A Small Business Loan Fund for the Bayview.
The Neighbor Fund is a community-based, community-vetted, small business revolving loan fund.
- Community-based. Loans focus on businesses located in San Francisco's 94124 zip code.
- Community-vetted. Borrowers’ creditworthiness is validated through existing community relationships instead of impersonal credit scores.
- Small business. Loans are geared toward expansion for existing businesses with between $50K and $2MM in annual revenues and at least 1 full-time staff (including entrepreneur).
Together we're committed to Bayview's flourishing. As neighbors.
TERMS
We loan for capital purchases for business expansion:
- Amounts range from $3,000 to $10,000
- Interest rates range from 3 to 7%
- Loans can be for one to three years (12 - 36 months)
In setting the rate of interest we take into account your ability to repay. Loans can be structured to be repaid over a one to three year (12 - 36 month) period.
Learn more about the fund (PDF)
Ready to talk?
We'd love to! Fill out the contact form or email info@neighborfund.org.
How we lend
We lend to build up the community.
Our philosophy is simple. We want to recover a practice of lending based on person-to-person relationship and deep knowledge of one another. We lend to build up the community in all its relationships. We hope borrowers and lenders become friends.
We lend person to person.
Our approach is personal. We talk with you about loan amounts and interest rates that work for your business. We ask for letters of reference and financials rather than running credit scores. We also ask borrowers to serve on a loan committee to help recommend other loans to make. We plan on eating together and enjoying one another’s company.
We lend from gratitude and for flourishing.
We see the interest borrowers pay on a loan as a way for those who loan money, together with those who borrow it, properly to share in the fruits of a flourishing business.
We firmly believe money does not “make money.” Good work combined with the blessing put in Creation by a good and generous Creator is the only thing that brings true increase. We lend in a way that recognizes this.
OUR Story
A Local partnership
The Neighbor Fund is a partnership between Redeemer Community Church and Dayspring Partners.
Born out of three months of walking Third Street in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood and meeting local small business owners--and over a decade of being rooted in the neighborhood--the Neighbor Fund is an expression of Redeemer and Dayspring's desire to be good neighbors in the neighborhood we're proud to call home.
What we believe
Churches (and other community organizations) are uniquely positioned with knowledge about the entrepreneurial personalities within their congregations, and uniquely aware of those members’ character. At the Neighbor Fund, we believe we should pursue the opportunity this awareness affords us together to recover a more righteous, peace-ful way of funding and supporting small businesses.
As Christians, we believe that God is at work reconciling all things to Himself through Jesus Christ. God is reconciling relationships in all of their dimensions including the economic. God is also at work redeeming all structures of society, including our local economies. The Neighbor Fund provides an opportunity to support the restoration of human relationship:
in the loan application process (between lender and borrower)
among borrowers (small business to small business)
by supporting the flourishing of the local economy (community to small business)
amongst congregations
“HATE EVIL. LOVE GOOD.
AND WORK IT OUT IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE.”
Faith without works is dead. What we say we believe must take shape in the ways we act.
With the Neighbor Fund, we hope to have the opportunity to discover, and recover, the “oceans of justice” and “rivers of righteousness” that the prophet speaks of and that God imagines for us.
How We're funded
We're initially funded with $30,000 from Redeemer. We're happy for others to join us in lending as a practice of peace. Please contact info@neighborfund.org for more details.