CDFI Fund Financial Assistance Awards (FY 2025 Historical Reference)

Status: the FY 2025 round is closed

This page is an archive entry for the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) FY 2025 CDFI Program Financial Assistance round. It is not a current application listing. The CDFI Fund’s current CDFI Program application page still identifies the linked NOFA, application guidance, and supplemental materials as belonging to the FY 2025 round; it does not show a successor-round opening or deadline. The page lists March 21, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time as the deadline for the FA or TA application through AMIS. That general application deadline has passed, and there is no open FY 2026 CDFI Program FA application or newly announced application deadline to report.

The same page lists April 4, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time for the separate Excel Housing Production Financial Assistance component. That later date did not create a new general FA round. It applied to the HP-FA component of FY 2025. A later amendment posted March 10, 2026 extended a separate application-update deadline to April 10, 2026, but only for applicants who had already submitted an application, advanced to step 4 of scoring and evaluation, and were notified by the CDFI Fund that they could update it. It did not allow new applicants to enter the round. That limited window has also closed. Do not treat FY 2026 Small Dollar Loan or Bank Enterprise Award announcements as a CDFI Program FA round; those are different programs.

When a successor CDFI Program Financial Assistance NOFA is published, this page should be reviewed again. Until then, the FY 2025 general application deadline remains in the metadata as the date of the closed application round. The later April 10, 2026 date belongs in the historical explanation because it applied only to notified, previously reviewed applicants.

What the FY 2025 opportunity was

The CDFI Program had two principal award types in the FY 2025 funding round: Financial Assistance (FA) and Technical Assistance (TA). FA was intended to build the financial capacity of Certified Community Development Financial Institutions so they could lend in Eligible Markets and/or their Target Markets. TA was intended to build the organizational capacity of Certified and Emerging CDFIs. This page focuses on FA, although the published deadline covered the combined FA/TA application process.

The CDFI Fund describes CDFIs as mission-driven financial institutions that serve low-income people and communities that lack adequate access to affordable financial products and services. The FY 2025 NOFA covered both for-profit and nonprofit community-based lending organizations. The program was therefore aimed at operating financial institutions with a defined community-serving model, not at individual borrowers, early-stage businesses seeking a loan, or organizations looking for an unrestricted general operating grant.

FA was competitive and subject to the availability of funds. An applicant had to connect the requested award to eligible activities, show that it could carry out those activities, and satisfy the CDFI Fund’s financial, compliance, certification, and application requirements. The award was not an automatic entitlement for every certified institution.

FY 2025 funding and award sizes

The FY 2025 NOFA anticipated approximately $320 million across the CDFI Program’s FA and TA categories. Approximately $281 million of that total was allocated across Financial Assistance categories. The published amounts were estimates, and the CDFI Fund reserved the right to award more or less based on appropriations, available funds, and other factors.

The principal FY 2025 FA categories were:

Base-FA Category I, also called Small and/or Emerging CDFI Assistance (SECA): approximately $14.8 million, with a published Base-FA request range of $125,000 to $700,000.
Base-FA Category II, also called Core: approximately $101.2 million, with a minimum request of $500,000, or 30% of portfolio outstanding when the portfolio was below $1,666,700, and a maximum of $1 million.
Persistent Poverty Counties Financial Assistance (PPC-FA): approximately $21 million, with published award limits of $100,000 to $400,000.
Disability Funds Financial Assistance (DF-FA): approximately $20 million, with published award limits of $100,000 to $1 million.
Healthy Food Financing Initiative Financial Assistance (HFFI-FA): approximately $24 million, with published award limits of $500,000 to $5 million.
Housing Production Financial Assistance (HP-FA): approximately $100 million, with published award limits of $1 million to $5 million.

These figures describe the FY 2025 funding design, not a current promise of money. The amount field on this page therefore reports the historical FA total rather than presenting one amount as if it were available today. The category limits also mattered: an applicant’s eligible category, request, portfolio, assets, and prior awards affected the amount it could seek.

The NOFA also applied a $5 million aggregate cap to CDFI and NACA Program awards for one organization and its subsidiaries and affiliates during the relevant three-year period. For the FY 2025 calculation, the cap included TA, Base-FA, PPC-FA, and HP-FA awards, while DF-FA and HFFI-FA were excluded from that particular cap. Applicants needed to check the round’s guidance rather than assume that the largest category maximum was available to them.

Who was eligible for FA

The central eligibility rule was certification. Only applicants that were Certified CDFIs as of the FY 2025 NOFA’s January 17, 2025 publication in the Federal Register could apply for FA. An Emerging CDFI was not an FA applicant under that round’s basic rule; an Emerging CDFI could instead be eligible for TA if it presented an acceptable plan to meet CDFI Certification requirements during the required period.

The applicant also had to be a legal entity organized in the United States or its territories. The entity applying had to be the entity that would carry out the proposed award activities. It could not apply on behalf of another organization or create a new legal entity simply to carry out the activities. Depository Institution Holding Company applicants had special rules when a subsidiary insured depository institution would perform the award activities, so those applicants had to follow the NOFA’s holding-company instructions closely.

FA applicants had to choose the appropriate category. A SECA applicant had to be a Certified CDFI, request no more than $700,000 in Base-FA, and meet either the applicable asset threshold or the newer-operations test. The FY 2025 thresholds were up to $250 million in assets for insured depository institutions and depository institution holding companies, up to $100 million for insured or state-insured credit unions, up to $5 million for venture capital funds, and up to $5 million for other CDFIs. The alternative operations test covered applicants that had begun operations on or after January 1, 2021. A certified applicant that met SECA characteristics but requested more than $700,000 in Base-FA was treated as a Category II Core applicant.

