COLUMBIA, MD – Enterprise Community Loan Fund, the community development financial institution lending arm of national housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise), announced today that it has lowered the minimum investment for its Impact Note from $5,000 to $1,000, expanding access to impact investing and enabling more individual investors to align their portfolios with their values.
The change reflects growing demand from investors — particularly younger and first-time investors — seeking opportunities to generate both financial returns and measurable social impact. By reducing the minimum investment, Enterprise Community Loan Fund aims to broaden participation in community development financing and increase the flow of capital to projects that support affordable housing, community facilities, and climate resilience nationwide.
“Lowering the Impact Note minimum to $1,000 is an important step in making impact investing more accessible,” said Elise Balboni, president of Enterprise Community Loan Fund. “We’re seeing strong interest from investors who want to understand where their money is going and how it’s making a difference. This shift allows more people to take part in financing the affordable homes and community resources our country urgently needs.”
The Enterprise Community Impact Note is a fixed-income investment that allows individual and institutional investors to invest directly in the CDFI's lending portfolio, which supports nonprofit and mission-aligned developers across the country. Investors earn a fixed return while their capital helps fund projects that strengthen communities.
As a CDFI, Enterprise Community Loan Fund uses Impact Note proceeds as a critical source of flexible capital, enabling the organization to offer more competitive financing to borrowers and bring more projects to fruition, even in challenging market conditions.
In addition to lowering the minimum investment, Enterprise Community Loan Fund has taken steps to enhance the investor experience, including launching a digital investing portal and expanding educational resources on community development and CDFIs. These efforts are designed to increase transparency and help investors better understand how their capital is deployed.
“There is real momentum behind making impact investing more inclusive and transparent,” said Anna Smukowski, managing director of business development and impact investing at Enterprise. “By lowering the minimum investment and simplifying the process, we’re opening the door for a broader, more diverse group of investors to participate and see the tangible outcomes their dollars support.”
Investments in the Impact Note are designed to create measurable impact. Through Enterprise Community Loan Fund’s lending model, each dollar invested has the potential to leverage up to $10 of additional public and private capital. That means even a $1,000 investment can help support larger-scale developments like affordable housing, health centers, and community-serving infrastructure.
Since launching the Impact Note in 2010, Loan Fund has attracted a diverse base of investors, including individuals, foundations, donor-advised funds, and institutions, all seeking to align their investments with positive social outcomes. For more information about the Enterprise Community Impact Note, visit www.ImpactNote.com.
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About Enterprise Community Loan Fund
Enterprise Community Loan Fund, a community development financial institution, is an affiliate of Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit that exists to make a good home possible for the millions of families without one. We support community development organizations on the ground, aggregate and invest capital for impact, advance housing policy at every level of government, and build and manage communities ourselves. Since 1982, we have invested $92 billion and created 1.1 million homes across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands – all to make home and community places of pride, power and belonging. Join us at enterprisecommunity.org.
Disclaimer: The Enterprise Community Impact Notes are unsecured debt securities subject to terms, conditions and risks, described in our prospectus, including the risk of possible loss of the amount invested. Payment is dependent on Enterprise Community Loan Fund’s financial condition at the time payment is due. This is not an offer to sell you our securities and we are not soliciting you to buy our securities. We will offer and sell our securities only in states where authorized. The offering is made solely by the prospectus, which should be read before investing. The Enterprise Community Impact Notes are not FDIC or SIPC insured.
The Impact Note is currently not offered in Arkansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Tennessee.
