Nonprofit loan fund leader celebrated on next career move to the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation

The nonprofit homestead loan fund, Hawaiian Lending & Investments (HLI) congratulates its employee of 6 years, Rolina Faagai on her transition to the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation (HCF).

“Rolina is such a great person and an avid advocate in the community development space,” said Garrett Danner, HLI Board Chairman. “She came to HLI from the wealth management space back in 2019 when HLI was just an idea of homestead leaders across the state. Today, it transitioned from an emerging nonprofit to a fully certified Native Community Development Financial Institution (NCDFI). This career move is such a great opportunity for her and for the homestead community.”

Faagai has been a central leader at HLI, from start-up in 2020 to a midsize nonprofit loan fund in 2026. She started as a program manager and transitioned to its Executive Director 3 years ago in 2023.

Under Faagai, HLI continued its core loan portfolio programming, provided vehicle recovery resources for families of the Lahaina Wildfires, and for the last 2 years, has been partnered with the State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands deploying down payment assistance grants to waitlist beneficiaries achieving homeownership.

Most recently, HLI became a non-conforming home loan lender on Hawaiian Home Lands, having financed over $2.5M in rental and homeownership housing in just the last 18 months.

“HLI has been an amazing nonprofit and a great place for my passion of seeing capital resources change community,” Faagai said. “I want to mahalo the HLI board and the many mentors in Hawaiʻi and across the country for the many years of working together to create capital access programs for our Native people.”

The HLI board will begin accepting applications to fill the Executive Director position until filled by a qualified applicant.

Interested applicants should send resumes to Kara Chow, Co-Executive Director at the Homestead Community Development Corporation at corp@hawaiianhomesteads.org. HCDC provides shared Human Resource services and payroll processing for the HLI nonprofit.