Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartMedia presents CEOs you should know. Cindy Rourke is the
Chief executive Officer of Climb Fund. With twenty plus years
of experience in the banking world and as a longtime
member of the Charleston community, Cindy is deeply dedicated to
growing the local economy. Since joining Clime Fund in two
thousand and eight as a loan officer, she has steadily
(00:21):
progressed through the ranks, taking on roles such as Director
of Lending and Business Development before assuming her current position
as CEO. In addition to her role at climb Fund,
Cindy proudly serves as a board member for several organizations,
including the Community First Land Trust, South Carolina Community Capital Alliance,
(00:42):
and the USC Region of Small Business Development Center. Welcome
Cindy Rourke, Thank you for having me well, thank you
for being here today. First off, let's explain to our
listeners what clime Fund is in what it does.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Sure, thank you. Climb Fund is a certified CDFI or
Community Development Financial Institution. What that means is we're a
financial institution. We are a small business lender, but we
are here primarily for community development. We are here to
provide economic assistance to communities that have traditionally been left behind,
(01:21):
and to startups and restaurants, retail things that banks have
a really hard time lending to.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Now, there's certainly several advantages, but what are some of
the unique challenges that you face while you're helping these
small businesses and while you're trying to grow the local economy.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So a lot of our small business applicants are first
time business borrowers, first time business owners. And we are
secret sauce, if you will, is our technical assistance that
we provide the business consultation services. So we're very very
slow to decline. We're very very flexible in our underwriting guidelines.
(02:02):
We understand that risk is a thing, and we have
to have appropriate risks both for the borrower as well
as for the climb fund. But we get to be
creative and we get to give them a clear road
map in order to get to a loan approval.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Now, you guys, concentrate on bipock and for people that
don't know what that is, please explain to the listeners
what bipock is.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Sure, So, as I said, we are targeting specific communities
that have been left behind. So bipack is black, Indigenous
and people of color, people that have been systematically prohibited
from accumulating wealth in the past.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
What are some of the businesses that you've helped to
give an example of you know what would be a
good candidate for your help?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh gosh, there are so many. The first one that
pops to mind is have you ever had a salad
at Verde? One of the salad restaurants m But for
this organization, Verdi may very well not exist. When the
business owners, a husband and wife, came to climb Fund,
they had never owned a business before, had very little
(03:07):
restaurant experience before, but they are super smart and they
hired a consultant. They well, they saw the concept in
the Northeast, so they came back to Charleston, hired a consultant,
developed an amazing business plan. Clemb Fund assisted them trying
to find a location. They finally found their flagship on
(03:29):
King Street. We funded the loan. When they were ready
to open in West Ashley, clem Fund was there again.
But by the time they got to Mount Pleasant they
didn't need this any longer because clem Fund only lends
two small businesses that banks won't, and by that time
they were so successful. Banks were fighting over them. And
now Verde has another store in Mount Pleasant, a store
(03:50):
in Columbia, one in Charlotte. Their amazing team and we're very,
very proud to have been part of their story.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Now, do you work in conjunction with SPA, the Small
Business Administration? We do.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
The SBA is our most important partner, if you will.
We have been an SBA micro loan inter mediary since
its inception in the early nineties. How that works is
we borrow funds and then we relend those funds back out.
The SBA doesn't have to say so in who we
lend to. There's some restrictions on what the funds can
(04:25):
be used for, but it's very flexible. With that comes
grant funds, and those grants are to provide that technical assistance,
that business consult consultation services. It allows us to help
them with a business plan, help them with marketing, help
them with bookkeeping, general business consultants. And because we have
(04:46):
so many restaurants, we have a food and beverage consultant.
Because we have so many truck drivers, we have a
logistics consultant. And then we have a wide variety of
past borrowers that provide technical assis instance themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Now, I was reading some interesting statistics off of your website.
You made one hundred and nine loans in twenty twenty three.
Sixty percent of those loans were made to BIPOC owned
small businesses. One hundred percent of veteran owned small businesses
were also BIPOC. Thirty two percent of your funds went
(05:21):
to businesses located in rural areas, So let's talk about
that a little bit. So the growth that is needed
in these rural areas, a lot of times there's no
capital funds available for that. So you guys play an
important role in the growth of rural communities, don't you.
We do.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Indeed, we have a relationship with the USDA and their
Small Business Lending program, so they are also referral partners
for us, and you know, we understand a little bit
about rural lending. I think our first farm loan was
to a local oyster company, and that's when I learned
that it takes eighteen months for little oysters to grow up.
