When people think about Community Development Financial Institutions, like TruFund Financial Services, they often focus on the visible outcomes: the small businesses they help grow, the affordable housing developments that transform neighborhoods, and the low-income communities they help strengthen. Yet behind every loan disbursed, every grant administered, every equity investment, and every borrower served is a financial infrastructure that makes those outcomes possible.
As CFO of TruFund, Stephanie Kabore Turquin thinks of finance as an enabler, the bridge between mission and execution. Finance ensures that an organization’s ambitions are supported by the capital, discipline, and infrastructure required to turn impact goals into lasting results. It is easy to lose sight of finance as an enabler while deep in the day-to-day work of financial management. In an organization that deploys capital through lending, New Markets Tax Credit financing, and equity investment in historically underserved communities, keeping that connection clear is mandatory.
“Financial stewardship means managing the resources entrusted to us responsibly and in service of the mission,” says Turquin. “It means understanding where the organization stands today, anticipating challenges that may lie ahead, and helping ensure that the resources, capital, and financial flexibility needed to fulfill our objectives will be available tomorrow.”
Managing capital from multiple sources – including federal and state programs, philanthropic investors, commercial banks, and mission-aligned lenders- while continuing to deploy that capital into underserved communities requires transparency and a willingness to ask hard questions. For TruFund, this diligence means monitoring balance sheet ratios in real time, knowing the covenant headroom with every lender before making a new commitment, and building a risk management framework that protects the organization without slowing down the mission. Above all, it means being honest with not only their board, but with their founders and partners as well, because trust is built on transparency, not on comfortable reporting.
“One of the things I have come to appreciate since joining the CDFI sector is that every financial decision carries a human dimension,” explains Turquin. “When we evaluate our capital structure, we are also evaluating our capacity to serve.”
The CDFI sector is currently operating in a challenging environment. Capital markets are tighter, federal funding is under pressure, and the communities TruFund serves are facing real economic headwinds. In this context, financial resilience is what allows institutions like TruFund to show up consistently and effectively, even when conditions prove difficult.
“Finance is sometimes described as the language of business,” says Turquin. “In a CDFI, I think of it as the language of trust – accountability not just to our investors and our board, but to the borrowers and communities who are counting on us to show up. When we get the financial foundation right, everything else becomes possible.”
At TruFund, building the financial capacity needed to support growth and lasting impact is crucial, an effort led by a finance team equipped with an understanding of a clear mission, one that can anticipate challenges, manage through complexity, and support sound decision-making. That passion is what drives Turin’s work in the Office of the CFO; a mandate to not just manage numbers but to make sure that those numbers serve the mission.
