COMMUNITIES UNLIMITED INC
3 East Colt Square Drive, Fayetteville, AR 72703 www.communitiesu.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: CU Environmental Services works with community environmental management systems; including drinking water systems, wastewater systems, and solid waste management systems through on site technical assistance and training, publications, and financing. With a current staff of over 30 highly trained professional technical assistance providers, CU Environmental Services supports efforts to provide access to safe drinking water for everyone and environmentally responsible waste disposal within an ever changing regulatory environment in the communities that are provided technical assistance. As a regional partner of the national RCAP, CU serves as the Southern RCAP partner in providing environmental technical assistance and training throughout a seven state region of Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. Additionally, CU Environmental Services supports other RCAP regional partners in other regions of the country with access to their CDFI community environmental lending. During fiscal year 2020, CU Environmental Services provided onsite assistance to 525 small communities and rural environmental systems. CU's environmental staff leveraged over 154 million in construction financing to improve community water and wastewater systems. CU Environmental Services staff completed 83 training workshops attended by 607 community officials, board members, certified operators, and other environmental management system staff members.

In 1992, CU started making loans to water and wastewater systems in rural areas to ensure that residents had access to clean, healthy drinking water and safe wastewater treatment systems. In 2001 CU was certified as a CDFI. Loans made to Community Environmental Management Systems are used for improvement projects, predevelopment financing, purchase of equipment and emergency financing needs. In 2020, CU loaned 2,375,500 to 19 water and wastewater systems to improve their water and wastewater systems. Loans ranged from the small loan needed to meet compliance to larger loans for pre-development work that helped these communities access larger loans and grants. In response to COVID 19 Pandemic, CU created the Small Utility Recovery Loan Program with a low introductory interest rate of 2 percent for the first two years, then scaling up based on the term of the loan for a maximum rate of 5 percent. In 2002, CU also began making small home improvement loans in the Colonias of Texas. Loans start at 2,500 with subsequent loans up to 3,500. Funds are used for basic home repairs and improvements with many individuals using these small loans to completely remodel and expand their houses. Small business lending was added in 2010 as small businesses were struggling to recover from the 2008 recession and bank lending tightened. Again, CU works to fill the gap in financing with loans from 500 to 100,000 to small businesses that do not qualify for traditional financing. Small business loans can be used for working capital, which is one of the biggest gaps in small business financing. Other uses include purchase or repair of equipment and real estate purchase or improvements. CU offers a variety of small business loan products that are designed to grow as the business grows. CU's small business lending is focused on filling gaps in rural places and minority populations. In 2020, CU made 24 small business loans for a total of 292,517. This includes 83 percent to minority owned businesses, 17 percent in Persistent Poverty Counties and 58 percent to women-owned businesses. In response to the COVID 19 Pandemic, a recovery tool kit was developed by CU to provide critical assistance to entrepreneurs working to overcome economic challenges. This included Specific disaster funds that were raised to pay the first three months of qualifying non SBA small business loans. Six months of payments from SBA on all SBA microloans, if the loan was made prior to March 27, 2020. Two new Recovery Loan Programs for existing businesses, both loan programs include three months of payment forgiveness, no origination fees and competitive interest rates. Pivot Loan Program 5,000 or less for existing businesses that would be adding a new product or service resulting in a new source of revenue. Reboot Loan Program 10,000 or less for existing businesses that were forced to reduce hours or close and need funding to reopen.

