Opportunities Credit Union is proud to be a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI)
As a Community Development Financial Institution, we are dedicated to providing responsible and affordable lending options in Vermont to assist low-income, low-wealth and disadvantaged individuals and communities. Our goal is to help these communities build wealth and become more economically stable. We are proud to bring CDFI services to the communities we serve, as every job generated, project financed, and home bought or constructed represents a crucial advancement in transforming the lives of those in our community.
These are just some of the many ways we’ve embodied our CDFI standing in the community:
- We’ve received $17,279,306 in Financial Assistance Awards and $289,055 in Technical Assistance Awards since becoming a CDFI.
- We made an impact on low-income Vermonters. In 2022, 94.5% of the funds we lent went to low-income Vermonters.
- We protected our membership by bolstering our Loan Loss Reserve.
- CDFI grants helped fund our Money Sense Financial Counseling Program, which has provided free financial counseling services to 1572 Vermonters in 2022 alone, and to nearly 2,700 Vermonters since 2021.
- In 2022, we used CDFI funds and a grant from Northfield Savings to set up the Impact Loan Fund, a small business loan fund that doesn’t rely on a borrower’s credit scores.
- We have used CDFI funds to run the Gardner/Goldman Microbusiness Fund, providing affordable small and microbusiness loans to 43 small businesses.
- We installed a new core server that processed 788,000 transactions in 2022.
- We are the only CDFI Credit Union in Vermont, and we have participated with the CDFI Program since 1997.