(06:02):
So we were able to creatively make this loan where
no payments were due for the first eighteen months of
the farm's existence, so they could start selling their.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Oysters, so that would be known as an aquaculture business.
And you know farm to table, whether it be aquaculture
or agriculture or even you know things like wineries and
things like that. There's a big movement for local products
at the same time that farmers are hurting. So do
(06:32):
you find that you have a lot of small farmers
approaching you for help?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
We really haven't had a lot of the small farmers.
But one of our great success stories is James London
and Chubby Fish. James came to the Climb Fund with
a business plan on solely surrendered on making relationships with
local fishermen. So his menu daily is crafted by whatever
(06:59):
the fishermen caught that morning, So we're supporting the local
fishermen that way. But also he has created an amazing
destination spot and has trained so many amazing chefs alongside him.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now, if there's anybody listening that is struggling to start
a business, maybe denied funds from a traditional financial institution,
what should they do to approach you?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thank you. All of our borrowers have been declined traditional
credit in some way. It could be that they were
approved for some or not enough. A lot of banks
really like owner occupied real estate, but they get a
little soft on what we think is the most important,
the working capital part. So we will go with a
(07:48):
bank to the same closing table and the bank will
fund the real estate, we will fund the working capital
and it just makes it a stronger business because it
has the capital it needs. But if you're not a
bank candidate, your startup, your concept is something that banks
have an avoidance too. We recommend starting with one of
our partners, the Small Business Development Center SBDC, SCORE the
(08:13):
Women's Business Center now Charleston has a veteran's business center
and really perfect the business plan. Once the business plan
is ready to be seen, we have a dedicated intake
specialist that will help our clients build an application package
because again usually their first time, so they may not
(08:35):
understand a personal financial statement of why we need what document,
and so they are there to help them complete application
package before it gets to underwriting.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, I remember the first time I had to do
a business plan and even to this day, I still
struggle when you go through because you're like, what is
it that they want to seek? It's like doing a resume, right,
You think, well, I can lay out all of my
attributes here, But am I doing this in a form
that is going to make a connection and am I
giving them the right information?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
We understand that, and that's why we have monthly sometimes
buy monthly application workshops where we give true clarity on
exactly what we need to see in the business plan
and it is live, so we take questions and answers.
But if they just want to talk to a loan officer,
we do have a button on our website that they
(09:27):
can book an hour time and one on one with
lun officer to ask questions that they are not comfortable
asking in the group setting.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Now, I think it's fantastic that there's these resources available
that traditionally have not been available to startups and especially
struggling startups. How long have you guys been around?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So I like to joke that we have been Charleston's longest,
greatest secret. We've been around since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And we have been certified as a CDFI as long
as the Cdfive Fund has existed and was certifying them,
so somewhere somewhere in the early eighties, I believe, but
we were created by the City of Charleston and for
the longest time this organization served the Peninsula Charleston and
then Charleston Proper and then Charleston County. When I joined,
(10:16):
we were serving Berkeley, Dorchester and Colton County. So we've
grown since then, and we are now trying to tell
the world, well not the world South Carolina, that the
Climb Fund is here and we are here to assist
small businesses entrepreneurship to really create generational wealth and again
(10:40):
and particularly in those communities where they've been prohibited to
do so.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, and maybe you should share it with the world
because it seems to me there's a whole lot of
areas that could use your success as an example.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So there are a few one hundred CDFIs around the
country that do work just like Climb Fund and in
South Carolina. And there's two other CDFIs that do great
affordable housing work. So we're not alone in this fight.
But you're right, there needs to be more of us.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, and let's shift gears a little bit and talk
more about you personally. Now, you started as a loan officer,
you worked your way up through the ranks, and now
you're CEO. How important do you think it is that
an inspiring CEO acquires experience at each level of their organization.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I think it's extremely important. I always asked this question
in a different way the other day about having a
view at street level and what you can see, and
then having a view at the at the eightieth floor
and in what you see then, and you know, I
want to make sure that I never lose the street
(11:45):
level view that I have great people surrounding me that
tells me what's going on in the streets. But I
also need to have that really high view, that five
year strategic plan view, so I can make sure that
we're heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, I think that's fantastic. I'm not sure if you
ever watched the show, but that show Undercover Boss. It's
amazing to me sometimes where these CEOs will go in
undercover and they learned these very important things that they
were not aware of. But I think that if they
would have started lower on the totem pole and work
their way up, that maybe they would have had a
(12:21):
little more awareness or been a little more involved as
CEO and learn these things before you know, they were
on a TV show to highlight it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I one hundred percent agree. However, I know we are
a twenty twenty one person organization. The people that I
have around me, I've requested that they are as honest
and they give us the observations. They don't hold it back,
because the only thing I don't want is a surprise.
