Inducted:2013
Dunn is a leader in cooperative financing, devising innovative products and methods that are useful to the entire co-op economy. During her twenty-six year tenure, the Fund has grown from $130,000 to almost $15 million, expanded from lending mostly to food co-ops to all types of co-ops, and never lost an investor dollar. Her skills in banking, communication, and borrower relations and development, her steady recruitment and training of outreach workers, her inclusive decision-making, her ability to innovate to address diverse and multiple needs, and her dedication to the co-op model have been instrumental in starting many co-ops throughout New England. Most recently, she was responsible for CFNE's selection as one of 20 recipients nationally of the Small Business Administration's pilot Intermediary Lending Program (ILP), a first use of SBA funds for the benefit of cooperatives.