Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement
Clifford N. Rosenthal
(Author)
David Erickson
(Foreword by)
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Description
Decades before Occupy Wall Street challenged the American financial system, activists began organizing alternatives to provide capital to "unbankable" communities and the poor. With roots in the civil rights, anti-poverty, and other progressive movements, they brought little training in finance. They formed nonprofit loan funds, credit unions, and even a new bank-organizations that by 1992 became known as "community development financial institutions," or CDFIs. By melding their vision with that of President Clinton, CDFIs grew from church basements and kitchen tables to number more than 1,000 institutions with billions of dollars of capital. They have helped transform community development by providing credit and financial services across the United States, from inner cities to Native American reservations.
Democratizing Finance traces the roots of community development finance over two centuries, a history that runs from Benjamin Franklin, through an ill-starred bank for African American veterans of the Civil War, the birth of the credit union movement, and the War on Poverty. Drawn from hundreds of interviews with CDFI leaders, presidential archives, and congressional testimony, Democratizing Finance provides an insider view of an extraordinary public policy success. Democratizing Finance is a unique resource for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and social investors.
Product Details
Price
$43.99
Publisher
FriesenPress
Publish Date
November 07, 2018
Pages
508
Dimensions
7.99 X 10.0 X 1.13 inches | 2.74 pounds
Language
English
Type
Hardcover
EAN/UPC
9781525536625
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About the Author
fter receiving his master's degree in Russian history at Columbia University, Clifford Rosenthal worked as a freelance translator while organizing food cooperatives in New York City and Connecticut. He brought his skills to successive nonprofit jobs for a statewide Indigenous organization and a national farmworker advocacy organization. He joined the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions in 1980, becoming its executive director in 1983. Under his leadership, the federation became the credit union industry's leading voice on issues affecting low-income and minority communities. To bring resources to the federation's member credit unions, he launched its Capitalization Program, raising more than $100 million from faith-based and social investors, foundations, banks, and government. He cofounded and co-led the coalition that successfully advocated for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. He personally assisted the organizing of nearly a dozen credit unions around the country and wrote Organizing Credit Unions: A Manual. After leaving the federation (now known as Inclusiv) in 2012, he headed the Office of Financial Empowerment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In 2018 he published the groundbreaking volume, Democratizing Finance: Origins of the Community Development Financial Institutions Movement. He served on the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board and the advisory board of the New York City Office of Financial Empowerment. Rosenthal was honored with the highest awards of the National Credit Union Foundation, the Opportunity Finance Network, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, and the Lawyers Alliance of New York City. Recognizing his aid after Hurricane Katrina, in 2009 the ASI Federal Credit Union in New Orleans named its community center after him. In 2019, he was inducted into the African-American Credit Union Coalition's Hall of Fame.
David Erikson is the author of several books, including The Norther Force Book Series, Inside the Cover, Hurricane Blast, and Dniknam the Lesser. He was born to missionaries, Wesley and Gladys Erickson, who ministers to the American Indians in Nevada. David was the elder child of four brothers and a sister. David and his wife, Janice, have three sons and three daughters between them. They currently live in Missoula, Montana.