(12:55):
I'd rather know about a problem than wait and hear
about how it was recovered.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right. Absolutely. Now, you serve on several interesting boards. Tell
us about your work with those organizations.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So the Community First Land Trust has done is doing
great things in Henrietta. Woward, their executive director, is just
a force in nature. I'm very fortunate to have a
seat at that board. They are dedicated to acquiring land
or homes in areas that particularly in areas that are
(13:28):
threatened to gentrification, to ensure that there remains affordable housing
in perpetuity, and they're doing a great job at that.
I also so Paul Featheringill, who is the head of
the SBDC and has a region in South Carolina, has
(13:48):
asked me to serve on the advisory board for the
Small Business Development Centers, and I'm very proud to give
back there because the SBDCs support our clients so much.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So you've worked your way up through the organization to
become CEO. You sit on several boards of these community organizations.
What's the philosophy that drives you each day? What's the
most important philosophy that you abide by.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, it sounds trite to say, I just want
to be able to give back. I fell into this
job quite accidentally. I came to Charleston and advertising and marketing.
A bank was one of my clients. I rose through
the ranks at the bank. In two thousand and eight,
someone I was bored at the bank that I was at,
and a friend of mine that I used to work with, said,
(14:38):
there's this organization that actually makes small business loans when
you never could at the bank. Why don't you come
do that for a couple of years. That sounds like fun,
And I did. And the problem is is that it
is fun. It is fun when you are able to
give hope where none existed, where you're able to give
(14:59):
support people have been let down in the past. It's
a lot of fun to watch businesses grow and families
grow and then but that's only half my job. The
other half of my job I have a team of
twenty twenty one employees. That's the other half of my job.
I need to make sure that they are able to grow,
(15:22):
that they have the support for professional development, that they
see a career path here. And so I'm really tasked
with a climb fund, but I'm also tasked with the
climb fund's most important assets, which is our team. And
so by helping both of those and then also assisting
partners in the same cause the same community that we're in,
(15:46):
makes me fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So I find that interesting where you said, you know,
and I would imagine the fulfillment you get. You know,
in a bank, it's a rather dry environment. It's profit driven,
and you know, in your organization, it seems to me
that it's more relationship and success oriented than it is
(16:09):
profit oriented, although profit's an important thing, of course, the
most important thing for a business.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So don't get me wrong. Staying at a bank would
have been more profitable for me, but only monetarily, right,
So I get so much more fulfillment from my job now.
We you know, being a nonprofit doesn't mean that we
don't make money. I am a good steward of our
organization and we are growing. But a real paycheck, if
(16:36):
you will, is being able to be excited to go
to work on a Monday morning. When I walk in
our offices on Monday, I hear laughter, I hear people
sharing stories. I hear people that are generally happy to
be in the organization because they know that they're doing
good work. Now, the work that we do is hard
(16:57):
because not everyone can get a loan. Some people just
aren't ready. Some people can bake the best pie in
the world, but they can't understand how to make money
with it, and so it's also hard job to protect
them to not invest their life savings until they know
how to run a profitable businesses. And so when you
have to tell people not yet, or if you have
(17:19):
to ultimately people tell people know, it's extremely stressful. It's
not lost on us that we have people's hopes and
dreams in our hands, and so we have to be
very careful on how we foster those. So, yeah, with stress,
you know, it can be hard, and so we try
to make our office as enjoyable as it can be.
(17:41):
But at the end of the day, it's those successes
that we have that we get to celebrate, that we
get to watch the businesses grow and thrive. And then
again when we have business owners that received loans twenty
years ago come back and offer to be a mentor
to a new startup restaurant or a new retail store.
(18:02):
That's super special to watch.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Now, how does it work with the funding of that.
