Community First Fund

Community First Fund promotes Community and economic development by providing affordable loans to entities throughout central and eastern Pennsylvania, including small businesses, developers of affordable housing, community-based organizations, women, people of color. On july 1, 2020, Community First Fund merged with finanta, a philadelphia based nonprofit cdfi loan Fund. Finanta converted to a member owned nonprofit corporation and appointed Community First Fund as its sole member. During the year ending june 30, 2023, the organization closed 292 new loans. The organization financed 638 housing units for low and moderate income individuals. Through the organizations financing efforts, 1,273 jobs were created or retained, and 872,393 square feet of business real estate was developed or rehabbed. In march 2020 in response to the covid-19 pandemic, the organization shifted its focus to participation in and promotion of various grant and loan programs to businesses located in low-income communities and owned by people of color. By june 30, 2020, the organization had directly provided emergency financial relief in the form of low-interest loans to 24 businesses and had managed the program to Fund 461 sba paycheck protection program loans totaling 15,784,735 through its subsidiary Community First capital corp.

New markets tax credit program to date the organization was granted 90 million of new markets tax credit allocation from the us treasury. The organization has entered into agreements with investor members to Fund 14 new markets tax credit projects throughout central and eastern pa. six projects are remaining at 6/30/2023.