The FY 2025 NOFA also had special rules for Native CDFIs, supplemental categories, regulated institutions, community partnerships, prior CDFI Fund recipients, and applicants with unresolved compliance matters. The CDFI Fund amended the FY 2025 NOFA in September 2025. Among other changes, it removed several race-based individual categories from the definition of Eligible Market and revised the definition to cover qualifying geographic areas or individuals who are Low-Income, Native American, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native, or Persons with Disabilities. Applicants who advanced to step 4 were instructed to use the amended NOFA when preparing any requested update. Because these details were specific to FY 2025 and were amended during the round, a future applicant must use the successor round’s NOFA rather than copy these criteria forward.

Matching funds and financial readiness

Matching funds were a major part of the FY 2025 FA design, but the rule differed by category and applicant type. For Category II Core applicants, evidence of acceptable matching funds was required for Base-FA, PPC-FA, and DF-FA requests, except for Native American CDFIs. The NOFA described the match as eligible, non-Federal funds and generally required dollar-for-dollar match for each award dollar to be paid. TA applicants and Native American CDFI FA applicants did not have to provide matching funds, and matching funds were not required for HP-FA requests. The FY 2025 NOFA separately explained the treatment of SECA and HFFI-FA matching funds and reserved the CDFI Fund’s right to request match if appropriations did not waive the requirement.

The practical lesson is that an applicant could not rely on a vague statement that private capital might become available. The FY 2025 matching-funds guidance distinguished funds that were already in hand from legally binding commitments, required non-Federal sources, and limited the award form and payment timing based on the matching funds documented. Applicants needed a finance lead who could trace every proposed match source, explain its form, and provide acceptable evidence when requested.

Applicants also needed current financial information, a credible portfolio and deployment history, a defined target market, and systems for compliance and reporting. The CDFI Fund’s review process considered financial health, management systems, performance history, measurable impact, and audit or compliance concerns. Certification alone was necessary for FA, but it was not enough to make an application competitive.

How the closed FY 2025 application worked

The original FY 2025 process used both Grants.gov and the CDFI Fund’s Awards Management Information System (AMIS). The following sequence describes that closed round and should not be treated as a live checklist for FY 2026:

The applicant confirmed that it was a Certified CDFI, selected the correct award type and category, and reviewed the FY 2025 NOFA, FA Application Guidance, matching-funds guidance, and supplemental instructions.
The applicant created an AMIS account, entered its Employer Identification Number and Unique Entity Identifier in AMIS, and submitted the SF-424 through Grants.gov. All three items had a February 18, 2025 deadline at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
The applicant prepared the AMIS application. The required components included an active AMIS account, the SF-424, a Title VI Compliance Worksheet, and the relevant Base-FA funding detail, data, charts, narratives, and certifications. Core FA applicants also completed the matching-funds portion when it applied to their request.
Applicants that wanted supplemental PPC-FA, DF-FA, or HFFI-FA completed the additional AMIS components and narratives. Applicants seeking HP-FA indicated that intent in the Base-FA application and submitted the separate Excel HP-FA component through an AMIS Service Request.
The final FA or TA application and the Title VI Compliance Worksheet were submitted through AMIS by March 21, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The AMIS technical-support cutoff was March 21, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The last day for questions to CDFI Program staff was March 19, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. These were the general application milestones, not a later intake period.
The separate Excel HP-FA application was due through an AMIS Service Request by April 4, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The CDFI Fund then performed eligibility, financial, compliance, and substantive review before making award decisions. Following a September 2025 NOFA amendment, applicants who had reached step 4 were given an opportunity to update previously submitted applications; the Fund later set April 10, 2026 as the deadline for those updates. Only applicants notified by the Fund could use that later deadline. It was not an extension for applicants who had missed the original application window.

The FY 2025 application page lists the CDFI Fund’s help desk for questions about the application process and warns that materials and requirements can change for future rounds. That warning is important here: a future applicant should open the successor page and use its new templates, deadlines, and NOFA instead of reusing the FY 2025 package.

What a future applicant should prepare

Although there is no open FY 2026 CDFI Program FA application deadline to follow from this entry, a Certified CDFI can use the historical requirements to organize internal records. Keep certification status, financial statements, portfolio data, target-market evidence, impact measures, board and governance records, audit materials, and compliance documentation together. Build a match file that identifies each non-Federal source, its form, amount, timing, and supporting evidence. Map proposed FA activities to the financial products or services the institution provides and to the communities it serves.

Do not begin a full application narrative until the CDFI Fund publishes a successor CDFI Program FA NOFA. At that point, recheck the award categories, total funding, match rules, certification date, asset thresholds, submission systems, and any supplemental priorities. If the next round changes the deadline or eligibility, those new terms should replace this archive entry’s FY 2025 details.

Official source and revisit rule

The official source for this historical entry is the CDFI Program application page. It hosts the FY 2025 timeline and application materials, including Financial Assistance guidance, the FY 2025 CDFI Program NOFA, and two amendments. The FY 2025 CDFI Program NOFA is the source for the original funding categories, award limits, certification rules, and matching-funds framework summarized here. The September 2025 amendment changed portions of the eligibility and activity terms, and the March 10, 2026 amendment revised the update deadline for the notified step-4 applicants.

Revisit this page when the CDFI Fund publishes a successor CDFI Program Financial Assistance NOFA. Until that happens, this opportunity should remain marked as a closed FY 2025 historical reference, with no invented FY 2026 deadline.