The Community Foundation for Southwest Washington’s loan program has raised more than $3 million since its launch in June — dollars that will be funneled directly back into the community.
The Community Foundation’s Southwest Washington Impact Investment Fund for Transformation offers low-interest loans to local nonprofit groups for large-scale projects.
“We can work with a nonprofit organization, extend their loan, or perhaps change the parameters of the loan to make sure it’s paid off and is able to return back to the community,” Community Foundation President Matt Morton said. “I think that’s the unique piece — that it is recycled over and over again.”
As SWIIFT loans are repaid, the principal and interest amounts are reinvested to fund multiple projects over time, Senior Communications Officer Maury Harris said.
The Community Foundation launched SWIIFT with $1.5 million and recently secured a $1.5 million donation from the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund, with an additional $500,000 pledged if the foundation raises a matching amount. The nonprofit is aiming to raise an another $2 million for the fund through additional investments and donations.
To date, three Clark County nonprofits — Fourth Plain Forward, Fosterful and Housing Initiative LLC — have received a total of $850,000 through SWIIFT and are using the money for various community-based projects.
Fourth Plain Forward, which received $100,000, has already repaid its loan, which will fund startup costs for a micro-lending program. As a future long-term lending agency, Fourth Plain Forward hopes to increase financial access for underbanked small business owners and entrepreneurs across Clark County, especially in Black, Latino and tribal communities.
“Our SWIIFT loan served as a crucial bridge, allowing us to stand up our lending agency without spending countless hours overcoming financial roadblocks and administrative delays,” Fourth Plain Forward Executive Director Paul Burgess said in a news release March 18. “Instead, we focused immediately on laying the foundation for a program that will expand economic opportunities in Clark County for years to come.”
Fosterful, a Vancouver nonprofit that serves Southwest Washington’s foster youth, received $250,000 through SWIIFT, which will provide funding to facilitate its Caregiver Support Project.
The project offers transportation support, respite care sourcing assistance, resource navigation and more to ensure caregivers don’t have to navigate foster parenting alone, Fosterful Executive Director Sarah Desjarlais said. She expects the project will also receive between $2 million to $3 million from the Washington State Department of Children, Youth and Families over the next three years.
“Our job is to be that switchboard or connection for foster families,” Desjarlais said. “I think it says a lot about the Community Foundation’s trust in us as well. It feels like they’re doubling down on their investment in our most vulnerable community members.”
Housing Initiative LLC, a subsidiary of the Council for the Homeless that develops affordable housing for people with barriers, is set to receive $500,000 through SWIIFT. The loan will help organizations overcome predevelopment costs for a future affordable housing development.
“It’s really important to us that the community and the organizations that serve them are able to define their own measures of success,” Morton said. “They’re defining success for themselves and how they’re going to get there and showing that in fact they’re able to achieve it, that’s proof enough to us.”
The process for SWIIFT begins with investment. Donors have the option to allocate $25,000 or more from a new or existing charitable fund into the SWIIFT initiative over a five-year period. Donors can also make a gift of any amount to the initiative with cash and noncash assets.
The money from these investments will go to low-interest loans for nonprofit organizations and housing providers in the region. Loans given to nonprofits can range from $100,000 to $500,000, Morton said.
Loan applications are now open and available to nonprofits and housing providers in Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties. For those interested in applying, visit www.cfsww.org/swiift-loans.
“It really helps to bolster this nonprofit sector that is incredibly important to this region,” Morton said.
