$250M CLIMBER Fund (Colorado Loans for Increasing Main street Business Recovery)

The Program: The program would create a fund of $250M to provide loan capital for small businesses in Colorado. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) or a private entity with the necessary capacity and expertise would manage the fund. The fund would purchase participation in eligible loans from eligible lenders in the state. The state would provide $50M in first-loss capital over two fiscal years. Members of the financial services subcommittee of the Governor’s Council on Economic Stabilization and Growth would raise additional risk-mitigation capital from philanthropic organizations. The balance of the capital would be developed from return-based investors, including community development lenders. The program would have a 5 member oversight board. The goal of the fund is to preserve at-risk jobs at existing small businesses across Colorado that had a track record of success and were financially solvent and liquid prior to the COVID 19 crisis (and therefore have a strong potential for recovering with additional debt capital provided on reasonable terms) but that have been pushed into distress by the crisis.  The loans will be used to supply working capital to these businesses.