” John laughed, “except this time we had our name and goodwill. That has carried us through very well over the last seven-plus years.”

A Responsive, Personable, and Proactive Lender

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, Fern Street Circus had to adapt. It immediately started offering online classes on Zoom to youth in the community. Amazingly, without the scheduling constraints of working out of its local rec center, the nonprofit’s teaching artists were able to connect and serve after-school families even more deeply. Additionally, Fern Street began to do socially distanced performances for families standing in line to pick up groceries at their local food distribution sites with the San Diego Unified School District. Between May and mid-November 2020, John estimates that Fern Street Circus did nearly 40 events and reached upwards of 12,000 community members.

While those community-based performances and classes buoyed the nonprofit’s spirits, it still required funding in order to remain operational; however, when PPP funding became available, John was skeptical that Fern Street Circus would even qualify. Unfortunately, neither of the big-name banks that the nonprofit had banked with for 30 years was helpful. After “striking out,” John received a note from Self-Help Federal Credit Union informing him that the credit union had received funding support through The California Endowment to distribute PPP loans. Self-Help is a low-income designated credit union that was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serve working families and underserved communities. Self-Help currently has nearly 80,000 customers across California, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and it has over $1.2 billion in assets. CNote partners with low-income designated credit unions like Self-Help across the country through its Promise Account program.

John recognized Self-Help’s name — the credit union has an office two blocks away from Fern Street Circus’ gym. He sent an email, and this time, the person on the other end wrote back with good news. “From the start, they were responsive and personable,” John said. “A real human person was assigned to walk me through the process, which was a very sharp contrast to [those big banks], which were impenetrable. Self-Help was proactive, and they helped me at every stage. Once we got the PPP, they kept in touch afterwards.”

That ongoing communication proved critical for Fern Street Circus. Not only was the nonprofit able to have its first $30,000 loan forgiven, but it was also able to receive additional funding during the second round of PPP lending. According to John, the first thing the nonprofit did with the PPP money was to hire seven teaching artists who weren’t getting unemployment but who had great need. Fern Street Circus put them to work leading classes and supporting students near and far. “That’s a concrete result of what we were able to do through the PPP loan. I’m pretty savvy and well-educated, and I was nonplussed by the PPP application,” John said. “We would not have gotten funding without Self-Help. It had a huge impact on us.”

A Circus In Good Hands

Given all of the years that John has been involved with Fern Street Circus, it’s not surprising that he has countless memories to smile back on; however, when asked to share one of his most memorable moments with the community arts organization, interestingly, he chose to recount a story about crossing a street and falling down. Ever the producer, John is usually the first person to arrive at an event and the last one to leave, and on this particular production date, he happened to be carrying an open container of oil (although he doesn’t remember exactly why). As he hustled from one side of the street to the other, John slipped; yet, as he tumbled to the ground, he managed to prevent the oil from spilling.

Although he doesn’t know why this particular memory lodged itself in his brain, the story is representative of John’s innate drive to put others ahead of himself, including Fern Street Circus, and as the nonprofit moves further into its third decade of existence, John is intent on ensuring that its future isn’t tethered to him. In that way, Fern Street Circus recently hired its second full-time employee, Marcela Mercado, a well-respected community member and activist who serves as the organization’s general manager. Additionally, the nonprofit recently opened its Outdoor Circus Community Center in the City Heights neighborhood of San Diego, giving Fern Street Circus a temporary space to host after-school programs, show rehearsals, and performances by the Circus and other artists. According to John, the organization’s long-term dream is to hire more staff and to have its own building where it can continue to serve families and transform neighborhoods through circus arts performance and teaching.

At 70, John jokes that he’s not getting any younger, and although he’d like to remain involved with Fern Street Circus for a long, long time, he wants other leaders in the neighborhood — who, he says, don’t share his white privilege — to be a part of the organization’s long-term vision and future. “I want to phase myself out,” John said. “It’s not just about age. What has kept us vital is that we’re equal parts circus arts and social justice, and for us to be truly representative of a neighborhood as broad and diverse as ours, Fern Street Circus’ leadership needs to reflect that.”

