The Community Foundation for Southern Arizona (CFSA) is thrilled to share that the inaugural Vital Nonprofit Bloom Award recipient is Community Investment Corporation Tucson!
CFSA is committed to investing in and partnering with Southern Arizona’s nonprofit sector to empower nonprofits to tackle community challenges effectively. These efforts include highlighting nonprofits in our community whose activities and services demonstrate CFSA’s values of Adaptability and organizational Savvy through our Vital Nonprofit Bloom Award. This inaugural award goes to the Community Investment Corporation Tucson (CIC) which has made an exceptional contribution towards creating a vibrant and equitable community for all Southern Arizonans.
“We are honored and truly humbled to receive the Community Foundation’s inaugural BLOOM Award as our region’s vital nonprofit – especially given the breadth of amazing work of so many mission-based organizations in the community. Our success can be attributed to our incredibly bright and talented staff. They are courageous enough to innovate and create new solutions to longstanding issues related to the unequal access to many asset-building tools of our economy like homeownership and entrepreneurship. As important are the depth of our partnerships with other like-minded service organizations such as Startup Tucson, the YWCA Southern Arizona, Local First Arizona, Pima County, the City of Tucson and so many others.” -Danny Knee, Executive Director at Community Investment Corporation Tucson.
CIC promotes economic inclusion for all members of Southern Arizona, regardless of socioeconomic status by leveraging financial and knowledge capital into the areas of the local economy where expansion of access is desperately needed. Their work ensures that more people in our community can buy homes, access the education they want for their children, and get the funding they need to start, sustain, and grow their small businesses.
CIC believes small businesses can transform the people they employ and the communities they serve. It is committed to helping small businesses in Southern Arizona thrive and succeed by providing access to capital through non-traditional financing resources at competitive interest rates with flexible terms. They are increasingly aware that small businesses owned by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) lacked a larger percentage of access to capital when they needed it most. They created the BIPOC Loan Fund, shifting capital funding decision-making to a community-led BIPOC committee that seeks to support businesses that have traditionally been left out of the small business lending environment. The committee focuses on micro and small businesses that are geographically, demographically, and operationally diverse.
There are systemic barriers that many members of our community face when becoming a homeowners. CIC advocates for those left at the margins of housing access due to historical and modern-day practices of discrimination and provides resources that ensure all individuals have a safe and healthy place to call home. CIC’s core mission is to empower individuals and families with access to capital that helps homebuyers get into a home and stay in their homes long into the future. They lead programs that meet future homeowners right where they are at. Whether they find themselves struggling to save for a down payment or qualify for a loan. CIC is savvy to the needs of those seeking the equity-building advantage of home ownership and creates partnerships to ensure those needs continue to be met.
Join us in celebrating CIC at CFSA’s Community Celebration on Thursday, April 25. Learn more here.