Do any of these successful companies turn around and contribute
back to the program.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's a very good question this organization. You know, we
are fortunate, we're very old, and so over time we
have accumulated cash and but but we are growing faster
now than we ever have, and so money has always
been a forefront. We now have a development team that
is looking for every grant opportunity. We have some amazing
(18:36):
bank partners that have invested in us with long term capital,
and then we're always looking for operating grants. So the
answer your question is, we have never actually had a
fundraising campaign before, but it's about to start. So with
the number of employees that we have, we have grown
out of our building. It's a one story, four thousand
(18:58):
square foot building, and we have been as creative as
we can to create workspace, even taking out a water
cooler in order to create a cubicle. But that's over
and we're about to build a new building, and so
we'll be kicking off a capital campaign somewhere mid October
early November, and we'll be fundraising for the first time.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Well that's fantastic and I wish you luck in that endeavor.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Now, if anybody wants to find out more about climb
and your work, what you have a website? So what's
the website that people can go to to find out
more about you?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So the website is climbfund dot org. See how imb
a fund dot org. And then if you can follow
us on our socials, we're a hashtag climb fund. We're
on Facebook, Insta and about to be on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I believe now I failed to ask you. Does CLIMB
stand for anything? You know?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
This organization used to be called the Charleston Citywide Local
Development Corporation. That's a mouthful, sure, and local Development Corp
means something in the CDFI world, but it doesn't mean
anything to our clients. So for a while we were
just Charleston LDC. But when we went statewide in twenty
twenty one, we knew that we couldn't go to Greenville,
(20:14):
South Carolina and be the Charleston LDC. So we asked
some of our former borrowers and our partners, what are
some of the words that you think about when you
hear about the organization, And they said things like local
and impact, and so climb just felt like the right
word for us because we do help our clients climb economically,
(20:38):
building assets, those types of things. So CLIMB could stand
for the Charleston Local Impact Borrowing Fund, but really that
was stretching just to get an acronym. Our name is
climb Fund.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, that's great, and you do great work. And I'm
sure that there's you know, almost probably everybody in our
listening audience has been to a business that's been positively
impacted by Climb Fund at some point in their life
and did not even realize it. So keep up the
good work and thank you very much for your time today.
(21:11):
Climb Fund CEO Cindy Rourke, thank you. You've been listening
to iHeart Radio CEOs you should know heard every Tuesday
and Saturday morning right here on this iHeartRadio station.
iHeartMedia presents CEOs you should know. Cindy Rourke is the
Chief executive Officer of Climb Fund. With twenty plus years
of experience in the banking world and as a longtime
member of the Charleston community, Cindy is deeply dedicated to
growing the local economy. Since joining Clime Fund in two
thousand and eight as a loan officer, she has steadily
(00:21):
progressed through the ranks, taking on roles such as Director
of Lending and Business Development before assuming her current position
as CEO. In addition to her role at climb Fund,
Cindy proudly serves as a board member for several organizations,
including the Community First Land Trust, South Carolina Community Capital Alliance,
(00:42):
and the USC Region of Small Business Development Center. Welcome
Cindy Rourke, Thank you for having me well, thank you
for being here today. First off, let's explain to our
listeners what clime Fund is in what it does.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Sure, thank you. Climb Fund is a certified CDFI or
Community Development Financial Institution. What that means is we're a
financial institution. We are a small business lender, but we
are here primarily for community development. We are here to
provide economic assistance to communities that have traditionally been left behind,
(01:21):
and to startups and restaurants, retail things that banks have
a really hard time lending to.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Now, there's certainly several advantages, but what are some of
the unique challenges that you face while you're helping these
small businesses and while you're trying to grow the local economy.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So a lot of our small business applicants are first
time business borrowers, first time business owners. And we are
secret sauce, if you will, is our technical assistance that
we provide the business consultation services. So we're very very
slow to decline. We're very very flexible in our underwriting guidelines.
(02:02):
We understand that risk is a thing, and we have
to have appropriate risks both for the borrower as well
as for the climb fund. But we get to be
creative and we get to give them a clear road
map in order to get to a loan approval.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Now, you guys, concentrate on bipock and for people that
don't know what that is, please explain to the listeners
what bipock is.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Sure, So, as I said, we are targeting specific communities
that have been left behind. So bipack is black, Indigenous
and people of color, people that have been systematically prohibited
from accumulating wealth in the past.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
What are some of the businesses that you've helped to
give an example of you know what would be a
good candidate for your help?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh gosh, there are so many. The first one that
pops to mind is have you ever had a salad
at Verde? One of the salad restaurants m But for
this organization, Verdi may very well not exist. When the
business owners, a husband and wife, came to climb Fund,
they had never owned a business before, had very little
(03:07):
restaurant experience before, but they are super smart and they
hired a consultant. They well, they saw the concept in
the Northeast, so they came back to Charleston, hired a consultant,
developed an amazing business plan. Clemb Fund assisted them trying
to find a location. They finally found their flagship on
(03:29):
King Street. We funded the loan. When they were ready
to open in West Ashley, clem Fund was there again.
