History

Milestones in Self-Help's History

1980-1983

• Founded Center for Community Self-Help to provide management assistance to NC worker-owned businesses

• Received first operating grant

• Opened first office, in downtown Durham

1984-1986

• Established financing affiliates (Self-Help Credit Union and Self-Help Ventures Fund) with $77 raised from a bake sale.  Shifted focus to helping disadvantaged North Carolinians build wealth through home and small business ownership
  

• Made first small business loan

• Made first home loan

• Opened regional office in Charlotte

1987-1990

• Received first appropriation from the NC General Assembly

• Opened regional office in Asheville

• Launched peer microlending program

• Approved by US Small Business Administration to offer guaranteed small business loans

• Approved by Fannie Mae to sell home loans in the secondary mortgage market

• Began lending to child care providers

1991-1994

• Launched real estate development initiative by renovating historic Asheville building as nonprofit and small business center)

• Opened regional office in Greenville

• Chosen as one of thirty-five lenders to administer the SBA Microloan Demonstration program
  

• Acquired Greensboro building for nonprofit and small business center; opened Triad regional office
  

• Started Community Facilities Fund child care lending initiative
  

• Hosted first national CDFI Institute to promote growth of community development financial institutions

• Initiated demonstration to develop a secondary market for “non-standard” home loans

• Joined Federal Home Loan Bank system

1995-1998

• Developed Mercy Business Development and Training Center in collaboration with Wilson Community Improvement Association

• Created Staged Microlending program

• Reached $100 million in assets

• Started Walltown Homeownership Project in Durham; “rehabbed” and sold eighteen homes to low-wealth families by September 1998

• Expanded Community Facilities Fund lending to charter schools, supportive housing groups, and health care providers
  

• Launched environmental lending program
  

• Began Hispanic immigrant lending initiative in Charlotte
  

• Partnered with City of Wilson on Elvie neighborhood homeownership program

• Created Coalition for Public Trust to ensure that NC Blue Cross/Blue Shield conversion creates multi-million dollar health care foundation

• Established Wilmington office

• Launched Self-Help’s Community Advantage to expand home loan secondary market program nationwide, in partnership with the Ford Foundation and Fannie Mae
  

1999-2002

• Provided 1,000th microloan to small business and topped $50 million in SBA loan portfolio

• Reached $500 million in assets, with over 90% used in community development lending

• Played key role in Coalition for Responsible Lending’s success in passing first state legislation to curb predatory home lending in NC

• Launched programs for eastern NC child care providers and homeowners to recover from Hurricane Floyd flooding

• Helped establish the Latino Community Credit Union, only the second such institution in the southeastern US
  

• Increased home and commercial lending to Latinos to well over $1 million annually.

• Founded the Center for Responsible Lending, an affiliated nonprofit research and policy organization dedicated to curbing predatory lending.
  

• Opened regional office in Fayetteville.

2003 - 2006

• Celebrated the 50th renovated home in Walltown neighborhood of Durham.
  

• Received a $75 million New Markets Tax Credit allocation from the CDFI Fund to stimulate investments in businesses located in low-income areas.

• Opened an office of Self-Help and the Center for Responsible Lending in Washington, DC.
  

• Fulfilled commitment to Fannie Mae to provide $2 billion in financing to homeowners nationwide through the secondary market program.  Announced new commitment of $2.5 billion by 2008.
  

• Helped finance the American Tobacco redevelopment project in downtown Durham with Self-Help’s largest commercial loan ever--$40 million.
• Opened an office in Oakland, CA.
  
• CRL helped enact the first federal usury law in 25 years, protecting military personnel from abusive lending.