What's Happening

November 18, 2024, Los Angeles – Sister Corinne Florek, OP, is a risk-taker. Her risks do not involve physical danger, but in trusting investment money to new community organizations that are trying to make a difference in people’s lives. 

As a speaker on a history panel at the 40th Annual Conference of Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), held in Los Angeles in late October, she encouraged others to take risks, too. OFN is a national network of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), which offer loans and other financial services to organizations in underserved communities.

Speaking on the panel to an audience of CDFI professionals, Sister Corinne reminded them, “What you have learned about risk does not apply to your situation. The risk you’re taking is with people."

Sister Corinne has years of experience in making low-interest loans to community organizations. She worked for a year for the Institute for Community Economics (ICE) and then worked for the Campaign for Human Development (CHD), a Catholic social justice organization of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, which uses donations from parishioners to give grants to community organizations. 
 
Sister Corinne’s experience in community investments includes serving on the Adrian Dominican Sisters’ Portfolio Advisory Board (PAB), which has been making community investments since 1978; serving as one of the founders of the Religious Communities Investment Fund (RCIF), in which communities of Catholic Sisters pool their money to invest in community organizations; and began the Mercy Partnership Fund, later succeeded by Mercy Investment Services, for the Sisters of Mercy.

“When we first started, we were using money that would have been our retirement money,” Sister Corinne said. “I used to tell people that if you don’t pay us back, I won’t have retirement funds.” Now, the PAB and other investment funds use separate sources of funds. 

Whether serving on the PAB, the RCIF, or the Mercy Partnership Fund, Sister Corinne has approved numerous loans to CDIFs and has been known as the “Godmother of CDIFs.” 

Now, she is concerned that CDFI professionals might not take the risk needed to serve community organizations. “My main concern is that as we get more and more people with training, they’ll take less risk,” she said. “You need to get out there and visit these groups and their communities. That’s an important part of your job.”

With that in mind, Sister Corinne frequently took Sisters serving on the PAB on bus trips to Detroit or Chicago to visit the organizations in which the PAB invested. She wanted them to meet the people they were working with. “It’s all about relationships,” she said. “Money is a vehicle, but it’s more about relationships.”

Sister Corinne said she started RCIF because many communities of Catholic Sisters wanted to invest in community organizations but did not have the staff. The communities “could put $25,000 in and we’d lend it out and send them the stories,” she said. “I was always clear to send them their stories so the Sisters could see what was happening” with their money, making them feel more connected to the people served through their loans.

Feature photo at top: Sister Corinne Florek, OP, who has been associated with Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) for several years, receives the Ned Gramlich Lifetime Achievement Award from OFN during an OFN conference in November 2010. Adrian Dominican Sisters File Photo, Courtesy of Opportunity Finance Network.