Innovative Ideas Led this Year’s OFN Small Business Summit

The annual OFN Small Business Summit is always a great opportunity to network, learn about new resources, celebrate accomplishments, and exchange best practices. In addition, this year – during these challenging times of shifting policies that affect CDFIs as well as market turmoil that affects our clients – we particularly appreciated being able to spend time exchanging ideas with our peers, OFN leadership, and other stakeholders.

Some highlights were the session on “Re-imagining What We Offer,” moderated by Joyce Klien of the Aspen Institute, who challenged us to design products that respond to the needs of the people we serve, as well as Ana Hammock of Ascendus speaking about the Life & ADD insurance product developed by Resilient. We were honored to be cited as the 2nd CDFI to offer that important product.

This year’s discussions around innovation—especially in product design, AI integration, and compassionate loan servicing—were especially relevant and impactful and Maria Paulino spoke for us all when she said: “We’re excited to carry these lessons forward in our work.”

We were also pleased that Accompany Capital’s COO, Jessica Martin, and Chief Lending Officer Richard Reynoso were part of a panel that included CO Enterprise Fund Director of Credit Paul Mosher, and moderator moderated by Jeff Baker of Craft3 that focused how CDFIs can approach loan workouts, delinquency, and collections with empathy—without compromising effective servicing practices.

It was Accompany Capital’s Strategic Advisor Eugene Williams’ first time attending and he was very impressed, noting, “The sessions I attended were focused on technical assistance issues doing the loan terms. The networking was superb and information exchanges during were very helpful.”

An important trend this year that was the center of many conversations was ways to use AI to enhance services.

Tshering Gurung appreciated hearing how other CDFIs are leveraging AI and digital tools to streamline lending and strengthen technical assistance, including BirdCall, a voice AI system, being used to handle borrower and client interactions more efficiently, and platforms like Initiate that support TA education for small business clients.

Jessica Martin attended a discussion about applying machine learning models to assess repayment trends within a CDFIs own loan portfolio and how that could help build tools to forecast risk and expand access responsibly. She particularly appreciated AI’s use in enhancing efficiency while preserving the mission-driven nature of our work, noting that AI was framed not as a replacement for human touch but as a complement to deepen impact as well.

All in all, an excellent Summit, which left us excited about new ways we can serve our clients and better help them achieve their small business goals.