Communities Unlimited Inc

In 1992, CU started making loans to water and wastewater systems in rural areas to ensure that residents had clean, healthy drinking water and safe wastewater treatment systems. In 2001 CU was certified as a CDFI. Loans made to water and wastewater management systems are used for improvement projects, pre-development financing, purchase of equipment and emergency financing needs. In 2024, CU closed $5,471,905 in loans to 20 water and wastewater systems to improve their systems. These loans included $1,923,985 (35%) loaned in Persistent Poverty Counties. Loans ranged from the small loan needed to meet compliance to larger loans for pre-development work that helped these communities access larger state and federal loans. These loans impacted 1,878 household in Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma in communities with poverty rates as high as 23.8%. Small business lending was added in 2010 as small businesses were struggling to recover from the 2008 recession and bank lending tightened. Again, CU works to fill the gap in financing with loans from $1,000 to $200,000 to small businesses that do not qualify for traditional financing. Small business loans can be used for working capital, which is one of the biggest gaps in small business financing. Other uses include purchase or repair of equipment and real estate purchase or improvements. CU offers a variety of small business loan products that are designed to grow as the business grows. In 2024, CU's home improvement program provided 159 loans, making a direct impact on the resident' living conditions and often increasing the values of their largest asset. The program also offers credit counseling and financial incentives to pay on time and improve individual credit scores allowing for improved access to traditional financial products. Through CU's credit counseling efforts, payment monitoring and one on one personal assistance, 81% of the renewal customers have seen an increase in their FICO score, with an average increase of 41 points

Housing, Entrepreneurship, and Community Sustainability: CU follows a holistic, community-centered housing approach with a focus on local capacity building, technical assistance, resource development, and housing preservation and development. CU staff works with their communities to create a housing taskforce, complete a comprehensive housing needs assessment, assist with strategic planning, and support the communities in grant writing. CU provided prepurchase homebuyer education and housing counseling to support individuals and families as they apply for mortgages for home purchases or loans for home rehabilitation. - Entrepreneurship - During fiscal year 2024, the Entrepreneurship Team assisted 225 clients in one-on-one engagements ranging from 25 to 100 hours of management consulting. The program served 278 business in various training events such as webinars, live workshops, and our self-paced Learning Management System. CU assisted 100 clients growing their businesses through contracting. They experienced combined gross revenues of over $42 million. Through the Entrepreneurship team's wealth building initiative (launched in August 2022), CU is teaching business owners how to use their business as a tool for personal wealth creation. Over 60 clients committed to the program so far that includes 100+ hours of consulting and training. Business owners are taught how to grow business retained earnings that are then used strategically toward increasing the owner's personal net worth, establishing retirement accounts, securing capital or other wealth creation strategies. Community Sustainability - As FY 2024 closed, CU's Community Sustainability team worked alongside leadership teams in 114 communities, developing more vibrant, sustainable economies by leveraging local assets for long-term growth. CU's staff facilitates this process and assists by coordinating internal and external resources to address broadband access and education, healthy foods, infrastructure management and improvement, community facility development, small business development and access to financing. Within the CS team our Healthy Foods program provides technical assistance and access to resources that created connections to new market opportunities for farmers; completion of GAP/GHP certification by small-scale underserved farmers; development and/or expansion of local markets; connections between local medical providers and schools to local producers resulting in increased access to fresh produce; and expanded access to resources to meet transportation, aggregation and storage needs in unserved rural areas. The Broadband work impacts communities across all seven states of CU's service area with focus intentionally beginning in those communities where CS teammates have already established trusting relationships and leadership teams allowing for expedited opportunities. The team of broadband content experts uses an award-winning broadband planning methodology recognized through the award of the nation's largest USDA Broadband Technical Assistance grant in 2024. Since 2022, the team offers broadband planning, capacity building training, to ensure all homes and businesses have access to high speed Internet.

Miscellaneous programs