CU's Entrepreneurship team connects small businesses to solutions by providing intensive management consulting and training services to businesses in ideation, startup, growth, and transition stages. Our management consultants help small business owners identify growth issues related to how their businesses are managed, recommend the corrective services, and then work one on one with the business to deliver the recommended services. CU's Entrepreneurship team provides services collaboratively with the Community Sustainability and Lending teams to support their work with small businesses. Our consultants typically spend anywhere from 30 to 100 hours of time with one business over several months working to build the business and management skills of business owners. Our focus is one on one face to face capacity building. We also offer some workshop trainings. Our consulting areas are to teach small business owners 1 financial tracking; 2 financial analysis; 3 planning strategies; and 4 digital marketing. For fiscal year 2020, CU provided one on one consulting to 166 businesses. We facilitated over 40 online trainings to over 332 businesses. Over 79 percent are minority clients. Over 48 percent are rural clients. Over 56 percent are female. Of the 166 businesses served one on one, 109 were provided one on one management consulting during the pandemic. 67 percent of these businesses are entrepreneurs of color that have remained open. In March 2020, CU's entrepreneurship team rapidly responded to the needs of our rural entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color. By the end of March, all in person workshops and consulting services were virtual. Upon realizing most of our clients were shut out of the initial round of the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program PPP, we collaborated with two approved CDFI partners that were PPP loan approved. We helped business owners pull together and submit their PPP loan packages resulting in over 487,000 in PPP loan made to our clients. Over 79 percent of these PPP loans were to entrepreneurs of color. In FY 2020, CU's Community Sustainability program partnered with 13 rural communities to work toward more vibrant, sustainable economies by leveraging local assets for long term growth. Residents drive the process; creating the plans, filling gaps and connecting to existing resources to activate the community's power for change. CU's staff facilitates this process and assists with infrastructure management and improvement, community facility development, small business development and access to financing. One of the goals of CU staff is to build a diverse leadership team who are open minded and motivated to initiate change. We provide training to develop skills that will enable residents to be problem solvers. As a regional hub we provide WealthWorks training and value chain facilitation. Assets are recognized through the engagement of community leaders and utilized to build a strategy for economic growth. This strategy directs the long term execution of work by CU staff side by side within the community. By deploying the E D G E Capacity Building model which involves Enlightening thru training, Delivering technical assistance, Guiding as community conducts tasks, and Empowering while monitoring the community's continued success in their execution of tasks we purposefully and intentionally go into every community with an exit strategy in mind, realizing that the true benefit of our efforts is building or strengthening the capacity of local governments and nonprofits so that when we do complete a project, we are no longer needed to ensure that community facilities, local housing, and or community and economic development will continue to be sustainable. CU leverages each of its programs and identifies partners to bring the resources needed for implementation of the strategies to create lasting change. In addition, the Entrepreneurship team is involved during the process, bringing one on one consultation to local business people, to increase profitability and provide jobs in these communities. CU helps communities, Evaluate ordinances and policies that are friendly to small businesses, Increase the number of local businesses, Support growth of existing local businesses, Deliver resources, and Provide access to financing. We accomplish this through, Collaboration with local leadership to provide an assessment of the community's economic opportunities, Environmental technical assistance resources, Small business management consulting, Community facilities resources and Home improvement lending. Healthy Foods CU seeks to impact multiple social determinants of health that impact families, businesses, and communities. The Healthy Foods Program understands that sustainable positive impact requires developing the entire food system. We focus on those in the system that are underserved and economically disadvantaged, from the farmers to consumers. CU's service area includes about half of the nation's persistent poverty counties, and six of the states in our service area are in the top 10 of states with the highest percentage of food insecurity. This was before the pandemic. In 2020 CU created market opportunities for small scale farmers to sell their specialty crops fruits and vegetables, which for several was the difference between preparing to plant crops for next year or losing their farm. The Healthy Foods program also supported farmers markets and other community initiatives serving low income food deserts. The unique challenges of 2020 created an opportunity for Healthy Foods to pivot and serve in a new way. A Farm to Pantry Initiative secured funding to compensate farmers, at wholesale rates, for produce donated to food pantries. This produce was grown in anticipation of sales to schools, restaurants, and others. With the pandemic, there were no buyers. While many were already donating their produce with no income, they were at risk of not replanting in 2021. This program kept many small scale local farmers agricultural small businesses financially viable and provided fresh produce for the significant increase in families facing food insecurity. Key accomplishments for Healthy Foods include the following. Supported the creation or expansion of 11 new farmers markets and pop up markets in rural community food deserts. Delivered over 80,000 pounds of locally grown fresh produce to over 23 food pantries. Provided Healthy Foods related services in 37 communities, collaborating with primarily small scale minority farmers and 2 minority farmer cooperatives. Provided on farm technical assistance for a small scale grower to obtain GAP Certification food safety certification and connected another grower, previously assisted with GAP, to a local hospital as a supplier.

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