Coastal Enterprises, Inc.
Randy Rice
Mission
Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) is a 501(c)(3) private, non-profit community development corporation (CDC) and community development finance institution (CDFI). CEI’s mission is “to help create economically and environmentally healthy communities in which all people, especially those with low incomes, can reach their full potential.” CEI is one of the nation’s leading rural community development corporations CDCs/CDFIs. Headquartered in Wiscasset, Maine, and with offices throughout the state, CEI serves communities throughout rural New England, upstate New York, and is active throughout Rural America with its New Markets Tax Credit program (NMTC).
History
CEI’s roots are in the civil rights movement and Equal Opportunity Act of the 1960s. In that period the federal government established a program to fund local CDCs to make investments in rural and urban communities left out of the economic mainstream. The targeting of investment capital to underserved minority and other communities continues to this day, with some 2,000 CDC/CDFIs investing in businesses, facilities like child or health care, schools, and even much larger economic development transactions under the NMTC, a financing tool CEI and several of its peers helped to found in 2000 at the end of the Clinton Administration.
Business/Impact
CEI’s business model has three major components: finance, development services, and policy. CEI finances job-creating small, medium and micro enterprises, natural resource ventures in the farm, fish and forest sectors, community facilities such as child care, and affordable housing.
Development services consists of a range of technical support for individuals, entrepreneurs and families in the form of business and housing counseling (CEI is the largest technical assistance provider in Maine with some 2,000 customers
annually), and development of key economic sectors such as in natural resources of farms, fish and forests, or renewable energy production.
CEI engages in state and federal policy research and development fostering policies that create resources for the industry. In addition to advocating for the federal Small Business Administration Microloan program, NMTC mentioned earlier, and many other programs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies, CEI also advocates for an effective Community Reinvestment Act. In 2007 CEI spearheaded in Maine what became one of the nation’s stronger state anti-predatory legislation in the country. CEI also advocates for environmental responsible policy and practices, and was a co-founder of the Triple Bottom Line Collaborative of nine CDFIs. CEI’s development philosophy is based on strategically combining the market interventions of finance, development assistance and policy for social and environmental benefit – the “triple bottom line” of return on investment.
Since its first major investment in 1979 in a fish processing cooperative in Boothbay Harbor, CEI has provided cumulatively over $560 million in financing to 2,050 enterprises greater than 23,000 jobs created and preserved; 1,440 units of affordable housing; provided training/counseling to nearly 32,000 individuals and small businesses; created/preserved 4,600 child care slots; and provided leadership on policy initiatives, including one of the nation’s most stringent laws regarding predatory mortgage lending. CEI has mobilized and leveraged nearly $2 billion in private and public capital.
Investing in CEI
Below-market loans in CEI promissory notes are pooled for targeted lending to small businesses, social services and affordable housing projects. Earnings above costs support the loan fund.
CEI has been rated by CARS™ (the CDFI Assessment and Rating System), a comprehensive, third-party analysis of CDFIs developed by Opportunity Finance Network. CEI achieved an AAA rating for “impact performance,” indicating clear alignment of mission, strategies, activities and data that guides programs and planning; a three (satisfactory) for ”financial strength and performance;” and “policy plus” for leadership role in policy.
In March 2010, Trillium completed its initial risk assessment and due diligence on CEI. On behalf of our clients, Trillium will make client investments in CEI of at least $50,000 for a term of not less than three years.
