CDFI Data Champions
The CDFI industry’s first ever cohort-based approach to increasing data capacity and AI adoption in service of economic mobility. Discover how ethical AI and Radiant Data Hub can help you make the most of your team’s data to organize, analyze, and predict with confidence.
Revolutionize your impact and help define ethical, shared data innovation.
The CDFI Data Champions is a collaborative to build shared, ethical data infrastructure for our field. We’re inviting 10 pioneering CDFIs to join as Founding Members. Founding Members gain early access to the Hub’s benchmarks and analytics, exclusive input into adoption priorities, and public recognition as leaders driving the industry’s shift toward ethical AI.
Advancing Impact that Closes the Digital Divide
The Radiant Data Hub creates a multiplier effect: more loans deployed, more businesses supported, more jobs sustained. Together, we can ensure community lenders act faster and smarter by creating jobs, sustaining businesses, and closing the digital divide.
How Data Champions Shape the Future
- Benefits: Levels the playing field by giving smaller or newer CDFIs access to the same robust data tools as larger institutions. Provides advanced benchmarking, analytics, and ethical AI tools that enable lending to be faster, wiser, and more impactful.
- Data Autonomy: Member data is always secure, private, and firewalled from PCV’s core systems. Organizations retain full ownership and control of their data.
- Impact on Good Jobs: In exchange for contributing de-identified data, members gain insights that drive faster and more informed lending decisions. These decisions directly support small business owners, fuel job creation, and enhance community growth.
- Our Vision of Impact: Staff efficiency and cost savings, by offloading technical tasks to the Hub’s team. Loan deployment and business reach, through tools that enhance lending decisions and reduce bias. Data accessibility and insight sharing, by consolidating de-identified data into a shared environment.
Champions receive:
- Tailored support to build predictive impact underwriting models, trained on the CDFI’s own historical data and complying with its unique impact mandates.
- Exclusive access to the shared data repository, interactive dashboards, benchmarks, and ecosystem-wide predictive modeling trained on big data.
- Access to technical talent including machine learning engineers, AI engineers, data scientists, data engineers, and full stack developers all with expertise in financial services and mission-driven applications. The Hub team is available to advise on organizational data and tech initiatives for 20 hours / month.
- Expert assessments of current data architecture and recommendations for upgrades to suit budget and staff capacity.
- Access to AIKKA, Radiant’s proprietary feedback tool designed to collect and synthesize voice-based feedback at scale from community stakeholders.
- Support with the creation of interactive impact narratives.
- The option to attend a quarterly convening of Data Champions to share best practices, review collective insights, brainstorm new initiatives, and test/prototype new applications developed by the Hub’s technical team.
- An invitation to join the Radiant Data Hub’s data governance committee and influence the development and deployment of the central repository.
Tenets of Data Champions
Shared Data Ownership: The Data Champions is a shared data commons which creates a collective asset for involved members and is governed by the Champions – we are working through a governance structure to set a standard for equity and excellence.
Transparency: The Radiant Data Hub intends to clearly articulate membership costs of the Data Champions program. We are also exploring how nonprofit contributions can leverage larger philanthropic dollars and if there is an opportunity to create a shared wealth model (i.e. reduced fees or dividends for true power users).
Reciprocity: Champions aren’t just “paying users”; they help set priorities, get first access to insights, visibility, and co-authorship opportunities at the Radiant Data Hub.
Equity: We aim to be inclusive so that fees don’t crowd out those serving the most marginalized communities and will explore a tiered pricing strategy after the first year for affordability.
CDFI benefits include:
Predictive Analytics: Helping lenders identify risks and opportunities to lend smarter and faster to incoming applicants.
Automation and Infrastructure: Reducing repetitive manual work and enabling data integration and flow across systems.
Stakeholder Insights: Using AI-supported tools to capture and synthesize rich voice-based community feedback at scale.
Human-Centered Storytelling: Translating data into compelling, interactive, immersive narratives anchored in community realities.
Data Governance, Cybersecurity policies and procedures; and Ethical AI policies and guidelines, as needed.
Early access to cutting edge developments that the Radiant Data Hub team will continue to develop. This will include AI products and services and innovative models to increase capital deployment, decrease risk, and promote efficiency throughout CDFI processes.
Be a Founding Member, Drive Community Impact
Connect with the Radiant Data Hub team and see how CDFI Data Champions gain powerful, ethical analytics that expand lending, strengthen businesses, and support good jobs. Interested in shaping the future of community lending?
Complete our form to join as a Founding Member today.