The Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation (CPCDC), a non-profit loan fund and Certified Community Development Financial Institution, has been awarded a $1,065,690 grant from the U.S. Department of the Treasury CDFI Fund.  One million dollars of the awarded funding will be used for loan-making. The additional funds will be used to expand the organization’s financial education and business development services and increase its capacity to deliver new financial products.

This award marks CPCDC’s advancement from the Native American Initiatives Program (NACA), which funds smaller, Native CDFIs in their preliminary stages of development, to the CORE Program, which funds the established leaders of the CDFI Industry.  CPCDC is the only Native group that received an award under the CORE program this year.

The Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation is one of 66 awardees selected from a pool of 225 applicants to receive a CDFI award; it is one of only 18 organizations that received an award in excess of $1,000,000.  This year’s award also represents a 56% increase in dollar value from CPCDC’s 2007 award, won through the CDFI Fund’s Native American Initiatives Program. 

CPCDC serves Citizen Potawatomi tribal members nationwide and all Native Americans throughout the State of Oklahoma. It provides small business loans through its Micro Business Loan, Commercial Lending, and CPN Employee loan programs.  CPCDC also offers business development services through provision of Individual Development Accounts, pre- and post-loan support, a variety of workshops, training opportunities, and seminars, and a financial education and credit counseling program. 

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation founded the CPCDC in 2003. It is one of the most successful Native organizations of its kind and has made remarkable progress in addressing lack of access to capital by successfully making more than $8.5 million in loans to Native American entrepreneurs and creating more than 500 jobs in Native Communities since its inception. 

Since 2003, CPCDC has also provided more than 2,894 hours of development services to 1,089 clients. CPCDC’s impressive growth and success has, in large part, been possible due to the valuable strategic input and generous financial support it has received from the Citizen Potawatomi Nation Tribal Government.