Business Impact NW
Business Impact NW is a nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) dedicated to serving underbanked entrepreneurs. We provide coaching, classes, and access to capital to community small businesses, with an emphasis on working with traditionally underserved populations – entrepreneurial low/moderate income earners, women, BIPOC, veterans, immigrants or members of the LGBTQ+ community. We have been serving the community since 1997.
We promote long-term positive economic change through financial services, business advice and training. We serve startups as well as existing businesses, and are dedicated to helping underserved entrepreneurs at every stage in their business growth. Our organization was founded as Seattle Economic Development Fund and was previously known as Community Capital Development. Business Impact NW is a certified, rated, and regulated financial institution. It is not a U.S. or state government agency.
Business Impact NW's objective is to provide financial and technical support to entrepreneurs in economically marginalized communities who would not otherwise have access to financial services. Our lending guidelines are more flexible than traditional banks because of our community impact mission. While careful in our decision-making process, Business Impact NW is able to take considered risks on underserved small businesses in order to achieve this mission.
Our loan department offers lending services in Washington State, Oregon, & Alaska. We offer business support services (training, coaching and classes) in Washington State, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska through various technical assistance programs, including the Washington Women's Business Center (WBC), Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC), Food Business Resource Center (FBRC), & Loan Readiness Center (LRC). Business Impact NW's head offices are located in Seattle, WA.
Learn more about Business Impact NW's lending, programs, and impact on our FAQ page.
Values Statement
Business Impact Northwest—our valued employees, board members, and community partners—affirm our commitment to continue to model and demonstrate a strong personal moral code rooted in truthfulness, transparent communication, and accountability.
This is our pledge of INTEGRITY.
We dedicate ourselves to deliver on trust, empathy, and a collaborative work ethic to our stakeholders, resource partners, and those with whom we share a relationship established in common values.
This is our promise to our COMMUNITY.
We find it our duty to perpetuate the ongoing process of recognizing, validating, and appreciating the uniqueness of all; and to provide equal access to support and encouragement, and to authentically welcome in all people, their beliefs, and their voices.
This is our oath of INCLUSIVITY.
We rejoice—through word, deed, and time—in honoring, sharing, and jubilantly recognizing the efforts, milestones, and victories which comprise the unique journeys of those we serve and know.
This is our happiness in CELEBRATION.
Diversity Statement
The mission for Business Impact NW is to grow businesses that create jobs in underserved communities. As an organization, we acknowledge that systemic and institutionalized barriers have historically prevented the focus communities we work with- BIPOC, women, Veterans, LGBTQ+, immigrant, refugee, and rural, from thriving. Yet, we also know that it is the diverse lenses, perspectives, and lived experiences that we all bring that generate strength, vitality, and resiliency to our collective community. As a CDFI and training organization, we interrupt existing barriers with access to funding, information, tools, and connection. We see and believe in our clients, and by living our values of integrity, community, inclusivity, and celebration, we always put them first.