Socially Conscious Lending

Written on: July 29, 2015

Recently, one of our Sisters posted a blog article about her personal experience of investing a small gift ($25) in a micro lender named Kiva. We continue the discussion with Socially Conscious Investing.

The investment world isn’t primarily known for sending out the good news of the Gospel, but that’s exactly what The Reinvestment Fund (TRF) is all about.

Many years ago the Grey Nuns made a decision to invest a small amount at a very low rate of interest in the company called The Reinvestment Fund (TRF).

TRF is a Community Development Financial Institution, that manages $785 million in capital and has made over $1.5 billion in 2,960 community investments since its inception in 1985.

Click here to view a short video about their history.

The impact of these investments is nothing less than the Gospel in action:

20,650 housing units

67,560 jobs

14.2 million square feet of commercial space

42,400 charter school seats

10,970 child care seats

143 supermarkets, grocery stores

and fresh food retail

439,375 total patient visits annually

at community health centers

698 businesses

6.2 million megawatt hours of energy conserved and created –

enough to power more than 653,384 homes for a year

TRF supports their financing with a strong research and policy analysis capacity that has become a highly regarded source of unbiased information for public officials and private investors.

Next month we’ll share some of the highlights of TRF’s financing efforts during 2014.

This entry was posted in From our Sisters and tagged: 1985, affordable housing, community development, education, energy conservation, finances, financial institutions, healthy food, low interest loan, social return, The Reinvestment Fund, TRF