But by the time they got to Mount Pleasant they
didn't need this any longer because clem Fund only lends
two small businesses that banks won't, and by that time
they were so successful. Banks were fighting over them. And
now Verde has another store in Mount Pleasant, a store
(03:50):
in Columbia, one in Charlotte. Their amazing team and we're very,
very proud to have been part of their story.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Now, do you work in conjunction with SPA, the Small
Business Administration? We do.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
The SBA is our most important partner, if you will.
We have been an SBA micro loan inter mediary since
its inception in the early nineties. How that works is
we borrow funds and then we relend those funds back out.
The SBA doesn't have to say so in who we
lend to. There's some restrictions on what the funds can
(04:25):
be used for, but it's very flexible. With that comes
grant funds, and those grants are to provide that technical assistance,
that business consult consultation services. It allows us to help
them with a business plan, help them with marketing, help
them with bookkeeping, general business consultants. And because we have
(04:46):
so many restaurants, we have a food and beverage consultant.
Because we have so many truck drivers, we have a
logistics consultant. And then we have a wide variety of
past borrowers that provide technical assis instance themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Now, I was reading some interesting statistics off of your website.
You made one hundred and nine loans in twenty twenty three.
Sixty percent of those loans were made to BIPOC owned
small businesses. One hundred percent of veteran owned small businesses
were also BIPOC. Thirty two percent of your funds went
(05:21):
to businesses located in rural areas, So let's talk about
that a little bit. So the growth that is needed
in these rural areas, a lot of times there's no
capital funds available for that. So you guys play an
important role in the growth of rural communities, don't you.
We do.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Indeed, we have a relationship with the USDA and their
Small Business Lending program, so they are also referral partners
for us, and you know, we understand a little bit
about rural lending. I think our first farm loan was
to a local oyster company, and that's when I learned
that it takes eighteen months for little oysters to grow up.
(06:02):
So we were able to creatively make this loan where
no payments were due for the first eighteen months of
the farm's existence, so they could start selling their.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Oysters, so that would be known as an aquaculture business.
And you know farm to table, whether it be aquaculture
or agriculture or even you know things like wineries and
things like that. There's a big movement for local products
at the same time that farmers are hurting. So do
(06:32):
you find that you have a lot of small farmers
approaching you for help?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
We really haven't had a lot of the small farmers.
But one of our great success stories is James London
and Chubby Fish. James came to the Climb Fund with
a business plan on solely surrendered on making relationships with
local fishermen. So his menu daily is crafted by whatever
(06:59):
the fishermen caught that morning, So we're supporting the local
fishermen that way. But also he has created an amazing
destination spot and has trained so many amazing chefs alongside him.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Now, if there's anybody listening that is struggling to start
a business, maybe denied funds from a traditional financial institution,
what should they do to approach you?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Thank you. All of our borrowers have been declined traditional
credit in some way. It could be that they were
approved for some or not enough. A lot of banks
really like owner occupied real estate, but they get a
little soft on what we think is the most important,
the working capital part. So we will go with a
(07:48):
bank to the same closing table and the bank will
fund the real estate, we will fund the working capital
and it just makes it a stronger business because it
has the capital it needs. But if you're not a
bank candidate, your startup, your concept is something that banks
have an avoidance too. We recommend starting with one of
our partners, the Small Business Development Center SBDC, SCORE the
(08:13):
Women's Business Center now Charleston has a veteran's business center
and really perfect the business plan. Once the business plan
is ready to be seen, we have a dedicated intake
specialist that will help our clients build an application package
because again usually their first time, so they may not
(08:35):
understand a personal financial statement of why we need what document,
and so they are there to help them complete application
package before it gets to underwriting.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, I remember the first time I had to do
a business plan and even to this day, I still
struggle when you go through because you're like, what is
it that they want to seek? It's like doing a resume, right,
You think, well, I can lay out all of my
attributes here, But am I doing this in a form
that is going to make a connection and am I
giving them the right information?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
We understand that, and that's why we have monthly sometimes
buy monthly application workshops where we give true clarity on
exactly what we need to see in the business plan
and it is live, so we take questions and answers.
