Back in May, at the start of the pandemic, the U.S. SBA rolled out the Paycheck Protection Program (a.k.a. the PPP). It was big news. What we also learned then was that most of this money wasn’t going into the hands of the small, Main Street businesses due to a host of systemic issues.
One unspoken issue was that lenders could only lend the money they had in their reserves. The government didn’t provide the billions of dollars to make these loans. The government only promised to re-capitalize the banks and CDFIs making the loans within 90 days after the loans were made.
The Colorado Lending Source set up a PPP program to help their Main Street clients and thanks to one donor, Realize Impact provided the capital to make some loans.
We expected to be paid back in a few years, but surprise, we were paid back in less than five months. Note, for an investor, being paid back a loan early is more often than not a very good surprise.
That is the first payback from our first five investments, and with that, the first donation we’re making from our investing services. The capital is headed over to a donor advised fund, ready to be reused to do more good for the world.
Hopefully into a new impact investment to be recycled yet again.
