The Hour of Fate

Remarks as prepared at OFN39, the 2023 Opportunity Finance Network Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

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October 16, 2023

Thank you. Welcome to another sold out OFN Annual Conference. I am delighted to see all 2200 of you gathered here.

I heard some statistics on ticket sales for 2023. First, it's Taylor Swift and Beyonce, then second, OFN. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the Swifties and Bey Hive in the room, I will let you all determine who is first in ticket sales.

It's truly a blessing to be here safely with you all, considering all the turmoil in the world.

With profound gratitude and deep appreciation, I thank you for the privilege to be with you all today as your new president and CEO.

Let me express my deepest thanks to the OFN team.

To Donna Gambrell , our Board chair, who I have long admired and is the epitome of servant. Thank you for the kind introduction.

To the rest of our Board of Directors, and to our wonderful staff, who worked tirelessly to deliver you an excellent conference experience.

To my friend, and friend to us all, Lisa Mensah . Thank you for your leadership, and your grace. Know that this will always be your home.

And last but not least, to all of you. I thank you for what you do everyday to move our communities forward.

I thank you, I thank you all.

HOME

Today is a particular honor for me, that I begin this journey with you, at my home here in Washington, DC.

My grandmother, born in Richmond, VA, was a blue-collar worker, and married my grandfather who made a living in construction.

They moved north in search of a new home, a place to raise kids, and realize the full potential that any newlyweds would dream for their future. That place, Washington, DC, Dream City, embodied the ideals and dreams of so many.

The dreams of children imagining one day that they can be President.

The dreams of some simply to change the world by marching and through peaceful protest.

This city is the home of a most famous dream, delivered to us 60 years ago, when Dr. King elevated our collective consciousness and shared his dream of a nation where his children would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

The dreams of civil rights activists to make this city, the first major city run by African Americans.

A dream of empowerment that began down south, carrying a wave of inspiration and hope, like that which brought my grandparents to Washington, DC.

They arrived in the city, making it home, and had my mother, who by the time she went to school had found the love of her life in my father.

My father’s journey was quite different. His mother, my grandmother, was born in North Carolina, the great grandchild of a slave who fought for his freedom, bought his land, and believed deeply in educating his children. My grandmother was sent to New York City, then to Washington, DC, where she would take care of the family, eventually raising her own.

With Washington, DC now being home, she wanted to pursue her dream of being a teacher, following the legacy of so many in my family.

But that all changed when a few days before Christmas Eve as a young man, my father was shot near my grandmother’s home, not far from her doorstep, and nearly died, changing his trajectory as a college bound student to a life of drug addiction and involvement with the justice system.

My story almost ended before it began.

My grandmother learned to fight, because her oldest son was now a product of a city that had turned so quickly from Dream City to the Murder Capital.

This chapter of my family’s history gave birth to my story and my family’s fight for its home.

For over 40 years my mother worked for the federal government, fighting each day to ensure that her son had all the basic needs, that I had food on my plate and a roof over my head. Whether it was JROTC, or track & field, or football, she was always there, playing the role pervasive in our society still, a single mother raising a child.

Across the country, my grandmother fought for families whose children were facing the scourge of drug addiction. Fighting as she would sometimes say, From the Outhouse to the White House, leading campaigns across the country with advocates and children, over 10,000 here in Washington, DC, to rally and stand with the First Lady to say “Just Say No” to drugs. While their politics differed, my grandmother understood the need to work together for a common cause.

Later in her career, she achieved her dream of being an educator, empowering and equipping communities to pursue homeownership, small business creation, and a college education through Individual Development Accounts.

My journey began with my family’s belief that you fight for the people and places you love, you fight for your home, and you fight to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

In high school, when this city was going through bankruptcy and the Federal government was closing public institutions and disenfranchising local residents, I led rally’s and spoke out against the closure of public schools, because it represented the failure of supporting our children and our children’s future.

