Community-centered Board will Guide CFFW Through Startup & Implementation
(Fort Worth, June 29) – CDFI Friendly Fort Worth today announced nine (9) Fort Worth community leaders to its founding Board of Directors. The Board includes diverse perspectives and experiences as well as a broad range of skills and experience.
Working with community development financial institutions, or CDFIs, CDFI Friendly Fort Worth is bringing flexible, affordable debt to undercapitalized small business owners, affordable housing and commercial real estate developers, nonprofits, and consumers. It is in formation and the founding Board will guide it through the legal and operational start-up steps.
The founding Board of Directors is:
Javier Balderrama, Alband, Lane & Balderrama
Joe Cordova, Edward Jones
Glenn Forbes, Financial Professional
Michelle Green-Ford, Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce
Jazmin Gutierrez, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Cristal Hernandez-Galvan, Hernandez Grants & Consulting LLC
Grace McDermott, US Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce – Southwest
Willie Rankin, Childcare Associates
Andy Williams, Rehab Warriors
Announcing the Board at the conclusion of CDFI Friendly Fort Worth’s “What’s Next?” meeting today, Robert Sturns emphasized the breadth of the Board’s capacity. “To govern the new nonprofit that is being set up, this Board has the right experience and skills to ensure that it is rooted in the communities it will serve. This is a private-sector Board because CDFI Friendly Fort Worth is an independent, non-governmental effort.”
Sturns is the Director of the Department of Economic Development of the City of Fort Worth. His department is overseeing the City’s contract to develop and establish CDFI Friendly Fort Worth.
Christina Brooks, Chief Equity Officer for the City of Fort Worth and Director of the Department of Diversity & Inclusion, emphasized that the Board Members bring diverse perspectives from and about Fort Worth’s undercapitalized and underdeveloped communities. “From the start, we knew that CDFI Friendly Fort Worth must be community-centered, and the Board appointments today help ensure that it will be.”
The CDFI Friendly Fort Worth Board will meet for the first time this summer to elect officers. It will oversee the next steps in Fort Worth’s CDFI Friendly strategy–including business planning, hiring an Executive Director, and facilitating more financing by the 18 CDFIs now working in the City. Earlier today, CDFI Friendly Fort Worth announced that already in 2022 CDFIs from across the nation have invested more than $7.3 million in Fort Worth.
“Every community must determine its financing needs and priorities for itself,” explained Mark Pinsky of CDFI Friendly America. “Fort Worth is off to a terrific start, and the Board’s job will be to build on the community’s achievements since we started in November 2021. CDFI Friendly Fort Worth should help create new opportunities for people and communities here through access to affordable, fair financing.”
