It is time—past time—for a new, bold, unapologetic approach to policy. This decade has been characterized by resource scarcity and policy uncertainty. The U.S. economy is flat, domestic policy has taken hit after hit as our national deficit is reaching toward new heights, the conventional financial services industry is changing, and CDFIs are competing more for limited philanthropic support. In our struggle to preserve a host of relatively small federal, state, and local funding streams over the past 30 years, our industry has sometimes have lost sight of the big picture—helping low-income and low-wealth people and markets join the economic mainstream, and helping the economic mainstream realize the growth potential of those “opportunity markets.”

We need to focus on the programs that work and create new programs to replace outdated, ineffective services and systems. If we learn nothing else from the events of the past few decades, we should know that if we do not define our policy agenda, others will define it for us.

Opportunity Finance Network’s strategic plan, adopted in 2004, directed us to take the policy offensive. Specifically, it called for, “Government policies that benefit low-income and low-wealth people and communities by stimulating billions of dollars annually of new private investment....” Since that time, we have worked to transform the opportunity finance system to increase its reach and impact. We must move forward amid difficult operating conditions and create new sources of capital for our industry. The challenges we face are structural and systemic; our response must be structural and systemic, in return.

We must rally our bipartisan support and use the knowledge we have gained from both our victories and defeats to go beyond defending dwindling federal funding sources and work toward a new vision for opportunity finance. The power of the opportunity finance industry comes from its ability to create transformational change by reshaping conventional thought, expectations, and actions in relation to economically underserved people and communities. We must now use this power to create systemic and structural change in our nation’s domestic policy.