Exciting News for BCNA – and Our Clients!
by Yanki Tshering
We are excited to announce that, on September 18th, BCNA was given an award of $1,020,000 for Fiscal Year 2019, by the US Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund.
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This year the CDFI Fund awarded a total of $202.2 million in awards to 302 CDFIs in order to focus increased lending and investment activity on low-income and economically distressed communities across the nation.
BCNA was one of only 14 CDFIs that received $1 MM plus in funds and we received the highest amount awarded to an NYC-based CDFI that supports micro and small businesses. This is the second year in a row we have been awarded such a significant amount, for which we are particularly grateful, given the increased competition this year.
As the result of last year’s award, one third of the $3 million in loans BCNA made in FY 2018, came from last year’s CDFI award funds. We used those funds to help businesses like Flowers Flores, a wholesale flower business that is owned and operated by the Jose Andrade and Elisabeth Segura and their two sons; Cassandra Beauty Inc., a hair braiding saloon that is owned and operated by Esther Varney; and Momo Cave, in Queens, a restaurant owned by Mingma Sherpa, that makes six different flavors of Himalayan dumplings.
This year’s equally generous award will allow BCNA to meet our goals for FY 2019, which include extending $4 million in loans to low-to-moderate income immigrant, refugee, and female business owners in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and to all qualifying New Yorkers in Queens and Staten Island.
We are very grateful for this generous support and will continue to work to make New York a city of opportunity for immigrants, refugees, and any New Yorker with a small-business dream.