That passion stayed with me to fight for what I believe throughout my career.

In 2007, my father’s journey would come to an end at the young age of 51. The tragedy of his story, like so many others from this city, came to define my family’s narrative.

It was also that same year that I met a scrappy organization, Wacif, the Washington Area Community Investment Fund. An organization that I would turn to for nearly 10 years over the course of my earlier career in public service, to help with the most difficult community development challenges here in the city.

Whether it was managing the city’s microloan fund to support minority contractors, to managing funds to usher in new neighborhood investments, to support for merchants during a 4-alarm fire at the 150 year-old Eastern Market, to running a relief fund for small businesses impacted and displaced due to city infrastructure projects, Wacif was always there, creative, flexible, and plugged into the community.

It would be another 8 years in 2015, when I found myself in Detroit at what would be the first of many OFN conferences, that I understood the truest nature of Wacif, seeing dope people doing dope things across the country at these new things to me called CDFIs.

I felt energized, like I found a new professional home.

So when the opportunity came to lead Wacif in 2016, a place that was so familiar that I could channel my passions and desire to fight for my home, I jumped at the opportunity.

In learning Wacif’s journey, its beginnings intersected with the earliest days of the CDFI movement, forming in 1987 as a community investment solution to combat the issues plaguing the Murder Capital. Wacif’s impact rippled through the years, with investments that not only improved the city, but supported families.

So, it was no surprise for me to look back through Wacif’s history to see that one of those investments was to a drug treatment facility, the place that my father was supported for his drug addiction.

For 7 years I had the honor of my career, working alongside a talented board, staff, and community to rethink community investment, and for me, as an urban planner, to elevate Wacif to a platform of tackling systemic issues with investing in underinvested communities, and with specific intentionality of investing in communities of color.

We expanded the notion of capital, because in our communities, we know that you have to be intentional about pairing knowledge capital and social capital, so that financial capital can be more catalytic.

We persevered through the pandemic years, like so many of you, ideating, and scaling with bigger bets and investments to move communities forward equitably.

When this opportunity came, to be with all of you at OFN, for me it was an impossible decision, combating the notion of leaving a job that I love so deeply, for a job I can’t turn down.

In 2022, the stakes for me changed.

I welcomed to the world, my son, Kyler Aiden Pettigrew, who brought healing to me and the scars from my family’s journey, through my own fatherhood journey.

My fight is no longer about my today, but for his tomorrow.

My fight is no longer about my home, it’s about his, the world that he will inherit.

It’s no longer about my dreams, but the dreams I have for him, and the dreams I want him to have one day.

So, it made the decision easier because I knew that I would be joining all of you in the fight for his future.

I’ve had the great pleasure of getting to know many of you throughout the years; struggling together, laughing through the difficulties, but more importantly for me, seeing firsthand the impact that you continue to fight for in communities across the country that we all call home.

FROM MANY, ONE

This work is deeply personal for me, because I believe that when we are working together, change is actually possible.

But I’ve received with relative frequency questions that are counter to our nature, and what we know our communities need. Will your focus be only on small business, or urban communities, small CDFIs or loan funds?

Embedded in these questions is the focus on the “versus". I don’t believe in false alternatives.

We know that focusing on consumer products or entrepreneurship or affordable housing alone are not the singular solutions to create economic opportunity. It takes all of those to create stable, livable communities.

We know the issues our communities face aren’t isolated to urban communities or coastal communities, but also rural communities, and communities across the heartland.

We also know that not one “big CDFI” or “small CDFI” can meet all of the needs of our communities. Where our friends at larger CDFIs have scaled and can attract institutional capital, our friends at smaller CDFIs can reach into communities with a level of care and attention that’s needed to address the most pervasive issues.

Besides, our success has never been measured by the size of our balance sheets, but by the size of the impact on peoples lives by our balance sheet, no matter the size.