But if they just want to talk to a loan officer,
we do have a button on our website that they
(09:27):
can book an hour time and one on one with
lun officer to ask questions that they are not comfortable
asking in the group setting.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Now, I think it's fantastic that there's these resources available
that traditionally have not been available to startups and especially
struggling startups. How long have you guys been around?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
So I like to joke that we have been Charleston's longest,
greatest secret. We've been around since nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
And we have been certified as a CDFI as long
as the Cdfive Fund has existed and was certifying them,
so somewhere somewhere in the early eighties, I believe, but
we were created by the City of Charleston and for
the longest time this organization served the Peninsula Charleston and
then Charleston Proper and then Charleston County. When I joined,
(10:16):
we were serving Berkeley, Dorchester and Colton County. So we've
grown since then, and we are now trying to tell
the world, well not the world South Carolina, that the
Climb Fund is here and we are here to assist
small businesses entrepreneurship to really create generational wealth and again
(10:40):
and particularly in those communities where they've been prohibited to
do so.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Yeah, and maybe you should share it with the world
because it seems to me there's a whole lot of
areas that could use your success as an example.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So there are a few one hundred CDFIs around the
country that do work just like Climb Fund and in
South Carolina. And there's two other CDFIs that do great
affordable housing work. So we're not alone in this fight.
But you're right, there needs to be more of us.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, and let's shift gears a little bit and talk
more about you personally. Now, you started as a loan officer,
you worked your way up through the ranks, and now
you're CEO. How important do you think it is that
an inspiring CEO acquires experience at each level of their organization.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I think it's extremely important. I always asked this question
in a different way the other day about having a
view at street level and what you can see, and
then having a view at the at the eightieth floor
and in what you see then, and you know, I
want to make sure that I never lose the street
(11:45):
level view that I have great people surrounding me that
tells me what's going on in the streets. But I
also need to have that really high view, that five
year strategic plan view, so I can make sure that
we're heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, I think that's fantastic. I'm not sure if you
ever watched the show, but that show Undercover Boss. It's
amazing to me sometimes where these CEOs will go in
undercover and they learned these very important things that they
were not aware of. But I think that if they
would have started lower on the totem pole and work
their way up, that maybe they would have had a
(12:21):
little more awareness or been a little more involved as
CEO and learn these things before you know, they were
on a TV show to highlight it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I one hundred percent agree. However, I know we are
a twenty twenty one person organization. The people that I
have around me, I've requested that they are as honest
and they give us the observations. They don't hold it back,
because the only thing I don't want is a surprise.
(12:55):
I'd rather know about a problem than wait and hear
about how it was recovered.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Right. Absolutely. Now, you serve on several interesting boards. Tell
us about your work with those organizations.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So the Community First Land Trust has done is doing
great things in Henrietta. Woward, their executive director, is just
a force in nature. I'm very fortunate to have a
seat at that board. They are dedicated to acquiring land
or homes in areas that particularly in areas that are
(13:28):
threatened to gentrification, to ensure that there remains affordable housing
in perpetuity, and they're doing a great job at that.
I also so Paul Featheringill, who is the head of
the SBDC and has a region in South Carolina, has
(13:48):
asked me to serve on the advisory board for the
Small Business Development Centers, and I'm very proud to give
back there because the SBDCs support our clients so much.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
So you've worked your way up through the organization to
become CEO. You sit on several boards of these community organizations.
What's the philosophy that drives you each day? What's the
most important philosophy that you abide by.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know, it sounds trite to say, I just want
to be able to give back. I fell into this
job quite accidentally. I came to Charleston and advertising and marketing.
A bank was one of my clients. I rose through
the ranks at the bank. In two thousand and eight,
someone I was bored at the bank that I was at,
and a friend of mine that I used to work with, said,
(14:38):
there's this organization that actually makes small business loans when
you never could at the bank. Why don't you come
do that for a couple of years. That sounds like fun,
And I did. And the problem is is that it
is fun. It is fun when you are able to
give hope where none existed, where you're able to give
(14:59):
support people have been let down in the past. It's
a lot of fun to watch businesses grow and families
grow and then but that's only half my job. The
other half of my job I have a team of
twenty twenty one employees. That's the other half of my job.
