Fifth Third New Markets Development Company has secured a $50 million New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) allocation from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. As a subsidiary of the Fifth Third Community Development Company, LLC (CDC), the company is among 104 community development organizations nationwide to receive part of the $5 billion allocation, announced on September 19.
 
“Our mission at Fifth Third CDC is to support low-income areas within our footprint that have long faced disinvestment, wealth extraction, and income inequalities,” said Kala Gibson, chief corporate responsibility officer at Fifth Third. “With programs like our place-based neighborhood investment initiative, we’ve been able to inject capital into these communities to bolster existing assets and overcome barriers to economic mobility. This new allocation will allow our Community Development Banking team and Fifth Third CDC to significantly expand our impact.”
 
The NMTC Program encourages private investments in economically challenged communities by offering federal tax incentives that help close financing gaps, making larger investments feasible. These investments stimulate job creation in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and technology, while also enhancing access to housing and public services like healthcare, education, and childcare.
 
Fifth Third CDC plays a pivotal role in real estate investments across the bank’s 11-state region, fostering community growth through projects like affordable housing, small business facilities, and essential community centers. These efforts often provide residents with critical services, including financial education, social programs, and recreational spaces.
 
“This allocation underscores the national recognition of Fifth Third’s innovative approach to neighborhood-scale community development,” said Susan E. Thomas, president of Fifth Third CDC. “For the communities where we are actively involved, this funding provides us with an additional tool to channel capital where it’s most needed.”
 
Thomas further emphasized that NMTCs are particularly effective for revitalizing neighborhoods. “As we’ve expanded our place-based development efforts, the absence of NMTCs in our toolkit was limiting our full potential to serve these communities,” she said.
 
Fifth Third CDC has substantial experience in the NMTC program, participating as both an equity investor and leverage lender. It collaborates with Community Development Entities (CDEs), which focus on low-income communities, to finance qualifying projects. Recent investments include Cincinnati’s CityLink Center, mHUB in Chicago, and AVW Equipment in Maywood, Illinois.
 
Community economic development is central to Fifth Third’s Neighborhood Program, which implements place-based strategies aimed at creating positive change in nine historically underserved neighborhoods within its operational footprint. Since its launch in 2021, the program has introduced a new model for community development by partnering with local organizations to build ecosystems that drive both financial and social investments, addressing community challenges through collective solutions.
 
In December 2023, Fifth Third revealed that its initial $180 million, three-year commitment to the Neighborhood Program had been surpassed ahead of schedule, reaching $187 million in just two years. The bank has since extended technical support for the program through 2025 to ensure sustained progress and lasting impact.

During the holiday season, many families gather around plates of their favorite treats, baked cookies. Many children learn to cut cookies from hand-rolled dough and decorate them with festive themes by watching and helping their parents... a tradition that is passed down to the next generation.

Meryl Kennedy-favorite Farr's cookie is oatmeal chocolate chip, a treat her mother began to enjoy while pregnant with her. "Perhaps there's something to that," she smiled. And, through her company, Neighbors Cookies, based in West Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, Kennedy-Farr has been bringing cookie dough to many families all year long, especially during the holiday season.

“The act of making cookies is an act of love – we give cookies to those who we love, someone who’s sick and needs support, or someone you want to say thank you to,” says Kennedy-Farr, who’s 34 years old.

In 2016, Kennedy-Farr saw an opportunity and had the resources to save a failing community business — a cookie company that had been a fixture in the community for nearly two decades. With years of food industry experience, she was well-versed in the manufacturing and packaging of a food product. She was the youngest of four daughters, born and raised on her family's rice farm in Mer Rouge, 30 miles from West Monroe, which her father, Elton Kennedy, founded in the 1960s. She became her father's assistant at the age of 21 and, a decade later, president of the family's agriculture business.

When the West Monroe cookie dough factory was on the verge of closing in 2016, Meryl purchased it and renamed it Neighbors, LLC. Her grandfather, the town minister, used to refer to the town's residents and parishioners as "neighbors," "because neighbors are an integral part of communities."

Neighbors was primarily a fundraising company at the time of the acquisition. Today, it has expanded into an online private label, co-manufacturing, and brand licencing for large CPG brands and grocery stores nationwide. One-third of its revenue is still generated by the production of cookie dough for fundraising channels used by sports teams, schools, and church groups.

Kennedy-Farr recognized the need to automate one of their production lines in 2021 in order to increase production volume. The community investment and tax credit subsidiary of US Bank, US Bancorp Community Development Corporation (USBCDC), partnered with Advantage Capital to provide Neighbors with a $3,500,000 New Markets Tax Credits investment to help her purchase the equipment she required.

Since then, the financing has enabled Neighbors to increase its output by 20%, allowing it to add 15 quality jobs and an additional eight-hour shift to its operations.

“With these exciting improvements, we have brought even more jobs to our community and with these continued investments in our employees, business and community, we expect even more growth as we enter 2023,” she explained.

West Monroe has 13,000 residents, 35% of whom are white, 35% are black, and nearly 6% are Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The company currently employs at least 150 people, with people of color accounting for more than half of the workforce. Neighbor's offers quality jobs with an average hourly wage of $20.23 and benefits such as health insurance and paid time off.

“U.S. Bank believes everyone deserves to live in a thriving community with access to opportunity and the ability to achieve financial stability,” said Tracey G. Lowell, business development officer at USBCDC. “Helping Neighbors grow and create jobs is changing the lives of the individuals who work here, and helps the entire community thrive.”

Furthermore, Neighbor's provides employee training, and more than 80% of the company's positions are open to those with a high school diploma. Many of the employees are former incarcerated women and people who live in the area's shelters.

“We believe in Meryl’s vision for the company, which is not only about the product they produce, but also how they support the local community,” said Justin Obletz, managing director and CFO at Advantage Capital. “Neighbors is having a great impact in a distressed community that needs access to quality jobs.”

Neighbors has received several awards including the Thomas H. Scott Large Business of the Year award from the Ouachita Chamber of Commerce for its contributions to the Ouachita Parish economy.

“I am very proud of the economic impact we have had as a company in a very underprivileged area of the country, added Kennedy-Farr. “Our mission is to make sure that everyone in our company regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion has a work home where they feel safe to contribute and thrive.”

This holiday season, as in previous years, families will scoop out dozens of little balls of dough to make the perfect cookie to share with loved ones.

"The holiday season should be about sharing neighborly love,” said Kennedy-Farr. “We can go a long way with small acts of kindness by sharing cookies and caring for one another.”