Finance Fund is a statewide nonprofit corporation whose clients are locally controlled community-based nonprofit organizations serving low-income communities and for-profit businesses located in those communities. Clients develop and implement projects in single and multi-family housing rehabilitation and new construction, home ownership, supportive housing for the homeless, commercial revitalization, business development, economic development, and community facilities. Our focus is on low-income populations in urban and rural areas in the State of Ohio.

While community-based organizations had been active in many Ohio communities for years, statewide cooperation and communication among such organizations was relatively new in 1985. Through the efforts of Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development and Ohio CDC Association, organizations were brought together for the purpose of sharing expertise and advocacy. As lead organization, the Ohio CDC Association formed a Task Force, which met from May 1986 to March 1987 to study and propose a structure for meeting future financing needs of community-based development projects. In their report, the Task Force called for the creation of the Finance Fund as an instrument that would address the need of community-based nonprofits to access low cost debt financing, enhance local resources and obtain technical assistance. In May 1987, the Ohio Community Development Finance Fund was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

The interim leadership was successful in getting the Finance Fund included in the State of Ohio's budget (line 195-431) administered by the Ohio Department of Development. The funding from this line has continued to expand funding to the corporation. As a financial intermediary, the Finance Fund has focused on enabling the flow of capital into disinvested areas.

By 1997, the Finance Fund had grown to $14.7 million in assets and expanded its product offering. The following year, certificates of deposit from two linked deposit products were aggregated into portfolios to offer in the private market for re-capitalization. The securitization, Series 1, 2, and 3; was done by the Community Reinvestment Fund for sale to National City Community Development Corporation recapturing $8.9 million in funds to be used to leverage mortgage loans for community development projects. The fourth & fifth re-capitalization (Series 4 & 5) was done with Bank One (Chase) and Key Bank, respectively, providing $5.5 million.

Since March 14, 2003, the Finance Fund has received three awards totaling $55 million in tax credit allocations from the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program. Part of the Community Renewal and New Markets Act of 2000, the NMTC was designed to encourage the private sector to invest new equity in low-and moderate-income rural and urban communities nationwide. The proceeds of the tax credit award were used to launch the Community Loan Fund. The awards also necessitated the development of a number of affiliate corporations to assist in implementing programs, which included the expansion of the eligible client base to community based for-profit entities.

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