Sr. Corinne Florek, OP, founded RCIF in 2008 and was the founding Executive Director until she stepped down in July 2020. Here we provide a brief bio and story of how she founded the Religious Communities Impact Fund (initially called the Religious Communities Investment Fund).
Sr. Corinne Florek was always good at math. For a bit of time, she thought she’d be a high school math teacher. But, as she said: “I discovered I didn’t like math. I liked arithmetic- using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to problem solve.”
After graduating from high school in a Detroit suburb, Corinne joined the Dominican Sisters of Adrian, MI, in 1966. Instead of pursuing a teaching career, and with encouragement from other sisters, she eventually went to the University of Notre Dame and received an M.B.A. in 1980.
One of the sisters in her congregation, the Adrian Dominican Sisters, thought Corinne, with all her math background, would be a good fit for working in the order’s finance office. But, just as before, she found herself called to a different path – this time to Kentucky, where she offered business advice to women-led craft cooperatives. After that, it was on to rural Pine Knot, Kentucky, where, for three years, she managed a rural cooperative that supported 50 families. They had a woodshop, and cooperative members also did weaving, pottery, and quilting. “(Business) school was all about corporations and being a manager,” she said. “Notre Dame did not prepare me for running a small business!”
However, Corinne had studied the church’s social teachings throughout her life as a religious. So when the Adrian Dominicans created a vision statement that included working for justice and empowering women, she started to get involved in working for economic justice. “I was in my 20s, so this was all forming me. When I had the chance to work in it, it flowed pretty naturally. I saw poverty firsthand in Kentucky; once I saw that I couldn’t go back.”
Thus began a 40-year career working with various religious communities and nonprofits to engage in community development investing. Corinne started the community investing program for the Sisters of Mercy, now known as the Mercy Partnership Fund, and directed a program for her own community, the Adrian Dominicans.
The RCIF Board met in person in Denver in Sept 2022 and took Sr. Corrine to dinner to thank her for her twelve years of service. Pictured from left to right: Dutch Haarsma, Sr. Margaret Mary Cosgrove, BVM, Sr. Corinne, Sr. Sue Artone-Fricke, OSF, Vicki Cummings, Sarah Geisler, and Jason Battista.
In 2008, Corinne helped found the Religious Communities Impact Fund (RCIF), which pools funds from congregations of religious women and invests them in organizations that address the needs of low-income communities. She grew RCIF to include 35 sponsoring congregations, with total assets of $13.3 million, while leading RCIF to make more than 200 investments totaling more than $28 million. And she did all that without staff to help her. “I did marketing, accounting, and financing; I guess I’m a ‘jack of all trades.'”
Over the years, Corinne has garnered numerous accolades and awards. Most significantly, in 2010, she was awarded the prestigious Ned Gramlich Lifetime Achievement Award for Responsible Finance from the Opportunity Finance Network, which is given annually to honor people who have produced a body of work that sets them apart within the CDFI industry. Corrine was the fourth award recipient.
Corinne retired from RCIF in 2020 and remains active in promoting community investing. She and two other sisters are working on a book about community investing and corporate responsibility. The book, tentatively titled “Investing for Justice: The Pioneering Effort of Catholic Religious Women,” will include histories of the Sisters of Mercy and Adrian Dominicans, among others, as well as vignettes of many of the women who have helped build the movement. She hopes to finish the book in 2023 and is looking for a publisher.
Now living in Westchester, IL, Corinne is an avid walker, wine aficionado, and loves singing. And then there is dance. She loves liturgical dancing and notes: “Every birthday party I ever had included dancing. As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution!”
Robert Rudy, writer
