The Vermont Community Loan Fund (VCLF) has launched the Justice Forward Fund (JFF), a new financing and business assistance resource for Black, Indigenous & Vermonters of Color (BIPOC Vermonters).
A Special Purpose Credit Program, the Justice Forward Fund provides low-/no-cost loans and free-to-the-borrower business development services. The JFF serves Vermonters traditionally, systemically and generationally excluded from financial markets and services, including BIPOC Vermonters and New Americans.
“The Vermont Community Loan Fund’s mission is to ensure that financial services are accessible for ALL Vermonters,” said VCLF Executive Director Will Belongia. “We’re here to serve the unserved, and the underserved. And no one in Vermont has had more difficulty accessing financial services than Vermonters of Color.”
Benefiting Vermonters who have not yet had the opportunity to build wealth, the Justice Forward Fund features the lowest borrower interest rates in VCLF’s portfolio of loan programs, no greater than 3%. Applicants with lower net worth will qualify for reduced interest rates, as low as 0%.
“The ‘wealth gap’ between White Americans and People of Color in America is widely documented. Throughout our nation’s history, People of Color have seen their assets taken or withheld, and their communities abandoned and excluded from building wealth,” said Belongia. “The wealth gap is a statistic that documents that legacy of extraction and exclusion. In designing the JFF, we wanted to do everything we could to keep borrower costs low, or non-existent.”
The Justice Forward Fund eliminates many of the most common barriers to capital access. The JFF features the following unique characteristics that differentiate it from other VCLF loan programs:
- A streamlined loan application process
- No fees
- No credit score requirement
- No collateral requirement
- Interest rates from 0% to 3%
“The Justice Forward Fund has really pushed VCLF to think about our systems and our underwriting,” said Dan Winslow, VCLF’s Director of Business and Early Care & Learning Programs. “With the JFF, we’re really centering capital access, and we’re stripping away many of the barriers to that access. Credit scoring, collateral requirements, fees – any one of these can disqualify a potential borrower with a good idea and a sound plan. Most of the time, these entrepreneurs just need a lender to get past the quick ‘no.’”
Non-financial support for JFF borrowers includes access to VCLF’s Business Resource Center, which offers free-to-the-borrower assistance with planning & business development, financial management & personal coaching, succession planning, marketing and more.
The Justice Forward Fund will make loans of up to $40,000. For more information, please visit the Justice Forward Fund page on VCLF's web site, or contact vclf@vclf.org.
The result of two years of program planning, development and outreach, the Justice Forward Fund was authorized by the VCLF Board of Directors as a $1 million pilot program in September 2021. The JFF made its first loan last November, and has made seven loans to six businesses to date. (Please keep reading to learn more about one of the JFF’s recent borrowers, Global Village Foods.)
“The Justice Forward Fund is a work in progress, and still evolving. We’re committed to that process, and to challenging ourselves to make this capital as accessible and transformative as possible,” said Belongia. “We’re just getting on the path towards where we want to be.”
Please support these Justice Forward Fund borrower businesses and projects:
- Adolphe Lumumba, VT First Class Ride, South Burlington
- Cholena Pegues, Sat Mom, Brandon
- Damaris & Melvin Hall, Global Village Foods, Quechee
- David Bundrage, David’s Snow Removal, Lyndonville
- Lea Ann Macrery, My Favorite Things on Main, Jeffersonville
- In Tandem Arts, Burlington
The Justice Forward Fund at Work: Global Village Foods
Melvin and Damaris Hall already had deep experience in the specialty foods industry by the time they launched Global Village Foods, based in Quechee. Melvin, raised in Memphis, and Damaris, a native of Kenya (where they met and married), came to Vermont three decades ago, attracted to the state’s agricultural character and emerging artisanal food sector.
Hoping to introduce Vermonters to the bold flavors of African dishes, the Halls first opened a restaurant, which led to catering, which, through a fast-growing following, led to the launch of Global Village Foods, their ready-to-eat, pan-African frozen meals and snacks enterprise.
In early 2020, Mel and Damaris were close to signing contracts with several college and university dining facilities when COVID-19 hit. “We lost 77% of our revenue in three months,” Mel recounts. When the Halls reached out to their local bank for a line of credit, “even though we had three times the normal volume of purchase orders that year, and we were longtime customers, they still turned us down,” he says. “VCLF saved the day for us.”
The Justice Forward Fund application process was streamlined and simple, says Mel. “We didn’t have to go through a lot of review. It felt like the Loan Fund’s attitude was ‘let’s get this money out as fast as possible to people who need it.’”
The Justice Forward Fund, Mel feels, is making capital and opportunity accessible to BIPOC entrepreneurs. “The Loan Fund recognizes that there is a basic inequality. People of Color can’t access capital, so it’s harder to grow their businesses. They can’t pursue opportunities when they come up. VCLF is addressing that, and we are so grateful.”
About the Vermont Community Loan Fund
The Vermont Community Loan Fund is a mission-driven, community-focused alternative lender, impact investment fund and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that creates opportunities leading to healthy communities and financial stability for all Vermonters. VCLF develops and promotes innovative capital-based solutions to issues of poverty, justice and opportunity. Since 1987, the Vermont Community Loan Fund has loaned over $120 million to local businesses, affordable housing developers and community-based organizations that have created or preserved 7,100 jobs; built or rehabilitated 4,400 affordable homes; created or preserved quality care for 4,600 children and their families; and supported community organizations providing vital services to hundreds of thousands of Vermonters. investinvermont.orgAbout Global Village Foods
The Vermont Community Loan Fund (VCLF) has launched the Justice Forward Fund (JFF), a new financing and business assistance resource for Black, Indigenous & Vermonters of Color (BIPOC Vermonters).
