Over the last ten years, Woodstock Institute has documented the contributions CDFIs make to low-income communities. Woodstock’s research has, for example, shown that community development banks, unlike regular banks, make the vast majority of their housing and small business loans in lower-income and minority communities. Other Woodstock research has shown the slow but steady growth of community development credit unions and the very special role they play in low-income neighborhoods. Woodstock will continue to use this growing research to argue the case for CDFIs and help develop and preserve mechanisms to build CDFIs equity capital.

Woodstock Institute is also working to develop assessment criteria that could be applied to Chicago area CDFIs working in concentrated geographic areas. Evaluating impact beyond outputs is complicated because many extraneous variables impact household and community asset building in addition to the work of CDFIs. The Institute is beginning to plan several small area analyses of the impact of large Chicago CDFIs on clearly defined geographical tracts.