LiftFund

To increase financial inclusion, literacy and close the lending gap for DSBOs, we have defined our commitment to DSBOs with the following goals: 1) Improve: customer service experience through communication and digital upgrades, 2) Enhance: systems that support an increase in loan volume and customer service support for current and potential clients; 3) Create: greater market visibility and presence; and 4) Support: provide capacity building and training for our staff as well as collaborate with other CDFIs seeking to enhance small business lending and organizational capacity.
Our vision is to reach beyond geographic boundaries, breaking socio-economic barriers that hinder our underserved DSBOs from achieving their American dream of owning their own financially sustainable businesses.

To achieve our goals we looked at the "opportunity" points in our operations and lending life cycle, mapped out solutions and strategies to address them:
1) Customer digital experience - Technological advancements require us to continually improve and adapt our systems in order to stay competitive, additionally expansion into our new markets of Florida, Oklahoma, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Georgia demands it. We are addressing these issues with: website improvements, online application enhancements, application of mobile devices, LiftLearn enhancements and improvements for entrepreneurs, and phone system upgrades.
2) Loan packaging enhancements - Customer relationship management (CRM) software, fully automated risk modeling, and document management upgrades and improvements will improve workflow, procedures and processes.
3) Sales analytics and support - Business Intelligence (BI) is critical to our operations in each region. BI and through the Search Engine Optimization efforts will enable us to offer services specific to each region as well increase visibility.
4) Human development (internal) - Expanded markets and services require investments in human capital and career development tracks.

LiftFund is committed to promoting financial inclusion and increasing financial literacy for DSBOs and will continue will continue to seek additional sources of funding to support our program. Our data shows that micro- and small businesses has spurred job creation and our programs have increased asset-building among our borrowers and has proven scalable in our 13 states footprint.
To sustain our programs, LiftFund relies on our own revenue streams as well as funding partners in the region. LiftFund is 49% self-sufficient, and all revenue from our loan programs and our proprietary Microloan Management System (MMS) is reinvested back into LiftFund's programs. The rest of our support comes from individuals, organizations, and federal and local governments that believe in our mission of community and economic development. These supports and contributions impacts our communities in perpetuity as loans are paid back and reinvested back into the hands of our DSBOs. With a 95% repayment rate, our DSBOs are proving to be a great investment.
LiftFund has varied partnerships that are essential to sustaining this program. The purpose of these partnerships is to increase outreach to small businesses in the community by taking on a multi-sector approach. We partner with banks who refer prospective clients to LiftFund who are not credit or asset ready for traditional banking. We serve as a gap financing partner to help borrowers build credit and become "bankable" in order to access commercial banking services in the future. As a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), we are able to assist government partners in leveraging private funds and deploying restricted federal funds. In addition, we partner with local professionals that volunteer with us to provide training and seminars. LiftFund works with all types of nonprofits, community organizations, and community leaders to cooperatively create opportunities to support socioeconomically marginalized small businesses.
While we have accomplished much, more needs to be done, and we constantly seeking additional funding opportunities for our continued work on behalf of underserved DSBOs.

LiftFund has initiated strategic steps towards achieving our goals:
1) Customer digital experience - LiftLearn, our multi-purpose training purpose has been enhanced to accommodate materials for our client entrepreneurs, MMS clients (that is, clients of other non-profits using MMS, and LiftFund staff. We are in the process of upgrading our phone system that will integrate our hub and spoke business model and our CRM system.
2) Loan packaging enhancements - The first component of the MMS enhancement was the CRM upgrade which will be finished by end of the year. The document management process and the MMS risk assessment model, developed by LiftFund and used by multiple CDFIs, requires continuous improvements and strengthening.
3) Sales analytics and support - Impact reporting is currently being done manually.