Learn More

  • Fern Street Circus is a nonprofit that serves families and transforms neighborhoods through performance and teaching of circus arts.
  • Self-Help Federal Credit Union was chartered in 2008 to build a network of branches that serves working families and underserved communities. Serving more than 78,000 members, Self-Help Federal is one of the fastest-growing low-income designated credit unions in the country. 
  • CNote – Interested in helping create another story like this? CNote makes it easy to invest in great Credit Unions like Self-Help, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.
Love1
By Borrower Stories, Migration V2

How a Cancer Diagnosis Gave Ethel Brooks the Strength to Start Her Own Business

Ethel Brooks

For many people, a cancer diagnosis can derail them. For Ethel Brooks, it ignited her. It was January 2017 when Ethel learned that she had breast cancer. Her mind instantly concocted the worst-case scenario, and her first thought was about what she was going to leave behind for her three daughters and seven grandchildren if something happened to her. However, the moment she found out that her chances of surviving were high, she chose to fight like never before. “When I saw that I was going to live,” she said, “I took off like lightning. They say cancer breaks people, but cancer gave me strength and made me look toward the future. I wasn’t gonna let it take me down because I have too much to live for.”

Ethel went through 21 weeks of chemotherapy; yet, she didn’t let that keep her from her day job at Franklin Primary Health Center in Mobile, Alabama, where she was hired in 1986 as a 20-year-old Medical Receptionist. Over the years, Ethel has skyrocketed up the ranks, with stints as an intake clerk, accounts receivable, office manager, operation manager, and most recently, billing supervisor.  Amazingly, Ethel would do her chemotherapy on Mondays, and she’d be back in the office on Tuesday to finish out the rest of the workweek. Eventually, after the hair loss, a double mastectomy, and seven surgeries, Ethel triumphed over cancer with the support of her mother, eight siblings, and daughter Darralyn, who surrounded her with love and support throughout her treatment. Additionally, the fight helped her to realize that she needed to start thinking about how she could create a financial legacy to pass down to her family when the time came.

That’s when Ethel partnered with Mr. William McGlasker, a local contractor and concrete specialist, to start her own business. She’d met Mr. McGlasker at Franklin Primary Health Center, after which he’d built a driveway for her. The two became good friends and he told her that he had his own construction company, but was limited on how much money he could make since he did not have his subcontractor license.  He suggested that Ethel get her license and create a company that would, in essence, absorb his business. In 2017, Mr. McGlasker dissolved his business and Ethel started Bennett Construction. All of Mr. McGlasker’s employees joined the new company, and Mr. McGlasker stayed on as superintendent. “To be honest,” Ethel said, “he was really the person who pushed me to take this leap of faith. He’s been doing this for 50-some years, and once people learned that he was with Bennett Construction, everything fell into place.”

Ethel went back to college to work toward receiving a bachelor’s degree in business management so that she’d be better equipped to manage her company. Meanwhile, in August 2019, Bennett Construction was awarded a $600,000 contract from Mobile Asphalt Company. That paved the way for Ethel to begin renting a building for her business and to land additional smaller contracts from the City of Mobile. Ethel’s next goal is to be certified as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE), which will allow her to bid on bigger Department of Transportation contracts that will give her more income. Her primary goal is to become a General Contractor so that she can have other subcontractors working under her. Once she achieves that, Bennett Construction will be able to bid for contracts worth millions of dollars.

One Step at a Time

In the short term, however, Ethel wanted to purchase a dump truck, which could help her make an additional $10,000 a week for her business, given that 100 million tons of dirt need to be removed from a construction site in Leroy, Alabama. That’s what brought Ethel to TruFund, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that invests in small businesses in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and New York. CNote partners with CDFIs like TruFund in communities across the country, providing business coaching, funding loans, and empowering local entrepreneurs like Ethel.

