About Us

As a non-profit organization, BrightBridge’s bottom line is measured in positive economic outcomes for communities in an expansive service area. Our mission is to benefit communities by fostering increased employment opportunities and the expansion of business and industry.

Since 1981, we have stimulated economic development by providing innovative solutions that meet startup and existing businesses capital needs.

Our capital solutions enable businesses to bring jobs, commercial goods and services, and community assets to communities that need them.

Through a variety of programs and services, we provide customized loan packages and advisory services aimed at reducing barriers to business growth.

Our team of seasoned experts work closely with each business owner to understand and address capital gaps that cannot be filled by traditional financial institutions.

BrightBridge is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with several loan programs, including SBA Community Advantage, SBA 504, and New Markets Tax Credits.

Our work to strengthen businesses and communities through innovative capital solutions embraces several priorities, which we have identified through decades of collective experience in commercial lending and economic development.

Our Priorities

Meeting the unique needs of underbanked commercial borrowers in our service area requires us to maintain a deep understanding of the commercial lending markets and their gaps. We develop our loan programs in response to market realities and to complement the work of traditional bank lenders, whose policies may prevent certain types of lending. Our lending helps unlock positive economic impact from businesses that traditional lenders cannot fully finance.

Significant economic impacts are most often achieved by the aligned efforts of multiple organizations, including traditional bank lenders, entrepreneur support organizations, and economic development agencies. We work with partners across this spectrum, leveraging each partner’s strengths to maximize collective impact.

By providing innovative capital solutions to businesses, we aim to strengthen the communities they operate within. We embrace a data-driven approach to understanding and meeting community needs, including quality and accessible jobs, commercial services or goods, or community services. We work closely with our borrowers and stakeholders in their communities to understand how business initiatives can be successful in meeting communities’ needs.

Committed to achieving positive impacts, we monitor the relevant impact of our borrowers’ businesses, including job creation, employment of low income persons, number of affordable and workforce housing units financed, and number of people provided community services, over the life of our loans. We also measure the percentages of our loans that are made to businesses in rural communities and to underserved entrepreneurs, including women and minorities.

Our mission through the use of New Markets Tax Credits is to finance businesses and community assets that stabilize, strengthen and support highly distressed communities, particularly in rural areas across the south. These goals are achieved by financing projects that create and retain quality jobs and provide needed goods and services in these disinvested communities.

What it means to be a CDFI

Community Development Financial Institutions – or CDFIs – are mission-driven
financial institutions that are dedicated to providing financial services to meet the needs of economically disadvantaged individuals within underserved communities.

CDFIs invest in local communities and the residents who live there by providing critically needed financing often unavailable from mainstream financial institutions.

CDFIs are certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund – known as the CDFI Fund. In order to become a certified CDFI, the financial institution must: have a primary mission of promoting community development; provide financial products and services; serve one or more defined low- income target markets; maintain accountability to the community it serves; and be a legal non-governmental entity.

CDFI must provide developmental services in conjunction with financing activities.

All CDFIs share a common mission of serving low-income communities. CDFIs are commonly loan funds, credit unions, community banks, or venture capital funds.

Certified CDFIs are part of a national network promoting economic growth in America’s underserved communities by financing businesses, creating jobs, and rebuilding neighborhoods.

As a CDFI, BrightBridge Inc. puts the community first and values local, economic growth.

Our Team

We aren’t your average financial professionals. We’re a team of rock-solid producers, former bankers, creative thinkers, and active listeners to those we serve.