Hampton Partners with Nation’s Largest Black-Led Minority Depository Institution
$50M Peninsula Cooperative Fund brings flexible capital and technical assistance to underserved communities
City First Bank, the nation’s largest Black-led Minority Depository Institution (MDI), is extending its community-first financial model to Hampton Roads through the newly launched Peninsula Cooperative Fund (PCF)—a $50 million loan fund dedicated to supporting small and midsize businesses across Hampton and Newport News.
Formally announced on June 20, 2025, the PCF is the latest in a series of targeted investments by City First Bank, which has a long track record of channeling capital into underserved and underinvested communities nationwide. The initiative aims to close persistent gaps in access to financing by offering flexible capital, technical assistance, and strategic business matchmaking, particularly for entrepreneurs of color, women-owned enterprises, and long-standing local businesses.
City First Bank has consistently focused on fostering economic equity by financing high-impact projects in healthcare, education, housing, and small business development. Through its New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) authority—totaling more than $543 million—the bank has supported over 50 major developments across the country, leveraging more than $1.6 billion in total project costs. Its affiliate, City First New Markets Fund II, LLC, specializes in helping businesses and nonprofits scale through strategic, mission-aligned capital.
With its headquarters in Washington, D.C., City First Bank serves urban communities throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Southern California, including the District of Columbia, Baltimore, and greater Los Angeles. These areas share a common need for inclusive, place-based investment strategies that respond to systemic disinvestment.
The Peninsula Cooperative Fund reflects that same mission, bringing capital and capacity-building to a region long identified as a “CDFI desert”—an area with significantly lower per-capita investment from community development financial institutions. The fund will prioritize growth industries such as defense, technology, food systems, and advanced manufacturing, with the goal of not just financing businesses but making them contract-ready for larger procurement pipelines.
In Hampton, city leaders have embraced the fund as a cornerstone of inclusive economic development. Officials see it as a tool to generate generational wealth, improve health and employment outcomes, and strengthen the local business ecosystem.
City First Bank’s role goes beyond lending. As a Certified B Corporation, Public Benefit Corporation, and CDFI, the bank integrates environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards into its operations. Its leadership team and board are majority African American, and it remains one of only two publicly traded financial institutions structured as benefit corporations.
By establishing the Peninsula Cooperative Fund in partnership with the Greater Peninsula C.A.R.E.S. Foundation and local governments, City First Bank continues its mission to build economic opportunity from the ground up—one community at a time.
A Hampton Daily contributor produced this post using AI and these sources:
Hampton civic alert - Peninsula Cooperative Fund (PCF)
Hampton Peninsula Cooperative Fund (PCF) presentation
City First Bank - about us
City First Bank - social impact affiliations
City First Bank - new market tax credits
City First Bank - locations
City First Bank - developer toolkit