Vermont Community Loan Fund(Archive)
The Vermont Community Loan Fund (VCLF) is a community development financial institution which builds and strengthens Vermont communities by promoting and providing more equitable access to capital. It accomplishes this by:
Delivering affordable loan capital to capable community groups and businesses, Providing technical assistance and support to help develop and sustain successful community projects, and, Offering a unique investment opportunity for socially concerned individuals and institutions who want to invest, safely and creatively, in local community renewal.VCLF offers loans to nonprofit developers for perpetually affordable housing designed for Vermonters earning 80% of median income or less. Past loans have been used to capitalize reserve accounts. They have also been used for acquisition, construction and rehabilitation of rental properties, mobile homes and housing destined for ownership.
VCLF has a long history of working with community nonprofit groups to help them finance essential community facilities. Recent examples include a community arts building, a facility for recovering alcoholics (Middle House), the Barre Historical Society, and the Richford Health Clinic.
VCLF provides assistance to small and micro businesses that cannot obtain sufficient credit from traditional lenders. They provide market rate loans with flexible terms. They focus on businesses that will provide livable wage jobs, build wealth for low income Vermonters, help keep a downtown thriving, and/or maintain Vermont’s working landscape. Projects include: an independent pharmacy, an apple growers cooperative and a local print shop. In June VCLF rolled out an agri-tourism revolving loan fund and has approved five loans to date.
In late 2000, VCLF launched a major new initiative to help Vermont’s child care providers upgrade their facilities. VCLF has made 16 loans totaling $325,000 allowing over 440 children to be in better facilities.
Investing with VCLF
VCLF is capitalized with interest-paying investments of private capital from individuals, religious organizations, corporations and others. It also receives capital from federal and state grants that is used to ensure the safety of investors’ funds, fund loan loss reserves, maintain equity ratios and provide the added flexibility needed to make loans to new and innovative projects.
On behalf of our clients, Trillium Asset Management Corporation made its first investment with VCLF in 1997. Currently we have six clients invested with an average investment of $25,000. VCLF has low minimums for the amount and length of loans but encourages investments of at least $5,000 and a length of at least two years.
Impact
Through a wide variety of loan and technical assistance programs, VCLF finances activities that add value to the State’s communities while providing opportunities for low-income Vermonters. Since 1988, VCLF has lent over $16 million to hundreds of community-based organizations and small businesses around the state.
VCLF recently provided a loan for the construction costs of a moderate income home in South Burlington. The house was built entirely by seven women from WOMENBUILD. WOMENBUILD is a six-year-old program administered by the not-for-profit Northern New England Tradeswomen, Inc. The program was created to train low-income women to enter skilled trades jobs that pay well above minimum wage. Through this program these women have acquired the skills to qualify for higher paying jobs that have been traditionally reserved for men.
-Randy Rice
