Over 17 years ago, Virginia Community Capital began with a mission to create jobs, enhance the quality of life, and promote vibrancy in Virginia’s historically excluded communities. Since our inception, we have partnered across the Commonwealth and beyond to support communities where the capital system is not working for people with low incomes, people in rural communities, people of color, and women.
Our work so far has enabled our partners to create and retain new jobs, develop affordable housing units, address food insecurity, produce solar energy, and so much more. Most importantly, it has shown us what’s possible when an institution like ours centers place and community-led solutions.
Earlier this year, we completed a strategic planning process to explore our organization’s next phase. During this exercise, we realized that aligning our lines of business under one unified organization would allow us to bring our collective resources, knowledge, and network to everything that we do. We’ve thoughtfully connected our bank, loan fund, fund management and advisory services so that we may offer our full suite of innovative products and services as resources in every partnership.
In addition, we decided to intentionally develop an approach to our work that is place-based and led by the most pressing community-identified opportunities. By working through community-embedded organizations, we hope to be a catalytic ecosystem partner that advances economic equity and inclusion.
This process revealed the need for a new name that fully conveys our refreshed mission to create equitable access to capital by developing community partnerships and innovative tools that tackle systemic challenges and advance promising opportunities.
Today, we are proud to announce that VCC Social Enterprises will now be known as Locus.
Our new name, which was formerly the name of our impact investing division, was derived from the combination of the Latin words for “local” and “opportunity.” Additionally, the English word “locus” means a “particular point, position, or place.” The name Locus and the new visual brand emphasize the importance of place, our bold and innovative approach to our work, and the way in which we bring people together in partnership. We felt there was no better way to underscore our commitment to our place-based investment strategy than to define ourselves by it.
Over the years, we have become known for our ability to combine the resources of national, state, and local social investors into successfully funded projects that center diversity, equity, and inclusion. We believe working as a unified community development organization under the name Locus will put us in a unique position to go deeper in collaboration with communities to help them achieve the futures they envision. We hope this new brand reflects our ambition to create equitable access to capital that ensures everyone, no matter their background, location, or economic status, can live in healthy, thriving communities.
Please take some time to explore our new website and learn more about Locus and our commitment to Community Focused Capital. And, of course, we stand ready to discuss opportunities to support your community together. We are thankful for your continued partnership, and we look forward to this next chapter.