CDFI Fund

The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) is part of the US Department of the Treasury. Congress created it in 1994 through the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act. Its job is to steer capital toward low-income people and distressed places by building up the lenders that serve them.

The Fund works in a few ways. It certifies organizations as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). Through the CDFI Program and the Native American CDFI Assistance (NACA) Program, it makes competitive awards. Financial Assistance awards add lending capital and loan loss reserves. Technical Assistance awards help lenders build staff and systems. The Fund also runs the Bank Enterprise Award Program, the Capital Magnet Fund for affordable housing, the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program and the New Markets Tax Credit program. Nearly all of this runs through AMIS (Awards Management Information System), the Fund's online portal.

Why it matters for lenders

For a CDFI, the Fund is both a funder and an overseer. An award can add capital that is hard to find elsewhere, often on flexible terms. But every award comes with an assistance agreement that sets performance goals and reporting duties. Every certified CDFI, award or not, files an Annual Certification and Data Collection Report (ACR). It also files a Transaction Level Report (TLR) with loan-by-loan detail.

Federal funding has also become less predictable. The second and final round of fiscal 2025 CDFI Program and NACA awards was not announced until September 15, 2026. That announcement said Treasury will keep reviewing awards through audits and compliance reviews. Where it finds material noncompliance, it may end unused funds, recapture money or pursue decertification. A lender that relies on Fund money should plan for delays and keep its compliance records ready for review.

How it works in practice

Say a community loan fund wins a Financial Assistance award. The finance director signs the assistance agreement in AMIS and adds each reporting date to the team calendar. The award money goes into its own capital pool. Each loan funded from it is tagged at closing, so the fund can later show how the money was deployed.

When a material event happens, such as a change in executive director, someone files the required form, usually within 30 days. At year end, the team loads its loans into AMIS, runs the Fund's target market calculator, fixes flagged records and certifies the report. Lenders who track all of this in separate spreadsheets often find that the award's numbers no longer match their own books, and the gap takes days to explain.