Ethel was already familiar with TruFund. Last year, during the pandemic, she attended a virtual presentation hosted by the City of Mobile to learn more about the PPP process. She connected with TruFund, who was able to help her secure PPP funding for Bennett Construction’s payroll.

Through a TruFund small business loan, Ethel was able to purchase the dump truck she so desperately wanted. “Ms. [Tamika] McNeal has been very helpful,” she said. “There were several times I would get discouraged but she reminded me to take it one step at a time. When I thought about it like that, then it wasn’t so bad.”

Incredibly, as Bennett Construction continues to grow and to land more and more work across both Mobile and Alabama, Ethel has continued to work her 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. job at Franklin Primary Health Center. She’s thankful that her supervisors have been so flexible and understanding with the arrangement, as sometimes Ethel has to go to a job site for Bennett Construction during working hours; however, once she gets her DBE and primary contractor licenses, Ethel doesn’t think she’s going to be able to balance both jobs with her side hustle. Instead, she’s readying herself to make Bennett Construction her main focus. Mr. McGlasker, who is 77, similarly has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. “He told me he’s going to work until God tells him he can’t work anymore,” Ethel said. “That’s what keeps him going, so I don’t argue with him.”

When asked whether or not she’d believe it if someone told her 20 years ago that she’d own and operate a construction company in 2021, Ethel laughed. Despite the fact that Bennett Construction wasn’t in the cards for her until relatively recently, Ethel loves her company and the work that it produces. Unsurprisingly, it’s getting the chance to see and hear about Bennett Construction’s good work in and around Mobile that brings her the most joy, and she continues to be motivated by the knowledge that she’s building a financial legacy for her family that will outlive her. “As a Black woman running a business,” Ethel said, “there are a lot of opportunities for me. All I need to do is to get to those opportunities, and that’s what my focus is on now. Getting those certifications, and getting those opportunities.”

Learn More

  • TruFund – is a 501 (c) 3 certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) headquartered in New York City with field offices in Alabama and Louisiana. TruFund tailors its financial and technical assistance to the unique needs of each site—from contractor mobilization lending in New York and Louisiana to rural Black Belt initiatives in Alabama.
  • CNote – Interested in helping create another story like Ethel’s? CNote makes it easy to invest in great CDFIs like TruFund, helping you earn more while having a positive impact on businesses and communities across America.
Love1
By CDFIs, CNote, Impact Investing, Migration V2

Diversity in CDFI Capitalization Planning Webinar

On September 7th, 2021 CNote hosted a webinar where CNote, two CDFI partners, and a foundation discussed diversity in CDFI capitalization.

The goal of the webinar was to educate CDFI attendees about capitalization diversity and the associated challenges and benefits of working with various capital sources. The panelists also shared investor trends they were seeing in the marketplace, and how those trends could affect the availability of new capital.

Listen below to learn more:

Title:

Diversity in CDFI Capitalization Planning: A CNote Webinar targeting CDFI Loan Funds

Brief Summary:

CDFI Loan Funds rely on various sources of capital – local and federal government funding, philanthropic support, CRA dollars, locally sourced private capital, and others to fulfill their mission of economic inclusion and development. Securing new investors and partnerships can unlock access to diverse funding sources that help CDFIs expand impact and growth. In this webinar, you will hear from two seasoned CDFIs talk about how they approach capitalization planning and navigate associated challenges. You will also hear from an impact investor, Sierra Club Foundation, as they talk about current impact investor trends and why CDFIs are an important part of their portfolio.

CDFI attendees will learn about:

  • Considerations to keep in mind when evaluating the sources of capital – cost, restrictions, compliance, etc.;
  • Benefits and challenges associated with working with various capital sources;
  • Investor trends in the marketplace and how those trends could affect the availability of new capital.

Speakers will include:

  •  Kevin McGahan, CFO, Sierra Club Foundation
  •  Josh Brackett, CFO, Access for Capital for Entrepreneurs
  •  Paul Quintero, CEO, Ascendus
  •  Stacy Zielinski, Community Development Director, CNote (moderator)