Community Development Finance Trailblazer Adina Abramowitz Posthumously Receives 2024 Ned Gramlich Award for Responsible Finance

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Oct 23, 2024, 12:00 ET

Opportunity Finance Network gives its highest honor in recognition of Abramowitz's influence on the community development finance industry

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Monday night, Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), the nation's leading network and intermediary focused on community development investment, posthumously honored Adina Abramowitz with the 2024 Ned Gramlich Lifetime Achievement Award for Responsible Finance. The prestigious award is the CDFI industry's highest individual honor.

"Adina's presence and influence reached every corner of our industry," said Harold Pettigrew, President and CEO of OFN. "Her leadership wasn't just about technical expertise but also heart, compassion, and a deep commitment to social justice. She set a standard for being forceful and visionary, shaping the tools and thinking that CDFIs use today. Adina truly represented the very best of our industry and helped ensure that CDFIs will remain a powerful force for change."

Abramowitz was a trailblazer in community development, dedicating her life to advancing financial strategies that empower historically underinvested communities. At the time of her death, she served as the managing partner of CDFI Friendly America, an organization that connects small cities and towns to CDFIs. Additionally, she was the President and Founder of Consulting for Change, offering essential capacity-building services to CDFIs and nonprofit organizations across the country.

"Adina was a pillar of the CDFI industry," said Mark Pinsky, her business partner at CDFI Friendly America and former CEO of OFN. "In the 1980s, she pioneered small business lending centering BIPOC entrepreneurs. In the 1990s, she introduced consulting to the field and helped foster a thriving CDFI consulting community. In the 2000s, she applied organizational development strategies to ensure the industry's adaptability and readiness for new opportunities. Adina's influence is profound — the CDFI industry has grown into what it is today in part because of her, and thanks to her vision, we are poised for continued growth and impact."

Abramowitz's career began at the Philadelphia Association of Cooperative Enterprise (PACE), which promoted worker ownership through worker cooperatives and employee stock ownership plans. At PACE, she packaged loans for and provided financial training to worker-owned businesses in the Delaware Valley from 1982 to 1987.

In 1987, she helped create the Cooperative Business Assistance Corporation (CBAC) in Camden, New Jersey. CBAC is a nonprofit CDFI that serves small businesses in the city and other low-income areas of southern New Jersey.

Abramowitz later joined OFN, where she served for nine years (1996-2005), contributing to the strategic growth of the organization and the broader CDFI field. Then, as a consultant, she helped numerous organizations strengthen their operations, expand their reach, and enhance their ability to drive community transformation. Her work was marked by an unrelenting focus on creating pathways to economic opportunity for low-income, low-wealth communities.

"Adina was deeply respected for her unique way of being kind and direct at the same time and moving people to action," said Donna Gambrell, Chair of OFN's Board of Directors and President and CEO of Appalachian Community Capital. "She earned the admiration of everyone who had the privilege to work alongside her and exemplified the spirit of the Gramlich Award's namesake."

Throughout her career, Abramowitz mentored thousands of CDFI practitioners and was widely known for her distinct working style and ability to connect to people from all walks of life.

Ned Gramlich was the Board of Governors' primary liaison to the Federal Reserve's Consumer Advisory Council, advising on community development and consumer finance policy matters. He was an outspoken voice against predatory lending and a strong defender of the Community Reinvestment Act. From October 2006 through his death in 2007, Gramlich served on the Board of OFN.

Abramowitz passed away in 2023. Her wife, Naomi Klayman, accepted the award at OFN's 40^th annual conference in Los Angeles.

Learn more about the Ned Gramlich Award for Lifetime Achievement here.

About Opportunity Finance Network

Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) is the nation's leading network and intermediary focused on community development investment, managing over $1 billion in total assets and a membership of 450 community development financial institutions (CDFIs), which includes community development loan funds, credit unions, green banks, banks, minority depository institutions, and venture capital funds. Our network of CDFIs works to ensure communities underserved by mainstream finance have access to affordable, responsible financial products and services, with a deep focus on serving rural, urban, and Native communities across the United States. OFN is a trusted investment partner to the public, private, and philanthropic sectors – foundations, corporations, banks, government agencies, and others – and, for 40 years, has helped partners invest in communities to catalyze change and create economic opportunities for all.   

Since its founding in 1986, OFN members have originated $111 billion in financing, helping to create or maintain more than 3 million jobs, start or expand more than 850,000 businesses and microenterprises, and support the development or rehabilitation of nearly 2.4 million housing units and more than 14,000 community facility projects.

SOURCE Opportunity Finance Network