Throughout the country, CDFIs loan and invest billions of dollars in our most marginalized and distressed communities, leveraging capital from the private sector to help families finance their first homes, start local small businesses and support entrepreneurs, build more affordable housing, invest in neighborhood health centers, schools, or community centers, and more. 

We share in common with our CDFI members a commitment to advancing economic development and fostering community stabilization and revitalization and, in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic, to meeting the immediate relief and long-term recovery needs of our customers and communities. 

In 2008, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act authorized non-depository CDFIs certified by the Treasury Department's CDFI Fund to become members of the FHLBank System. After HERA was enacted, FHLBank San Francisco was proud to be the first Bank in the FHLBank System to lend to these new members, helping to define a roadmap for serving a growing CDFI membership. 

With non-depository CDFIs traditionally finding it challenging to obtain long-term, affordable financing, FHLBanks have worked to partner with them to enhance their ability to serve their customers and communities. To support the collective missions of all our CDFI members, we provide reliable and prompt access to low-cost capital, financial risk management tools and services, and discounted community investment credit products and grant programs that are used to increase the supply of affordable housing, facilitate homeownership, and boost social service and economic development initiatives. 

Our CDFI members also use our Community Programs, including our discounted ACE and CIP credit products, the Affordable Housing Program (AHP) and our AHEAD micro grants for economic development, to further their own community impact goals. 

Together, we are reaching deeper into underserved and marginalized communities and helping make them more equitable and resilient.

Facts and Figures

(As of 9/30/2023 - Download Fact Sheet) 

• The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco has supplied nearly $686 million in competitively priced advances to our non-depository CDFI members since 2011, and an additional $28 million in discounted advances for specific community development purposes.

• During that time, our non-depository CDFI members have submitted successful applications for $81.9 million in Affordable Housing Program (AHP) grants to construct or preserve 7,353 affordable housing units.

• We have awarded $1.6 million in AHEAD micro grants to our non-depository CDFI members for 45 economic development and pandemic-related relief and recovery initiatives. Our CDFI members have used AHEAD grants for programs aimed at supporting Latina entrepreneurs, providing vital housing and other services to Native American communities, facilitating tourism career development for people of color, and other programs and projects that benefit underserved communities.

• We have also matched member charitable donations to organizations providing pandemic relief, up to $10,000 per member, and matched up to $25,000 per member for donations to wildfire and other disaster relief and resiliency efforts.

What our non-depository CDFI members say about FHLBank San Francisco membership

“As a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, we can now provide financing to underserved communities we weren’t able to support before. Access to Bank advances has allowed us to increase our loan amounts, expand our product offerings, and reduce the interest rates we charge our customers.”
Everett Sands, CEO, Lendistry

“The capital is so flexible, it becomes the glue for a number of pieces that we receive from a variety of different funders. And FHLBank San Francisco has a heart for community development.”
Tommy Espinoza, President/CEO, Raza Development Fund

“FHLBank San Francisco is very thoughtful in designing programs and tools that align with and help us further our mission. The AHP is a great tool, and matching donations have helped us get more resources to our borrowers on the ground during COVID-19.”
Tom De Simone, President/CEO, Genesis LA

“We exist to do community development lending in a way that is additive and helpful to the community. Being a member of FHLBank San Francisco is very different than when I have to go to a bank or an investor and convince them to invest in us.”
C. Lea Salem, CFO, Community Vision Capital & Consulting

“Being a member of FHLBank San Francisco gives us an enormous amount of credibility. It provides us with flexibility and an exceptionally good, very attractive cost of funds.”
Giles Coates, Executive Vice President/CFO, LIIF

“Access to the AHP is definitely a big plus, because it helps a lot of our borrowers. Sponsoring an application builds our relationship with that borrower and enables the creation of their affordable housing project.”
Alan Hoffman, Senior Vice President/CEO, Century Housing 

“We were the first non-depository CDFI in the nation to borrow from any Federal Home Loan Bank, and we're very proud of that. Our FHLBank membership gives us a source of debt capital to further our mission, to do more lending and to impact more people.”
Douglas Bystry, President/CEO, Clearinghouse CDFI