CFNE’s mission is to work for economic, social, and racial justice by advancing community based, cooperative, and democratically owned or managed enterprises with a preference to assisting cooperatives in low-income communities by:
● Providing financial products at reasonable rates;
● Developing business skills; and
● Offering an investment opportunity that promotes socially conscious enterprises
Our vision is of economic justice for all through thriving cooperative enterprises.
CFNE was founded in 1975 by cooperative developers to address the need for debt products suited to the shared ownership model of food co-ops. Food co-ops were thriving, as communities across the northeast embraced a community-owned model for healthy food access. However, the shared ownership structure that provided so many benefits to workers and communities also posed barriers to accessing capital from conventional sources, a dynamic that remains true today.
Over the decades since we launched, CFNE has grown to a staff of 15, located in 6 states across the northeast. In 2021 we changed our name from the Cooperative Fund of New England to Cooperative Fund of the Northeast, reflecting our staff expansion into New York state. Our borrower portfolio expanded to include co-ops beyond the food sector, such as housing, resident-owned communities (ROCs), worker co-ops, consumer and producer co-ops, and a small number of nonprofits and land trusts. And we have increasingly incorporated a racial justice lens into our work, resulting in Racial Justice becoming the North Star (key strategic goal) of our strategic plan in 2020.
Invest Appalachia (IA) is a regional impact investment platform designed by and for the people of Central Appalachia. IA provides blended investment capital to strengthen business opportunities, build equitable local wealth, advance critical sectors, and increase quality of life for everyone in Central Appalachia. IA was initiated through the Appalachia Funders Network and developed by a collaborative group of regional leaders representing CDFIs, public and private philanthropic entities, local institutions, and community organizations. Invest Appalachia will provide flexible capital to intermediaries, community projects, social enterprise businesses, critical infrastructure, and other efforts that that support healthy & resilient communities, wealth-building jobs, and inclusive market development. As a blended capital fund, IA is able to bring both investment and catalytic capital to support mission-aligned projects. IA’s capital is designed to advance key sectors and community infrastructure within the Central Appalachia region in partnership with – and frequently subordinate to – existing financial intermediaries. IA will partner with other sources of investment, including community lenders, commercial lenders, public financing, and philanthropy, to create the capital blend or “stack” of different forms of capital tailored to each project.
