Impact Investing
Patient capital for community-centered digital infrastructure
We lend to the municipal networks, cooperatives, tribal networks and local broadband providers connecting the communities larger carriers have passed over. We price responsibly, build community protections into our loans, and cycle repayments to the next community.
How we invest
We deploy capital designed for community broadband:
- Flexible, blended finance. Term loans and revenue-based financing, structured around each project’s build timeline and cash flow rather than a standard commercial template.
- Non-dilutive. We don’t take equity. Communities and operators keep ownership and control of their networks.
- Responsibly priced. Broadband is a utility with long-term demand and predictable cashflows. With the right funding partners, projects can be sustainable and deliver responsible, not extractive, returns.
- Community protections built in. Our loans include community benefits agreements that secure affordability, build-out timelines and transparent reporting.
- More than a loan. We pair financing with technical assistance, including business planning, financial modeling and support navigating federal funding programs.
What we look for
We invest in broadband projects that combine community benefit with long-term viability, including:
- Sound network design and deployment plans
- Meaningful community engagement and accountability
- Sustainable business models grounded in local realities
Our Investment Vehicles
Community Development Loan Fund
Our flagship national lending platform, providing low-cost, revolving capital to community-centered operators. As loans repay, we relend to the next community.
Place-based funds
Place-based funds bring public, philanthropic and impact capital together around a state’s connectivity gaps, and keep that capital working after grants run out. Our first, the NY CONNECT Fund, launched with support from Empire State Development’s ConnectALL initiative.
Co-investment and syndication
We partner with aligned investors and institutions to bring more capital into the projects that need it, building the track record that draws mainstream community finance into digital infrastructure.
Pilot Fund I
Our pilot fund showed that well-structured capital can connect rural and low-income communities while delivering responsible returns. It financed operators in Alabama, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas.
Invested across five deals
Additional capital leveraged
Households connected, with 22k+ more on the way
In tracked economic ripple effects
Ready to partner?
Building a network? Explore financing for your project.
Want to back this work? See how to fund and invest.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Across the United States, focusing on underserved rural, tribal and low-income communities.
We operate as a community development loan fund on the path to CDFI certification from the US Treasury’s CDFI Fund, and we’ve received a CDFI Fund Technical Assistance award to support that process. CDFIs are mission-driven lenders, certified by the federal government, that provide affordable capital to underserved communities. A CDFI focused on digital infrastructure would be the first of its kind.
Blended finance combines grants or concessionary capital with repayable investment to finance projects the market alone would not. For community broadband, it brings down the overall cost of a financing package, so operators in low-margin markets can borrow on workable terms and investors can still be repaid.
A broadband provider whose primary mission is to serve its community rather than maximize profit. That includes municipal networks, cooperatives owned by their members, tribal networks, and mission-driven independent providers in rural and low-income areas.