A Special Purpose Credit Program, the Justice Forward Fund provides low-/no-cost loans and free-to-the-borrower business development services. The JFF serves Vermonters traditionally, systemically and generationally excluded from financial markets and services, including BIPOC Vermonters and New Americans.
“The Vermont Community Loan Fund’s mission is to ensure that financial services are accessible for ALL Vermonters,” said VCLF Executive Director Will Belongia. “We’re here to serve the unserved, and the underserved. And no one in Vermont has had more difficulty accessing financial services than Vermonters of Color.”
Benefiting Vermonters who have not yet had the opportunity to build wealth, the Justice Forward Fund features the lowest borrower interest rates in VCLF’s portfolio of loan programs, no greater than 3%. Applicants with lower net worth will qualify for reduced interest rates, as low as 0%.
“The ‘wealth gap’ between White Americans and People of Color in America is widely documented. Throughout our nation’s history, People of Color have seen their assets taken or withheld, and their communities abandoned and excluded from building wealth,” said Belongia. “The wealth gap is a statistic that documents that legacy of extraction and exclusion. In designing the JFF, we wanted to do everything we could to keep borrower costs low, or non-existent.”
The Justice Forward Fund eliminates many of the most common barriers to capital access. The JFF features the following unique characteristics that differentiate it from other VCLF loan programs:
- A streamlined loan application process
- No fees
- No credit score requirement
- No collateral requirement
- Interest rates from 0% to 3%
“The Justice Forward Fund has really pushed VCLF to think about our systems and our underwriting,” said Dan Winslow, VCLF’s Director of Business and Early Care & Learning Programs. “With the JFF, we’re really centering capital access, and we’re stripping away many of the barriers to that access. Credit scoring, collateral requirements, fees – any one of these can disqualify a potential borrower with a good idea and a sound plan. Most of the time, these entrepreneurs just need a lender to get past the quick ‘no.’”
Non-financial support for JFF borrowers includes access to VCLF’s Business Resource Center, which offers free-to-the-borrower assistance with planning & business development, financial management & personal coaching, succession planning, marketing and more.
The Justice Forward Fund will make loans of up to $40,000. For more information, please visit the Justice Forward Fund page on VCLF's web site, or contact vclf@vclf.org.
The result of two years of program planning, development and outreach, the Justice Forward Fund was authorized by the VCLF Board of Directors as a $1 million pilot program in September 2021. The JFF made its first loan last November, and has made seven loans to six businesses to date. (Please keep reading to learn more about one of the JFF’s recent borrowers, Global Village Foods.)
“The Justice Forward Fund is a work in progress, and still evolving. We’re committed to that process, and to challenging ourselves to make this capital as accessible and transformative as possible,” said Belongia. “We’re just getting on the path towards where we want to be.”
Please support these Justice Forward Fund borrower businesses and projects:
- Adolphe Lumumba, VT First Class Ride, South Burlington
- Cholena Pegues, Sat Mom, Brandon
- Damaris & Melvin Hall, Global Village Foods, Quechee
- David Bundrage, David’s Snow Removal, Lyndonville
- Lea Ann Macrery, My Favorite Things on Main, Jeffersonville
- In Tandem Arts, Burlington
The Justice Forward Fund at Work: Global Village Foods
Melvin and Damaris Hall already had deep experience in the specialty foods industry by the time they launched Global Village Foods, based in Quechee. Melvin, raised in Memphis, and Damaris, a native of Kenya (where they met and married), came to Vermont three decades ago, attracted to the state’s agricultural character and emerging artisanal food sector.
Hoping to introduce Vermonters to the bold flavors of African dishes, the Halls first opened a restaurant, which led to catering, which, through a fast-growing following, led to the launch of Global Village Foods, their ready-to-eat, pan-African frozen meals and snacks enterprise.
In early 2020, Mel and Damaris were close to signing contracts with several college and university dining facilities when COVID-19 hit. “We lost 77% of our revenue in three months,” Mel recounts. When the Halls reached out to their local bank for a line of credit, “even though we had three times the normal volume of purchase orders that year, and we were longtime customers, they still turned us down,” he says. “VCLF saved the day for us.”
The Justice Forward Fund application process was streamlined and simple, says Mel. “We didn’t have to go through a lot of review. It felt like the Loan Fund’s attitude was ‘let’s get this money out as fast as possible to people who need it.’”
The Justice Forward Fund, Mel feels, is making capital and opportunity accessible to BIPOC entrepreneurs. “The Loan Fund recognizes that there is a basic inequality. People of Color can’t access capital, so it’s harder to grow their businesses. They can’t pursue opportunities when they come up. VCLF is addressing that, and we are so grateful.”
About the Vermont Community Loan Fund
The Vermont Community Loan Fund is a mission-driven, community-focused alternative lender, impact investment fund and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that creates opportunities leading to healthy communities and financial stability for all Vermonters. VCLF develops and promotes innovative capital-based solutions to issues of poverty, justice and opportunity. Since 1987, the Vermont Community Loan Fund has loaned over $120 million to local businesses, affordable housing developers and community-based organizations that have created or preserved 7,100 jobs; built or rehabilitated 4,400 affordable homes; created or preserved quality care for 4,600 children and their families; and supported community organizations providing vital services to hundreds of thousands of Vermonters. investinvermont.orgAbout Global Village Foods