Five Questions with Kimberly Dickens: Insights on Momentus Capital’s Mission-Driven Growth Strategy

As Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Momentus Capital, Kimberly Dickens leads work across partnerships and funding, market expansion, products and services, marketing, and customer success. Her role is focused on helping the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations align its strategy with its mission: helping build communities and small businesses by providing access to the capital and opportunities they deserve.

In this edition of Five Questions, Kimberly discusses how Momentus Capital translates mission into growth priorities, how our Continuum of Capital, investment, and support solutions can assist customers at different stages, and why the organization’s next phase is about finding the “bullseye” between customer needs, our core capabilities, and market opportunity.

How do you translate Momentus Capital’s mission into growth priorities?

Kimberly Dickens: Our strategy is rooted in a framework that is both simple and disciplined.

The process involves three primary considerations.  First, we evaluate customer needs through a broad lens. This encompasses borrowers, donors, partners, and investors, as well as the small businesses and communities at the heart of our mission. Second, we identify our authentic core capabilities to determine exactly what we excel at. Third, we look for market gaps where Momentus Capital can provide superior or unique offerings compared to what is available in the field.

We then synthesize these elements within the context of our mission to expand capital access and the conditions of the wider market. Success lies at the intersection of these factors. This “bullseye” represents the strategic area where Momentus Capital can most effectively foster growth for both our organization and those we serve.

That is also where mission and margin come together. Margin should not be seen as separate from mission. It helps fuel the engine that allows us to stay focused on our mission, absorb risk, and continue providing solutions in spaces where traditional financial institutions may not go.

The Bullseye Approach: Defining & Executing Strategic Growth

How does our Continuum of Capital support customer and community growth?

Kimberly Dickens: The power of the Continuum of Capital manifests when customers can grow across our product and service spectrum.

The Momentus Capital branded family of organizations includes Capital Impact Partners, CDC Small Business Finance, and Momentus Securities, each providing a variety of products and services across debt, equity, and capital market solutions

Certain prospective clients may initially lack the necessary readiness for capital investment. In such instances, auxiliary services — including capacity building, advisory support, and specialized training — are utilized to facilitate their transition to subsequent developmental phases. As these clients progress, they become eligible for a comprehensive suite of financial instruments and services provided by the Momentus Capital family of organizations. These offerings encompass small business and community development lending, commercial real estate financing, impact investing, and diverse capital solutions.

The primary objective is to support the seamless advancement of clients through successive stages of growth. As organizations scale, their requirements naturally evolve, necessitating increased capital volumes, diversified funding structures, and more sophisticated financial strategies.

The efficacy of the Continuum of Capital is derived from this integrated approach. Rather than merely offering a collection of disparate products, the model ensures that these resources function synergistically, providing clients with appropriate interventions tailored to their specific temporal needs.

Which growth levers are most important for Momentus Capital right now?

Kimberly Dickens: All of them.

I realize this sounds like a broad answer, but strategy and growth require all of those levers to work together. Partnerships, capital strategies, marketing, impact strategy, products and services, and customer alignment all play a role in helping us understand our customers, identify where we have a competitive advantage, and determine where we should focus.

Right now, partnerships and funding are especially important because they connect directly to the capital we bring in and the financial strength needed to support our mission. But that cannot sit in isolation.

Our Impact Strategy Team also plays an important role by helping us understand where our work is having impact and where there may be opportunities for growth across sectors or markets. Marketing and communications are important because people need to know what Momentus Capital is, why our work matters, and how our family of organizations can support them.

Product and service strategy is also critical. We are not developing products just to have more products. We are thinking about how to optimize our solutions so they support both mission and financial sustainability.

This underscores the importance of the “bullseye” framework. Without the unified coordination of these levers, the organization cannot effectively identify the critical intersection of customer requirements, internal organizational capabilities, and broader market opportunities.

What excites you most about Momentus Capital’s products, services, and capital solutions?

Kimberly Dickens: One area I am especially excited about is Momentus Securities.

For many borrowers or partners, the connection between Momentus Securities and customer success may not feel as direct as a small business loan or a community development loan. But Momentus Securities plays an important role in building the infrastructure and capital flow that can support our broader work.

That matters because expanding access to capital requires more than individual lending products. It also requires the systems, vehicles, partnerships, and capital markets connections that make it possible to bring more resources into communities and small businesses over time.

That work is not separate from the mission. It is another way of advancing it.

The challenge and opportunity for us is to tell that story clearly. We need to help people understand how capital markets, advisory services, lending, capacity building, and customer support all connect to the same broader goal: helping communities and small businesses access the capital and opportunities they deserve.

What makes you optimistic about Momentus Capital’s next stage of growth?

Kimberly Dickens: I am optimistic because as our industry evolves through recent challenges, we have an opportunity to answer questions and pursue opportunities that we may not have been ready to address before.

One of Strategy and Growth Office’s mandates is to help build a three-year corporate strategy plan. That plan is not about simply telling the same story Momentus Capital has always told. It is about understanding what remains core to who we are, while also asking how we need to evolve in our market positioning, product and service strategy, capital acquisition, and overall approach.

Strategy also has to be a team sport. It cannot be developed in isolation and then sit on a shelf. It has to be relevant, attainable, and executable. That means working across our businesses and functions to build a strategy that reflects where we need to go and why.

If we remember one thing about where Momentus Capital is headed, I would say this: as our landscape changes we have an opportunity to shape that evolution.

That means building on our legacy while continuing to evolve how we support communities and small businesses through capital, investment, and support solutions.