Durham Reporter

An executive order signed March 14 by President Donald Trump calls for eliminating a federal program through which a Durham-based credit union and its affiliates have received billions of dollars.

Under that order, the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund at the U.S. Treasury Department was one of the programs for which Trump called for the "non-statutory components and functions" to be "eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law" and to reduce the performance of its "statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law."

Established in 1994, the CDFI fund provides financial assistance, technical assistance, and capacity-building support to certified CDFIs, which include banks, credit unions, loan funds, and venture capital funds. The CDFI Fund also manages programs such as the New Markets Tax Credit Program, the Bank Enterprise Award Program, and the Native Initiatives, which are supposed to expand access to capital and financial services in economically disadvantaged communities.

Self-Help Ventures Fund, headquartered in Durham, has been a CDFI since 1998, according to the CDFI Fund website. It was founded by Durham resident Martin Eakes, who also is founder of Self-Help Credit Union and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL).

Durham Reporter reported on on Feb. 5 that Self-Help was hiring for a new position that would help spend a share of an almost $7 billion grant issued by that Biden Administration. That grant went to a group called the "Climate United Fund" (CUF), of which Self-Help is a member.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said on Feb. 13 the grant to CUF was just a portion of $20 billion his agency found “parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA." 

“Shockingly, roughly 20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA,” said Zeldin in a video. “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.”

“Even further, this pot of $20 billion was awarded to just eight entities, that were responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency,” said Zeldin. “Just under $7 billion was sent to one entity called the Climate United Fund.”

Zeldin said his agency’s search for the $20 billion followed a video published several months ago “featuring a Biden EP political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic.’”

“The gold bars were tax dollars and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden Administration knew they were wasting it,” said Zeldin.

Self-Help's role as a CDFI was cited in the EPA press release that announced the awarding of the grant to CUF.

The grant was awarded under the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF), which was created by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law in 2023 by President Joe Biden (D) as part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). The EPA administers the program and has selected three organizations—CUF, the Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities—to distribute the funds. The NCIF was created to take federal taxpayer dollars to finance projects Self-Help said focus on “climate resilience” and “environmental justice.”

CUF, of which Self-Help is a member, was awarded $6.97 billion under the NCIF, making it the largest recipient of funding from the program. CUV also includes the groups Calvert Impact and the Community Preservation Corporation. 

“Climate United Fund’s program will focus on investing in harder-to-reach market segments like consumers, small businesses, small farms, community facilities, and schools—with at least 60% of its investments in low-income and disadvantaged communities, 20% in rural communities, and 10% in Tribal communities,” said an EPA press release. 

That press release said Self-Help Ventures Fund is already a “U.S. Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).” 

It is in that role as a CDFI that Self-Help Ventures Fund was the topic of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made by Federal Newswire in November 2024. 

The FOIA request sought communications between CDFI Fund at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and representatives of Self-Help Ventures fund and affiliated entities. The FOIA request followed an Oct. 29 Federal Newswire report that Christopher Allison, program manager for the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program at the CDFI Fund, is a former employee of Self-Help Ventures Fund, an affiliate of Durham, NC-based Self-Help Credit Union. 

Both Self-Help Ventures Fund and Self-Help Credit Union have received over $502 million from the CDFI Fund. 

The FOIA request sought all communications—including written, electronic, and phone records—between any and all staff at the CDFI and any employees or representatives of Self-Help Credit Union, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, Self-Help Ventures Fund, and/or the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) from 2020 through the present.

Each of those Self-Help entities, plus CRL, were founded by Durham resident Martin Eakes.

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 also served on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion. That committee is under scrutiny for potential conflicts of interest related to "Operation Choke Point 2.0." 

The original “Operation Choke Point” initiative, launched during the Obama administration in 2013, pressured banks to sever ties with businesses deemed "high-risk" by regulators, including payday lenders and gun dealers. 

"Operation Choke Point 2.0" refers to an alleged initiative by U.S. government agencies to restrict banking services for cryptocurrency and certain tech industries. 

In terms of the NCIF, Republicans on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan about the members’ “oversight concerns” about the NCIF and its parent fund, the GGRF.

“Some have flagged that the EPA could use this program to subsidize favored special interest organizations,” said the letter. “Others have alleged that current EPA appointees have ties to potential recipients of these sizable awards, raising ethical concerns.” 

Eakes, in a press release announcing his group’s $6.79 billion grant award from the EPA, said, "The significance of this investment cannot be overstated.” 

As of publication time, the most recent news releases on CUF’s web site announced a $30 million program to fund “clean energy” projects in “low-income communities” and a plan to spend $250 million to buy “up to 500 class 8 electric trucks,” which CUF said would be the “largest single order of electric trucks in U.S. history.”

There have been no new press releases on the CUF site since Nov. 19, 2024.