And show me an underinvested community that just needs a loan fund, or just a bank, or a credit union, and I’ll call you a lie. We know that the beauty of our industry is that it represents a tapestry of regulated and unregulated institutions, big and small, with diverse financial solutions to meet community needs.

Having lunch with a dear friend in the industry one day, I explained to her I’m trying to find the right message of togetherness, and she said so profoundly what I’ll say to you today.

“We all do money ya’ll.”

That’s it, we all do money ya’ll. (Thanks to Leah Fremouw )

What makes us strong is not the singularity of focus on any one type of organization, but our Network.

I went to college at North Carolina State, and we’re called the Wolfpack for a reason. Rudyard Kipling said it best, “For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.”

You see as a young man, it was embedded in me early on that we are at our best when we are a part of something greater.

It was 10 years ago, literally today, in Philadelphia at the 2013 OFN Conference, when we lifted up our country’s beloved motto as our rallying cry for the conference theme:

E Pluribus Unum – Out of Many, One

The fundamental belief that we are united in our common cause, that it takes all of us, together, in one direction to move our communities forward.

For so many years, I’ve seen us shine when we work together, providing a glimpse of the greater heights we can achieve.

Across the country so many of you are working together to form new coalitions at the city, regional and state levels, across 14 states during our last count this summer.

Out west our friends in California, from more than 30 CDFIs joined forces to establish the state’s first-ever CDFI Fund, bringing $50 million for California CDFIs to invest in communities across the state. 

Just south of here, our friends at the Virginia CDFI Coalition successfully advocated for cementing the Virginia CDFI Fund into statute, receiving $10 million to support CDFIs across the Commonwealth.

In Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth partnered with the Pennsylvania CDFI Network — a network of 18 CDFIs — to distribute $96 million in relief grants to small businesses across the state. Today, they have grown their collective efforts to partner with the Commonwealth in deploying capital through the State Small Business Credit Initiative.

From Arkansas, to Washington State, from one of our longest standing examples in New York State to Missouri, Georgia to New Jersey, Michigan to South Carolina, this is when we are at our best.

In a time when the divisions of our country are their greatest, we stand as a shining example of bipartisanship, of collaboration, of togetherness.

In Congress, it’s difficult to find any topic that receives universal support from both Democrats and Republicans. The perpetual state of a looming government shutdown has become quite symbolic of this turmoil. Yet, for CDFIs, 12 Republicans and 12 Democrats have come together to form the bipartisan Senate Community Development Finance Caucus. And, there are other efforts underway in the House.

Our common cause gives us purpose and provides a reason to be unified.

Who doesn’t want to support the entrepreneur who persevered to open a new small business, achieving their dream of creating new retail and jobs for a community.

Who doesn’t want to support the homeowner that saved and sacrificed to create a new beginning for their family, taking that first step to participate in the American dream.

Who doesn’t want to support the educator who achieved their dream of creating a childcare center, a place where children can safely play and imagine endless possibilities.

You see, our why is embedded in the name.

Opportunity is what we all are fighting for, it’s our effort to open doors of opportunity in communities that’ve been systemically closed.

Finance is simply the tool we use, the fuel to support opportunity, that is ever elusive.

And, Network, the recognition that with our best efforts, our passions, and ingenuity, that the only way we can succeed is together.

This is your Opportunity Finance Network, and we are where Capital Meets Purpose.

HOUR OF FATE

We are emerging together from the most difficult chapter of our time to confront the persistent and pervasive challenges ahead.

The wealth gap is widening. More than 35 million Americans continue to live in persistent poverty — and we saw just last month that child poverty in this country doubled over the last year.

Even affordable housing is still not so affordable, keeping the prospects of having a home and homeownership out of reach for so many.

Racism, and its ugly legacy, continues to have a grip on this country.

The Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action has ushered in a new era of litigation that threatens to undermine decades of work to build opportunities for communities of color.

These actions are an attempt to not recognize that the only way to combat intention, is with intention.

