In 1985, when Boston Community Capital was founded by a group of socially responsible investors, we asked a series of questions:

• Can housing for low-income families and individuals be designed, built, and managed to remain affordable and well-maintained over time, as well as help to strengthen our communities?

• Can distressed inner-city neighborhoods be transformed into thriving and welcoming communities that are home to a diverse population of residents who live there by choice?

• Is debt a useful tool to finance the transformation of inner-city neighborhoods, and can we demonstrate that loan dollars will not only be repaid, but also recycled?

Twenty years later, the answer to those questions is a resounding "yes." Together with our partners, we have invested more than $235 million to build and preserve healthy communities. We have helped finance affordable homes for more than 8,000 families and individuals. Moreover, because these homes have been carefully maintained and updated, they have helped to transform entire neighborhoods. Our loans and investments have supported the renovation of child care centers, community facilities, and commercial real estate in economically distressed areas, and created quality jobs, goods, and services for low-income people. Our historical loan losses continue to be less than one-tenth of one percent, and all of our lenders have been repaid on time and in full.

Yet, the divide between rich and poor-between those who have access to education and professional advancement and those who do not, between those who can build a stake in the future and those to whom that opportunity is denied-is expanding, not contracting. In today's economic and political landscape, we ask new questions:

• How do powerful regional, national, and global trends intersect with community development strategies that are intended to create meaningful and wide-scale economic and social opportunities for low-income people?

• Can we (and should we) expand our services and financing from a focus on organizations to a focus on the unmet needs of individuals?

• By building alliances with new partners in commercial finance, organized labor, education, health and environmental services, and with partners across neighborhood, state, and even national boundaries, can we magnify our impact?

Our loans also supported nonprofit organizations such as the Media and Technology Charter High School, a public high school preparing Boston students to succeed in college and beyond; and the Cambridge Women's Center, a community organization providing counseling, support, and training for close to 700 women a week.

Together with our partners, including individual and institutional investors like Walden's clients, we are developing strategies that allow us to make loans and investments that other financial institutions are unwilling or unable to provide- and simultaneously create real value for our borrowers and investors.

—E. Cherry

Elyse Cherry is the CEO of Boston Community Capital. For more information, call 617-427-8600 or visit www.bostoncommunitycapital.org.