Community Development Lenders Go Where Amazon Goes When It Needs Cash
Nonprofit lenders in the U.S. with a mission to make capital meet the needs of poor communities have a foothold in the bond market.
There are $92 trillion in bond markets around the world. Corporations have ready access to those dollars. For example, when Amazon needed $16 billion to acquire Whole Foods, it borrowed it through the bond market.
The U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) Fund runs a program that prepares community development lenders to access the bond markets. In April, a CDFI made a bond offering. The bond markets are a whole new ocean of capital, with different faces and different rules, and different procedures to learn, but also some key benefits. …