Everybody deserves access to capital

LIIF’s work with the Impact-Risk-Profitability (IRP) Framework is centering racial equity in our lending business to build communities of opportunity, equity and well-being.

Read LIIF’s Strategic Plan

Racial Equity: Access, Outcomes, Power and Agency

Flexible and favorable capital to historically excluded communities.

The IRP Framework positions us to better balance impact considerations, repayment risk and financial return in decision-making in lending. Our long-term goal is for our portfolio to optimally balance impact, risk and financial sustainability, and to identify where we can mobilize and apply more flexible capital for the highest impact and borrowers that are advancing racial equity. Our IRP Framework is shaping how we make lending decisions, changing how we use our power as a financial intermediary to match the most flexible, favorable capital with the community development projects and practitioners that are making the most progress on racial equity.

Our efforts continue to repair the long history of inequitable systems and financial institutions excluding Black, Latino, and other people and communities of color.
LIIF President Kimberly Latimer-Nelligan

The IRP Framework embeds racial equity into how we lend and includes a set of tools:

Dimensions of Impact

LIIF’s Impact Scorecard is one of the tools within our IRP Framework that uses our Racial Equity Tiers and Dimensions of Impact to determine which community development practitioners and projects are increasing access, driving positive outcomes, and building power and agency for Black and Latino communities, and other communities of color.

Power and Agency

The ownership and stewardship of property play a decisive role in determining who has a seat at the table and the ability to influence the future. Our Impact Scorecard assesses whether power and agency are built and delivered to historically marginalized communities.

The Risk-Rating Model defines the expected risk of repayment of the loan.

Profitability Model calculates the net-present value — the expected financial return of the loan.

It is our vision that the IRP will ensure that LIIF can best measure the deep impact of our investments in historically excluded communities – and we invite other CDFIs to follow our example by determining their own dimensions of impact.
LIIF Director, Racial Equity and Impact Lending Eliisa Frazier