Connecting capital with community priorities requires decisions backed by data. CNote’s first decade has been a continuing effort to make that evidence more useful: first to explain where financing went, then to understand how institutions served their communities, and increasingly to inform where capital could go next.
That work began with CDFI loan funds. It now spans community banks, credit unions, individual investments, and corporate deposits. As CNote grew, its reporting and evaluation methods developed with it.
Today, CNote has mobilized more than $1 billion into local communities and supported over 200 mission-driven community financial institutions through deposits or investments. Understanding how that network was built begins with the lenders closest to the work.
Building on what community lenders already knew
When CNote began connecting investment capital with Community Development Financial Institution loan funds, those lenders already collected information about their borrowers and financing activity.
CNote built its reporting around information partners submitted to organizations such as the CDFI Fund. That provided an established foundation and reduced the additional reporting work asked of institutions whose resources also needed to support lending.
Over time, those reports built a picture of the communities reached. From 2017 through 2025, CNote’s cumulative fixed-income figures include 13,849 jobs created and maintained and 9,047 affordable housing units created. During that period, 79% of dollars went to women-led businesses, and 81% went to low- and moderate-income borrowers or communities.
The reporting documented activity. Working with lenders brought CNote closer to the circumstances behind it, including the obstacles borrowers faced even when financing was available.
Learning what lending totals could not explain
The Wisdom Fund, launched in 2019 to expand financing for women entrepreneurs, made those barriers a focus of research.
In 2021, human-centered design research with Impact Experience found that loan sizes could reflect lenders’ limits rather than the amount a business needed. An entrepreneur could secure financing and still lack enough capital to carry out her plans. Borrowers also described a need for lines of credit, lower interest rates, reduced collateral requirements, and simpler, more transparent applications.
CNote shared the findings and, with support from the Tarsadia Foundation, supported participating lenders through grants and peer learning. Partners introduced products, features, and services intended to address the needs identified.
When surveyed at the outset, most Wisdom Fund lenders already offered at least one of the features the research identified. A year later, every one had added another. More than three quarters raised loan limits, lowered interest rates, or reduced collateral requirements, responding directly to the undercapitalization finding. Over two thirds introduced new products such as lines of credit, credit-building loans, or real estate acquisition financing, and nearly half shortened applications, made document requirements clearer, or added business development services.
The experience helped broaden CNote’s methodology. Evaluating financial access required examining the products, terms, and services offered alongside the amount lent.
Tamra Thetford, CNote’s VP of Impact Evaluation, explains:
“A dollar figure tells you capital moved. It does not tell you whether it was the right capital. The Wisdom Fund research made that concrete for us: a woman could secure financing and still be undercapitalized because of how the product was designed. Over ten years, our measurement has shifted from counting what was lent to asking who can access it, whether the terms work, and whether the lender learns and adjusts. That is harder to measure, and it tells us much more.”
Bringing that understanding to a broader network
As CNote grew from fixed-income investments into corporate cash management, its institutional reach expanded. Through CNote clients can access more than 1,500 mission-driven community financial institutions nationwide.
That expansion brought different institutional structures and reporting practices into the work. A framework originally developed around CDFI loan funds needed to accommodate community banks and credit unions, while giving clients a clear basis for understanding their impact.
CNote’s evaluation developed around three connected dimensions: the underserved communities an institution focuses on, the products and services it offers, and the activity demonstrating the extent of its work. New priorities brought additional information needs, including climate-related data added in 2024.
Today, participating Impact Cash® institutions provide information about their lending and community focus when joining the network, then submit annual updates. That gives CNote a basis for assessing activity beyond an institution’s designation.
Selection also considers financial standing, operational requirements, and capacity to receive capital. The impact information helps establish which institutions’ work aligns with a client’s preferences.
As circumstances change, ongoing review and partner engagement help keep that understanding current. CNote’s due diligence framework explains the financial and reputational review supporting this work.
Returning to the people behind the reporting
The borrower stories collected over the years offer another perspective: what happened after the original financing.
In 2017, Ingrid Murray was trying to grow Prospect Cleaning Service while paying nearly $4,000 a month on business debt. Refinancing brought that payment down to $451, giving her more room to run the business. With financing and hands-on business support, she continued building. Years later, Prospect Cleaning Service employs more than 100 people and serves customers across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
For Skylar Security, growth brought the challenge of delivering on a major opportunity: providing security for Super Bowl LIII. Financing and business coaching received in 2018 helped the company manage the financial demands of that assignment. Skylar has since grown into a team of 300 guards, with more than 60 deployed daily at offices and major events.
Cortaiga Collins started with a need close to home: finding quality childcare for her son. She decided to create it herself, but opening a preschool required financing that traditional banks would not provide. Flexible lending helped her establish Good Shepherd Preschool. What began with one mother’s search for childcare has grown to serve more than 100 children across multiple locations, helping other families find the care she once struggled to access.
The significance of community investment continues to unfold after the financing is recorded. Looking back across CNote’s first decade brings that longer perspective into view: businesses that keep operating, employment that grows, and services communities continue to rely on. Alongside the cumulative data, these stories help explain how access to capital can contribute to economic opportunity over time.
Making the accumulated evidence useful to clients
For corporate treasury teams, CNote’s framework helps evaluate geographic and community alignment alongside liquidity, insurance, and return requirements. Individual investors can also connect their priorities with the work of community lenders.
From 2022 through 2025, deposits through Impact Cash® supported participating institutions that originated more than $77 billion in community lending. This represents those institutions’ lending activity, supported by their broader funding base, including CNote deposits.
CNote’s first decade has connected reporting with decision-making more closely. Information gathered to explain what lenders financed now also informs institution selection, client matching, and ongoing review.
That accumulated experience gives clients a clearer basis for choosing where capital goes and understanding the community activity of the institutions receiving it.
