Assistance program
Small Dollar Loan Program
$39.1 Million committed in FY2021–FY2026
- Agency
- Community Development Financial Institutions, Treasury, Department of the
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 21.025
- What it does
- Through the Small Dollar Loan Program, the CDFI Fund provides (1) grants to enable a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) or any partnership between a certified CDFI and federally insured depository institution, with a primary mission to serve targeted Investment Areas, to establish a loan-loss reserve fund to cover the losses on small dollar loans from a new small dollar program or an existing small dollar loan program; and (2) grants for Technical Assistance to a certified CDFI or any partnership between or among certified CDFIs to establish and maintain small dollar loan programs. Small Dollar Loan Program grants cannot be used to provide direct loans to consumers. This program is intended to provide an alternative to high-cost small dollar loans, as well as help unbanked and underbanked populations build credit, access affordable capital, and allow greater access into the mainstream financial system.
- Who benefits
- Not Applicable
- Who applies
- Nonprofit Organizations, For Profit Organizations and Other Private Institutions/Organizations in the form of federally insured depository institutions, or federally-insured credit unions that are certified CDFIs.
- Authorized by
- Public Law 111-203
- Program site
- http://www.cdfifund.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments