Community Development Finance
COVID, George Floyd, and the Fight for Equity, 2016-2025
by Clifford N. Rosenthal and Dana Archer-Rosenthal

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In this sequel to earlier studies of the origins and growth of the community development financial institutions (CDFI) movement, Clifford N. Rosenthal and Dana Archer-Rosenthal document and assess the most momentous period in the movement’s history--- the tumultuous decade from the first Trump administration, with its systemic hostility toward Black, Native, and other minority initiatives, through the Biden administration’s embrace of equitable community development, to the wholesale, chaotic attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion of the still-unfolding second Trump term. The authors explore in depth how America’s community development finance industry responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, which reignited long-simmering demands for justice. The two catastrophes of 2020 triggered a massive federal financial response, and the CDFI movement’s success in helping families and small businesses survive gained it unprecedented recognition and public support. The book details how CDFIs rose to the challenges of social unrest, economic dislocation, and climate change, achieving dramatic growth but encountering new challenges of scale and complexity. Community Development Finance ends with an epilogue on the uncertain fortune faced by the movement at the start of the second Trump administration. The book is an essential resource for anyone involved in community-based finance, as well as students of economics, political science, and community development. It is the third in a trilogy of books on the CDFI movement authored by Clifford Rosenthal, along with Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement (2018) and Community Capital: Race, Equity, and the Credit Union Movement (2024).

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Clifford N. Rosenthal, one of the pioneers of the community development finance movement, has worked in the cooperative movement for more than forty years, beginning with organizing food co-ops for Native American and migrant farmworker organizations and culminating in leadership of National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions (now Inclusiv). In 2012, he established the Office of Financial Empowerment at the newly created federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He was inducted into the African-American Credit Union Coalition Hall of Fame in 2019 and the national Cooperative Hall of Fame in 2024. Dana Archer-Rosenthal is a consultant for the nonprofit and public sectors in program design, funding, and impact evaluation. As a consultant and grant maker, she has worked with dozens of environmental, workforce development, and community development organizations, including the leading CDFIs, Nonprofit Finance Fund and Inclusiv. She carries on the Archer and Rosenthal family traditions of service in the progressive nonprofit sector. Both authors are long-time residents of Brooklyn, New York.

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Contributors

Author

Clifford N. Rosenthal

Author

Dana Archer-Rosenthal