Nonprofit PeopleFund is a bank of economic opportunity

[Dover]

Nonprofit PeopleFund is a bank of economic opportunity

CENTRAL TEXAS

Nonprofit PeopleFund is a bank of economic opportunity
By Tim Eaton

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Sunday, November 08, 2009

Ten years ago, Irma Sifuentes was an administrative assistant St. Edward's University, toiling away in a cubicle for eight hours a day. Her hope of running her own business seemed unattainable. She had little savings and zero track record as a business owner — and getting a bank loan, as |she would soon learn, was an impossibility.

Sifuentes has always adored children and loved taking care of them. But in 1999, when she visited a local Bank of America branch to talk about getting a loan to start a day care center, she was turned away.

But before she walked out, the bank offered a piece of advice: Go to the Austin Community Development Corp., a community organization that specializes in making loans to people with the drive but not the means to be entrepreneurs.

That organization — renamed PeopleFund in 2005 — has made three loans to Sifuentes in the past 10 years. The first two, for $15,000 and $25,000, helped her start her day care business. The third, for $212,000, allowed her to buy the property for Sunshine Learning Center's South Austin location.

Sifuentes' 12-person staff now takes care of more than 50 children, ranging from 6 weeks to 4 years old.

She couldn't have done it without PeopleFund, she said: "They pretty much took a chance on me."

PeopleFund, a nonprofit lender to Central Texas communities, has been doling out money at a steady pace over the past 15 years. ..cont'd


http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/2009/11/08/1108peoplefund.html

[ashling]

1. You should have put a warning for all the self righteous group

that just loves to bash Texas. :sarcasm:

great article :hi: