Balancing mission and measurement
Institutional pressures on evaluation practices in nonprofit community development loan funds
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 16654643 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Teshanee T Williams (0000-0002-7099-304X, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, corresponding author), Natalie Prochaska (0000-0001-9156-5469, Miami Hand Center), Jamie R Mccall (0000-0001-6984-5739, Deloitte (United States)), Jamie McCall (Deloitte), Tamra Thetford (Evotec (United States)) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-31 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Urban Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0735-2166 • E-ISSN: 1467-9906 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/07352166.2026.2645849 |
| OpenAlex | W7154683606 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 60 |
Nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution loan funds (CDLFs) occupy a distinct position in efforts to address place-based inequality, channeling capital to underserved communities while maintaining financial sustainability. CDLFs were developed based on an integrated hybrid ideal in which social and commercial logics are inseparable in organizational identity and operations. Yet CDLFs face growing pressure from funders, regulators, and third-party rating systems to demonstrate “impact” through output-focused metrics, raising a central question: how do Community Development Loan Funds interpret evaluation and outcome measurement requirements, allocate responsibility for measurement work, and make tradeoffs among financial, operational, and social impact priorities in practice? Drawing on interviews with 39 CDLF leaders, we examine the factors that affect evaluation and outcome measurement practices. We find that CDLFs experience pressure through three mechanisms: (1) funder-driven compliance demands that prioritize outputs, (2) organizational cultures that define “the work” as lending rather than community development, and (3) organizational design choices in hiring, incentives, and technology that center on banking logic. These dynamics shape how place-based development capital is allocated and justified, with implications for accountability to borrowers in underserved neighborhoods. A field-level mechanism we term collective vulnerability helps explain persistence, because rigorous outcome measurement threatens individual organizational legitimacy
Community development · Community organization · Institutional investor · Loan · Nonprofit organization · Nonprofit Sector · Community and Sustainable Development · Community Development and Social Impact · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |