Partnering CDFIs and MDIs. Map of the United States with highlights on the following served areas: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington D.C., West Virginia

Looking for a lender who understands your vision for business and will patiently work with you to secure the financing to achieve it? You’ve come to the right place.

CornerSquare Community Capital is a nonprofit organization that provides support to a network of mission-driven lenders known as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) and Minority Depository Institutions (MDI). Prior to working with a lender, we complete a due diligence review process to ensure that each lender not only has strong business practices in place, but that they are also truly reaching and serving individuals and communities that historically have struggled to access capital for reasons that include race, gender, wealth, or years in business.

We realize that in this day and age, it can be incredibly difficult to know where to turn and who you can trust when you’re trying to find a small business loan. To help with this, we want to share our network of trusted and mission-driven lenders with you.

Lender Directory

Interested in applying for capital or seeking resources for your business? Use the filterable directory below to explore and find a participating lender who best fits your needs. You can also scroll down to view all of our partner CDFI/MDI lenders. If you are located in a region in close proximity to one of our partner CDFI/MDI’s territories, we recommend you reach out to them, as they may be able to assist you.

Access To Capital For Entrepreneurs (ACE)

Areas Served: Georgia
Loan Range: $15,000—1,000,000
Lending Focus: ACE primarily serves small to mid-size companies led by persons of color, women and low to moderate income individuals. ACE’s vision is to decrease the gender and racial wealth gaps, particularly for African American and Latinx communities.

Bridging Virginia

Areas Served: Virginia
Loan Range: $0—50,000
Lending Focus: Our lending focus is on assisting small businesses throughout Virginia that are historically underserved by traditional lenders. We place a special emphasis on supporting minority, woman, veteran, and Black-owned businesses.

Business Expansion Funding Corporation (BEFCOR)

Areas Served: North Carolina, South Carolina
Loan Range: $1,000—150,000
Lending Focus: BEFCOR’s CDFI activities are focused on assisting small businesses throughout North Carolina that are historically under-served by traditional lenders, especially minority, woman, veteran, and rural owned businesses.

Central County Community Development Corporation (CCCDC)

Areas Served: Florida
Loan Range: $10,000—250,000
Lending Focus: Underserved Businesses in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties of Florida. Specifically Black Businesses in these areas; We have working capital, contract capital and refinancing predatory lending.

Community Fund of North Miami Dade (CFNMD)

Areas Served: Florida
Loan Range: $10,000—150,000
Lending Focus: CFNMD provides affordable loans and business know-how to minority and women-owned businesses throughout Palm Beach, Broward and Miami Dade Counties so they can confidently take on the opportunities to grow.

Community Ventures

Areas Served: Kentucky
Loan Range: $500—5,000,000
Lending Focus: We help small businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the state. Our clients work with us to secure necessary capital for their business, along with the business development training and technical assistance to give them the best chance of success.

DreamSpring

Areas Served: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas
Loan Range: $1,000—2,000,000
Lending Focus: We provide rapid access to capital to the most vulnerable small business owners, focusing on communities including people of color, women, low- to moderate-income earners, people with disabilities, and start-ups. (with an alternate minimum loan amounts for Georgia of $3k+)

Institute Capital

Areas Served: North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington D.C., West Virginia
Loan Range: $0—750,000
Lending Focus: Institute Capital provides debt and investment capital to affordable housing developers, community-based development organizations (CBDOs) and small businesses.

Locus

Areas Served: Virginia and contiguous states
Loan Range: $50,000—7,500,000
Lending Focus: Affordable housing, small business, food access, clean energy, and health.

Mountain BizWorks

Areas Served: North Carolina* (Western NC only)
Loan Range: $1,000—500,000
Lending Focus: Small business startup, growth, and succession funding with a focus on low-income, BIPOC, rural, and woman-owned businesses in the 26 western-most counties of North Carolina.

OPTUS Bank

Areas Served: South Carolina
Loan Range: $1,000—2,675,000
Lending Focus: The African American community and other historically underserved people and places.

Partner Community Capital (PCAP)

Areas Served: North Carolina, West Virginia
Loan Range: $25,000—1,000,000
Lending Focus: PCAP lends to small businesses located in rural and/or underserved communities. PCAP also focuses lending to women & BIPOC business owners and to sustainable enterprises. In these ways, PCAP promotes economic and environmental sustainability and supports entrepreneurs' efforts to build family and community wealth.

Pathway Lending

Areas Served: Alabama, Tennessee
Loan Range: $5,000—1,000,000
Lending Focus: Underserved communities and women, minority, or veteran owned businesses.

SKED

Areas Served: Kentucky
Loan Range: $50,000—1,250,000
Lending Focus: We believe a brighter future in Southern and Eastern Kentucky begins with stronger businesses. Whether you need money, technical advice, or training, we help businesses large and small find innovative solutions that inspire growth. We invest in a better way of life in Southern and Eastern Kentucky through business lending, marketing, training, expansion, and recruitment — and have done so for more than 37 years. We do business better at SKED.