It is the underpinning of truly understanding justice.

It was intention that got us here, no matter what community, that when you apply a racial lens, on health or wealth, communities of color are always at the bottom.

I grew up and continue to live east of the Anacostia River here in Washington DC.

It represents everything that came to your mind when I said east of the river, no different than the experience of many of your cities, Southside of Chicago, West Baltimore.

It persists as the blackest, poorest, and most underinvested part of the city, where over 160,000 people have access to only 3 grocery stores, no coffee shops, and, only 3 sit down restaurants. You do the math.

Why wouldn’t we be intentional about focusing investment, because the question to me is not only what we can do today to address these problems, it's a deeper question of understanding how did we get here.

Our country’s history of residential and commercial redlining, eminent domain, and failed urban renewal policies, among others, that not only intentionally concentrated poverty, but concentrated the impact of racism in our systems.

The only way to combat intention is with intention.

Being intentional is about compassion, and compassion is not a zero-sum game.

Supporting gay marriage didn't hurt marriage between a man and a woman. It allowed for any and all of us to experience true love under the law.

Championing equal pay and fighting for gender equality hasn’t negatively impacted men. It’s created greater stability for mothers and daughters to support their families and allowed us as a country to truly honor an honest day’s work with an honest day’s pay.

And, fighting for civil rights didn’t negatively impact white families. It created new opportunities for all families.

Focusing on Native communities or Black families in persistent poverty communities in the Deep South doesn’t mean we can’t support White families in persistent poverty communities across Appalachia.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again that I don’t believe in false alternatives. We can do it all because we have to, the needs in our communities require us to. But we also have to be clear in no uncertain terms, that for us to embrace our mission to finance justice, justice has to be an intentional action that sits on a bedrock of economic and racial justice.

We have proven that during our country’s greatest need, that we are financial first responders. Whether it was the Great Recession of 2008 or the Global Pandemic of 2020, as CDFIs, we made sure that our communities were not left behind.

This is why we must be together, because our challenges are increasingly more difficult, and our biggest threats remain ahead.

We’re seeing climate-related disasters across every community, across every region in this country, with greater frequency and devastating intensity.

From 1980 to 2022, that’s 42 years, across the country we experienced an average of 8 annual climate related disaster events with losses that exceeded $1 billion, and that’s adjusted for today’s dollars.

In 2023 alone, through these first 10 months, there have been 24 confirmed weather or climate related disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion. That’s over $24 billion in losses just this year alone. Homes, businesses, communities… the shattering of lives and livelihoods, most often, all in an instant.

Over the last 9 years, we experienced the hottest 9 years ever recorded on planet Earth, with this year on track to being the hottest. So, we are experiencing the dubious distinction of this year possibly being the warmest year in our human history, and possibly the coldest year of the rest of our lives.

Tornadoes have intensified, ripping through southern and midwestern states at regular intervals, and 100-year storms are regular occurrences, causing deadly floods and horrible destruction.

Our friends in Maui are still recovering from the wildfires.

The fact is, our climate isn’t changing, it’s changed.

This year, Texas even experienced Hurricane Harold. That feels a little too on the nose.

And just when we thought the crisis was bad enough, scientists project that climate change could cause an 18% reduction in beer production by 2050. I won’t mention the impact of climate change on agave for all the tequila fans in the room.

We all see the headlines, with startling frequency. Climate related disasters taking lives and destroying livelihoods.

The threat is clear and present for all of us, and unsurprisingly, the communities we serve are the hardest hit.

In response, President Biden has laid out an ambitious agenda, for the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, and for this country to be Net-Zero by 2050.

Those are ambitious targets, and the Biden Administration knew that for these targets to be reached, there were two additional components needed.

First, the Administration launched the Justice40 initiative which sets the goal that at least 40% of the overall benefits from certain federal investments flow to underinvested communities.

