Our community of practitioner members support each other through mutual learning, shared research, partnership, and coordinated advocacy.
Meet Our MembersOur members have decades of experience providing flexible, patient financing and technical assistance to businesses and organizations across the food supply chain. These investments advance environmental sustainability; affordable, culturally-appropriate food; and racial equity.
In 2014, Reinvestment Fund convened ReFresh, a capacity building initiative with an initial cohort of four mid-sized CDFIs seeking to expand their healthy food financing programs. The initiative grew to be a practitioner network of 18 CDFI partners, both urban and rural CDFIs and most of the largest national practitioners in healthy food financing.
In 2021, with support from W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Self-Help and Reinvestment Fund re-launched the practitioner network as the Food Lenders Network to foster collaboration between lenders to improve access to capital for food system businesses across the food supply chain.