By the mid-1990s, The Loan Fund was expanding both its services and its resources. In 1995, it established an in-house Technical Assistance Department, recognizing that many aspiring entrepreneurs needed training and coaching along with capital. Loan Fund staff began providing workshops on business planning, bookkeeping, and financial literacy, often traveling to rural villages to reach people who had never had access to such support. That same year brought an infusion of funding that dramatically boosted the Loan Fund’s lending capacity. The City of Albuquerque awarded a $600,000 Urban Development Action Grant to The Loan Fund, aimed at spurring business growth in the inner-city “Pocket of Poverty” area. Even more transformative, the Ford Foundation, one of the nation’s largest philanthropic institutions, provided $1 million in program-related investment funds to The Loan Fund in 1995. These major investments were a vote of confidence in the Loan Fund’s mission. Armed with new capital and new technical assistance programs, the organization could empower far more low-income New Mexicans to start businesses, create jobs, and build community wealth.