Steve Cortes, founder and president, the League of American Workers, left, and Martin Eakes, CEO of Self-Help Credit Union and the Center for Responsible Lending | Amworkers.com / enter for Responsible Lending YouTube
Steve Cortes, founder and president, the League of American Workers, left, and Martin Eakes, CEO of Self-Help Credit Union and the Center for Responsible Lending | Amworkers.com / enter for Responsible Lending YouTube
Steve Cortes, president of the League of American Workers (LAW), said it’s not a “good look” for a Durham-based network of nonprofits to get a half-billion dollars in federal funding and lobby for regulations against competitors.
The nonprofits, founded by credit union CEO Martin Eakes, have received more than $500 million in U.S. Treasury funds, reported Durham Reporter on March 14.
“Getting hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds, and then lobbying the government to prohibit competition in the marketplace?” Cortes told Durham Reporter. “Not a good look.”
Collectively, Eakes’ non-profits received $502,198,329 through the various awards programs run by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund).
The fund was founded through an Act of Congress in 1994 to generate “economic growth and opportunity in some of our nation's most distressed communities.”
Eakes’ non-profits include three credit unions, all under the "Self-Help” name, as well as a non-profit investment loan fund called Self-Help Ventures Fund.
Self-Help Ventures Fund alone received $277,989,503 in federal awards for 107 separate projects through just one of the CDFI programs, called the New Markets Tax Credit program, between 2004 and 2020.
Who is Martin Eakes?
In addition to receiving these federal funds, “Eakes has enlisted some of the country’s most powerful financial regulators in a political effort to shut down legitimate lenders that compete with Eakes’ own businesses,” reported the Washington Free Beacon.
Two of Eakes’ groups, Self-Help Credit Union and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), lobbied to pass a 36% rate cap on small dollar loans in Illinois in 2021, and are currently lobbying to limit the marketing of small dollar lenders in South Carolina.
Stephen Gilchrist, CEO of the SC African American Chamber of Commerce, told Palmetto State News that it was a “glaring oversight” that the bill for which Eakes’ groups are lobbying in South Carolina would not regulate credit unions.
In addition to creating Self-Help Credit Union and CRL, Eakes also founded the Center for Community Self-Help, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, and Self-Help Ventures Fund.
CRL has received more than $2 million from left wing political activist George Soros, and more than $25 million from a foundation started by a N.C. couple who Time Magazine ranked among “25 people to blame from the (2008) financial crisis.”
Eakes is the registered agent for at least 65 different single-member limited liability companies (LLCs) in North Carolina. Many of the LLC have near identical names, such as Self-Help Investor III, Self-Help Investor IX, and Self-Help Investor X, and so on.
Eakes grew up in North Carolina and graduated from Davidson College, where he majored in physics and philosophy. He graduated from Yale Law School and also holds a graduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
The CDFI Fund
The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) is a part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury and plays a crucial role in promoting economic growth by supporting community-based financial institutions.
CDFIs were created in response to the lack of access to affordable credit and capital in minority and economically distressed communities. In response, the CDFI Fund built a nationwide network of CDFIs that provide affordable and credible financial services to underserved communities. The fund offers monetary support and training to certified CDFIs. Since its inception, it has provided over $5.1 billion in monetary awards and $66 billion in tax credits to increase the impact of CDFIs in economically distressed areas.
The CDFI Fund offers various programs, including the Bank Enterprise Award Program, Capital Magnet Fund, CDFI Bond Guarantee Program, CDFI Program, Economic Mobility Corps, Native Initiatives, New Markets Tax Credit Program, and Small Dollar Loan Program.
Federal CDFI Fund Awards to Martin Eakes-Owned Businesses, 1996 to 2020
Source: CDFI Fund's Searchable Award Database
Key:
- CDFI-ERP: Equitable Recovery Program
- CDFI-FA: Financial Assistance program
- CDFI-RRP: Rapid Response Program
- CDFI-TA: Technical Assistance program
- CMF: Capital Magnet Fund
- HFFI-FA: Healthy Food Financing Initiative-Financial Assistance
- NMTC: New Markets Tax Credit
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