The second, the launch of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a historic $27 billion investment in communities across the country. This bold investment will not only deploy clean energy technology and combat the climate crisis but also improve health outcomes, lower energy costs, and create high-quality jobs, while strengthening our country’s economic competitiveness and ensuring energy security.

The success of this initiative, a once-in-a-lifetime $27 billion investment, was placed on the shoulders of community lenders. This was the fullest recognition that for this $27 billion to leave no community behind, we are needed to ensure its success.

Last week we completed a tough stretch, the first stage of competing for these important dollars.

And now we turn the page.

We turn the page back to the fundamentals of truly working together.

Whether you supported a single application to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or another.

It does not matter. Because in 2024 when awards are made none of us will be successful, unless we all are successful. We have to work together.

The impact of climate change is impartial to race, identity, gender, sexuality, or geography. It’s impartial to small business or consumers or housing or childcare. It’s impartial to banks, credit unions, or loan funds.

Early on in my tenure, I was asked, what's our north star?

What will be the path that we as an industry can rally around, that can energize our movement? This is it.

This is the Hour of Fate. The moment that sits between the promise and peril of our common future.

The promise that if we act now, with recognition that the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of a just transition, that we will see a brighter future for our children and our children’s children.

Or the peril, that we keep doing business as usual, that we don’t recognize our greatest potential in working together, that we have misplaced hope that conditions will be better, that disasters will magically stop, we will find ourselves in a future where our only dreams are wishes that we did something different in the past.

Failure, my friends, simply put is when you have the ability to do more, and you don’t.

These risks command our attention, even more, our action.

So today, I am issuing a call to action to each and every one of you, that over the next five years, 100% of CDFIs become climate lenders, that your focus becomes greenhouse gas reduction.

What does that mean?

If you are at a CDFI that supports entrepreneurs, we need you to keep providing capital to small businesses, and, make greenhouse gas reduction your focus. If you are at a CDFI that supports affordable housing, whether production or preservation, or home ownership, we need you to continue to finance housing, and, make greenhouse gas reduction your focus.

If you are focused on community facility lending, consumer products, or childcare, or a category I didn’t name, we need you to continue to provide capital for these critical community investments, and, to make greenhouse gas reduction your focus.

The fact is, that there will be no justice for everyone, if there is no planet for anyone.

We know this call to action is reachable. 55 percent of OFN members currently offer green capital products to support clean energy production and energy efficiency projects.

Over the next few days, together we will delve more deeply into the role that you can play in climate investing and climate justice. As OFN, we are primed to build on our strength, work with you as our membership, and leverage our broad set of partnerships to lead the financing of a just energy transition.

CLOSING

I would love to say to you that the road ahead will be easy, and that the problems we’ll face will all be easily solvable.

The only point of certainty that I know for a fact is that we are all stronger together.

Now more than ever, our families need us.

Our communities need us.

Our planet needs us.

This is our fight.

Together, we must be part of the solution.

If it’s not us, then who.

This is our burden to carry. Lifting the banner of CDFI is an option, not a requirement. It’s a commitment that we are making to the most vulnerable among us, that they have the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

We help people achieve dreams they no longer have to close their eyes to see.

Whether you are one of the nearly 900 first-time attendees here today, or 20 years young in the industry, whatever brought you here, to this time, to this place, to this industry, to this movement, you are here as part of something greater.

This is why I am here.

Because when I look across this room and see all of your faces, I see a movement of people committed under a common cause.

I believe in all of you.

I believe that we are a key part of the solutions to the greatest challenges ahead.

I believe like all of you that our tomorrow can be better than today.

I am proud, humbled and grateful to be here with you.

It is truly my honor and I thank you for the opportunity to lead this purpose-driven field with you as we forge forward in the pursuit of justice and the fight for our future.

Thank you all for your extraordinary work.

Welcome again to my home and thank you for letting me fight for yours.

Let’s get to work!

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