Mission/History

The Community Development Venture Capital Alliance (CDVCA) is the network for the field of community development venture capital (CDVC) investing. CDVC funds provide equity capital to businesses in underinvested markets, seeking market-rate financial returns, as well as the creation of good jobs, wealth, and entrepreneurial capacity.

CDVCA is working on many fronts to build and strengthen the CDVC field. It promotes the field by combining advocacy, education, communications, and best-practice dissemination through conferences, workshops and peer meetings. CDVCA makes its expertise available to CDVC funds by providing consulting services and technical assistance.

CDVCA also manages its own investment vehicle, the Central Fund. The Fund specializes in identifying areas with untapped market potential, investing in rapidly growing businesses across diverse industries.

CDVCA History

CDVCA was formed in 1993 and incorporated as a not-for-profit in 1995. The organization began when representatives of several community development venture capital (CDVC) funds met to discuss issues of common concern and share experiences and solutions to common problems. Realizing that they had been “reinventing the wheel” in different corners of the country, these funds established a regular forum in which they could exchange ideas. Since then, CDVCA has grown rapidly, and for 25 years has been bringing together practitioners at all levels of experience and providing opportunities for them to learn, explore best practices, and gain vital resources for their work in the Impact investing field.

CDVCA is a leading investor in low income and emerging market communities, financing growth businesses via our Fund of Fund and Direct Investments vehicles. Both these investment approaches are dedicated to social impact and supporting and strengthening the CDVC eco-systems within their regions. To-date, CDVCA has invested in over 250 companies and created over 30,000 jobs across the Continental United States and Puerto Rico. We are the Managing General Partner for the $47M Innovate New York Fund and, the $45M Puerto Rico Fund for Growth (PRFG). CDVCA is an active member of the New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) community with over $100M in Federal and State allocations.

Job Quality

CDVCA has been at the forefront of Impact Investing in low income communities for over 25 years. In this time, we have led with increasing the availability of risk capital that supports entrepreneurs and business owners and have been a leader in the field of driving economic growth and quality job creation. Quality jobs are a multidimensional concept that have intrinsic characteristics to them. These include, a living wage, paid time off (vacation, sick leave), healthcare benefits (medical, dental and vision), wealth creation benefits (such as 401K plans, ESOP’s or other wealth creating programs).

As we evolve and continuously measure the impact of our work, a new and emerging social impact metric has emerged. To associate our investment and quality job creation results with low income people and Workforce Development.

Workforce Development (WFD)

For CDVCA, Workforce Development (WFD) has 2 components.

Tier 1: Access to Jobs – Tier 1 services aims to support those marginalized people in low income communities increase their access to the jobs that have been created. This comprises a number of elements including, accreditation, wrap around services (from job readiness, support services with childcare, transportation and even medical checks) and linking with job placement service providers.

Tier 2: The Future of work – Incumbent workers and the Future of Work. The upskilling needed to support both the jobs of the 21st century, but also worker trainings and workforce retention aspects. For many portfolio companies, once access to financing has been secured, and workers are sourced for the jobs created, retaining workers can become a challenging aspect for growth. Understanding the Cost of Turnover and the drag turnover can have on the growth of the company vital when measuring sustainable social impact.

CDVCA collaborates with partners throughout the nation and in the primary zones of our investment portfolio.