Fifth Third Exceeds Five-Year Community Commitment, Achieves $41.6 Billion in Support Against $32 Billion Goal - Seite 2

Executive Vice President Kala Gibson, chief enterprise corporate responsibility officer and head of Business Banking, said, “I salute our community partners as well as the Bank’s employees whose tireless work these past five years has made all the difference. This Community Commitment marks a significant turning point for how we approach community support and outreach. It has helped inform major new initiatives like the $2.8 billion Accelerating Racial Equality, Equity and Inclusion initiative announced in 2020 and pioneered a new model for community support with our first neighborhood adoption in Detroit in 2019.”

The Community Commitment results included:

Mortgage lending: 16.2 billion

Fifth Third has delivered $16.2 billion in mortgage lending since 2016, exceeding the goal of $11.2 billion. Under the Commitment, the Bank specifically worked to address the lack of affordable housing in communities within its footprint and created a new down payment assistance program. There are now more than 4,500 new homeowners thanks to the program, which offers 3% of the purchase price, up to $7,500, for the purchase of a property in a low-income census tract or for borrowers who meet certain income requirements. The DPA also can be combined with other state and local programs. Since the program’s inception, Fifth Third has provided over $14.9 million in DPA assistance.**

Small business: $12.7 billion

The Bank has delivered $12.7 billion in small business lending under the Commitment, exceeding the 11.1 billion* goal. In addition to lending and lines of credit, the Bank provided capital and technical assistance to small businesses, especially those that are minority- and women-owned. The Fifth Third Foundation made grants to more than 50 Black, woman entrepreneurs and the businesses they support in Atlanta, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Louisville, Nashville and Orlando through its new $1.2 million Innovation Meets Main Street program. The Bank also helped hundreds of small business owners of color through its combined investment of $5.5 million in Entrepreneurs of Color Funds in Chicago and Detroit. Fifth Third also partnered with Community Reinvestment Fund USA to create the Capital to Build Capacity program, which was designed to improve and increase lending opportunities for small business owners and resource providers. Over the last five years, the Fifth Third Foundation and Fifth Third Bank have enabled over 1,000 underserved entrepreneurs get access to over $13 million in capital and other technical assistance through support of Accion, a global nonprofit.