I need to make sure that they are able to grow,
(15:22):
that they have the support for professional development, that they
see a career path here. And so I'm really tasked
with a climb fund, but I'm also tasked with the
climb fund's most important assets, which is our team. And
so by helping both of those and then also assisting
partners in the same cause the same community that we're in,
(15:46):
makes me fulfilled.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
So I find that interesting where you said, you know,
and I would imagine the fulfillment you get. You know,
in a bank, it's a rather dry environment. It's profit driven,
and you know, in your organization, it seems to me
that it's more relationship and success oriented than it is
(16:09):
profit oriented, although profit's an important thing, of course, the
most important thing for a business.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So don't get me wrong. Staying at a bank would
have been more profitable for me, but only monetarily, right,
So I get so much more fulfillment from my job now.
We you know, being a nonprofit doesn't mean that we
don't make money. I am a good steward of our
organization and we are growing. But a real paycheck, if
(16:36):
you will, is being able to be excited to go
to work on a Monday morning. When I walk in
our offices on Monday, I hear laughter, I hear people
sharing stories. I hear people that are generally happy to
be in the organization because they know that they're doing
good work. Now, the work that we do is hard
(16:57):
because not everyone can get a loan. Some people just
aren't ready. Some people can bake the best pie in
the world, but they can't understand how to make money
with it, and so it's also hard job to protect
them to not invest their life savings until they know
how to run a profitable businesses. And so when you
have to tell people not yet, or if you have
(17:19):
to ultimately people tell people know, it's extremely stressful. It's
not lost on us that we have people's hopes and
dreams in our hands, and so we have to be
very careful on how we foster those. So, yeah, with stress,
you know, it can be hard, and so we try
to make our office as enjoyable as it can be.
(17:41):
But at the end of the day, it's those successes
that we have that we get to celebrate, that we
get to watch the businesses grow and thrive. And then
again when we have business owners that received loans twenty
years ago come back and offer to be a mentor
to a new startup restaurant or a new retail store.
(18:02):
That's super special to watch.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Now, how does it work with the funding of that.
Do any of these successful companies turn around and contribute
back to the program.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's a very good question this organization. You know, we
are fortunate, we're very old, and so over time we
have accumulated cash and but but we are growing faster
now than we ever have, and so money has always
been a forefront. We now have a development team that
is looking for every grant opportunity. We have some amazing
(18:36):
bank partners that have invested in us with long term capital,
and then we're always looking for operating grants. So the
answer your question is, we have never actually had a
fundraising campaign before, but it's about to start. So with
the number of employees that we have, we have grown
out of our building. It's a one story, four thousand
(18:58):
square foot building, and we have been as creative as
we can to create workspace, even taking out a water
cooler in order to create a cubicle. But that's over
and we're about to build a new building, and so
we'll be kicking off a capital campaign somewhere mid October
early November, and we'll be fundraising for the first time.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Well that's fantastic and I wish you luck in that endeavor.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Now, if anybody wants to find out more about climb
and your work, what you have a website? So what's
the website that people can go to to find out
more about you?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
So the website is climbfund dot org. See how imb
a fund dot org. And then if you can follow
us on our socials, we're a hashtag climb fund. We're
on Facebook, Insta and about to be on TikTok.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I believe now I failed to ask you. Does CLIMB
stand for anything? You know?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
This organization used to be called the Charleston Citywide Local
Development Corporation. That's a mouthful, sure, and local Development Corp
means something in the CDFI world, but it doesn't mean
anything to our clients. So for a while we were
just Charleston LDC. But when we went statewide in twenty
twenty one, we knew that we couldn't go to Greenville,
(20:14):
South Carolina and be the Charleston LDC. So we asked
some of our former borrowers and our partners, what are
some of the words that you think about when you
hear about the organization, And they said things like local
and impact, and so climb just felt like the right
word for us because we do help our clients climb economically,
(20:38):
building assets, those types of things. So CLIMB could stand
for the Charleston Local Impact Borrowing Fund, but really that
was stretching just to get an acronym. Our name is
climb Fund.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Well, that's great, and you do great work. And I'm
sure that there's you know, almost probably everybody in our
listening audience has been to a business that's been positively
impacted by Climb Fund at some point in their life
and did not even realize it. So keep up the
good work and thank you very much for your time today.
(21:11):
Climb Fund CEO Cindy Rourke, thank you. You've been listening
to iHeart Radio CEOs you should know heard every Tuesday
and Saturday morning right here on this iHeartRadio station.
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