Overview of Products

Schaeffing shared that High Impact is an impact lending consultancy that has served the industry since 2014, with several business lines including underwriting individual transactions, primarily for real estate lending; managing loan portfolios, particularly for smaller lenders; and implementing High Impact Portfolio Analytics, a technology solution to help CDFIs bring multiple streams of data into dashboards. High Impact Portfolio Analytics brings together data from loan servicing systems, accounting systems, internal spreadsheets, and other sources into a single platform to aggregate the data and make it more accessible for reporting, compliance, as well as decision making.

How does the product fit into the work cycle of a CDFI?

High Impact Portfolio Analytics supports the management and oversight functions of a CDFI. Schaeffing shared that primary users tend to be decision makers, such as a Chief Lending Officer, Executive Director, or Chief Financial Officer and others who may need to view aggregated data on the organization’s activities. It is also helpful for reporting and compliance purposes.

Are there other systems that your product works with? How does the product integrate with other platforms and systems?

High Impact Portfolio Analytics is based in Microsoft Power BI, which has built-in integrations with the Microsoft Office suite. High Impact’s primary strength is in aggregating data from other sources and putting it into useful formats and relies on data uploads from other systems a CDFI may be using. The primary issue that High Impact Portfolio Analytics solves is that many CDFIs’ critical data lives in separate databases that do not interact easily. High Impact Portfolio Analytics brings this data into one platform without time-consuming and expensive integrations. Schaeffing notes that also allows High Impact to be a lower-cost solution for many smaller and mid-market CDFIs who are looking for new insights from their data without investing in end-to-end systems.

What does onboarding generally look like?

High Impact begins its process with pre-onboarding to evaluate the organization’s existing data and its formats. This helps to ensure that High Impact will be a good solution for the CDFI prior to substantial work. This process typically takes two weeks for High Impact staff to review the data quality and complexity and then plan for official onboarding. Typically, the process of preparing data and dashboards for the process takes three to six months. This allows time for High Impact to prepare data and to work with clients to create dashboards and metrics that meet their needs.

What support and training are offered?

High Impact Portfolio Analytics is based in Microsoft Power BI, which Schaeffing notes is a relatively intuitive interface to interact with. Clients do not need to learn how to input data or structure dashboards, as the High Impact team has an ongoing relationship with clients. Clients provide data to the High Impact team monthly in a raw format, and High Impact cleans the data and transforms it for readability by the Power BI model. There are also opportunities to discuss and build out dashboards. As clients’ products change or investors request new metrics, new dashboards can be created to meet their needs.

What makes adoption successful? What do you wish CDFIs knew before they began an implementation?

Schaeffing noted that pre-work is an important part of the implementation process. High Impact staff work with potential clients to understand if their data is a good fit for the platform before taking on an engagement to ensure the final product is of use. He also noted that in order to have high quality information come out of the dashboards, the client team needs to be focused on collecting good quality, complete data on an ongoing basis.

What types of CDFIs use High Impact – are there some that are a better fit?

While High Impact serves CDFIs of all sizes across its lines of business, small to mid-sized CDFIs are often the best fit for High Impact Portfolio Analytics. CDFIs should have a moderate loan volume (generally at least 30 loans) so that data becomes meaningful when aggregated into the dashboards. The product is a good fit for CDFIs that are not interested in or are unable to attain a high-level or API driven integration. Schaeffing noted that High Impact is a lightweight solution, which allows for easier implementation and significantly lower costs, while still helping CDFIs better access and understand their data.

What integrations or reports does your tech solution allow for in terms of CDFI reporting, CDFI certification, or other data requirements?

While not built in, the High Impact Portfolio Analytics platform can have dashboards built out that produces the data needed to meet reporting needs.

How has the CDFI industry changed in recent years and where do you think the industry is going, in terms of technology?

Schaeffing has observed an increase in the number of CDFIs and the capital available to them. Along with this, there has been an increase in providers serving the space. Schaeffing anticipates that this will continue to increase, but anticipates that it will take time for new providers to develop services that allow for the extreme flexibility that the CDFI sector currently requires.