Fifth Third today announced a five-year, $7.6 billion commitment to drive community impact and economic mobility in communities across Michigan following the completion of its merger with Comerica.
The Michigan commitment is part of Fifth Third’s Building Stronger Communities Commitment across new and expanded markets in Michigan, Texas, and California.
It prioritizes low- and moderate-income communities and includes new place-based community and economic development investments in communities such as Detroit and Grand Rapids, where Fifth Third has a significant employment presence.
“We’re investing in people, neighborhoods, and local partnerships that create economic mobility and lasting opportunity across Michigan,” says Kala Gibson, chief corporate responsibility officer for Fifth Third, which has its headquarters in Cincinnati.
“The work already underway in the G7 (Gratiot/7 Mile Plan) and Denby/Whittier (in Detroit) shows how targeted, place-based investment can unlock broader growth, support local businesses, expand pathways to homeownership, and strengthen Michigan’s economic future.”
From 2027 through 2031, the commitment includes lending, investment, and philanthropy in six areas:
- Affordable housing and community development finance
- Small business lending, grants, and economic opportunity
- Mortgage and home equity lending and homeownership access
- Sustainable communities
- Place-based community and economic development investments
- Financial access and inclusion
The priorities came out of Community Listening Sessions held last winter across Fifth Third’s new and expanded markets, including in Detroit and Grand Rapids. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition facilitated the sessions, which brought Fifth Third and Comerica leaders together with community stakeholders to identify local priorities. Fifth Third’s National Community Advisory Forum also provided input.
The first investment came on Sept. 2, when Fifth Third launched a $20 million capital commitment that brought G7 and Denby/Whittier into the Fifth Third Neighborhood Program.
Across Michigan, Fifth Third also plans to:
- Provide 53 grants of $5,300 each to small businesses across Michigan from the Fifth Third Small Business Catalyst Fund.
- Expand the existing Fifth Third Small Business Community Credit Program and hire sales staff dedicated to small business growth.
- Expand the existing Fifth Third Community Mortgage Program, which offers enhanced down payment and closing cost assistance, reduced or waived fees, flexible underwriting, and targeted outreach.
- Provide $250 million in sustainable lending and investment for energy affordability, availability of sustainable utilities, and resiliency of public and private infrastructure to help create more sustainable communities across Michigan.
- Bring the Fifth Third Neighborhood Program to Grand Rapids, providing place-based community and economic development in underserved communities.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all program, the commitment prioritizes the deployment of intellectual, social, and financial capital that creates measurable, on-the-ground outcomes — developed in partnership with local communities and rolled out neighborhood by neighborhood, with specific initiatives announced as they take shape, according to Fifth Third.
The Building Stronger Communities Commitment expands on Fifth Third’s efforts toward place-based community and economic development, now scaled to deliver more impact as the bank grows.
That includes an extension of the Fifth Third Neighborhood Program, designed to broaden opportunity and create economic mobility in historically disinvested communities. Since 2021, Fifth Third has invested more than $409 million across participating neighborhoods and helped catalyze an additional $200.9 million in outside capital, generating more than $610 million in total community investment, according to officials.
Detroit served as the program’s original pilot market in 2019, when Fifth Third invested $5 million in Invest Detroit’s Gratiot/7 Mile Strategic Neighborhood Fund — supporting improvements to parks, streetscapes, commercial corridors, affordable housing, and single-family housing in partnership with local organizations and neighborhood stakeholders. That initial $5 million has helped attract an additional $13 million in public and philanthropic investment in G7 since 2019.
Following its merger with Comerica, Fifth Third is the largest retail deposit holder in both Michigan and Detroit. The bank established its Michigan regional headquarters at One Campus Martius in downtown Detroit and kept the Great Lakes Campus in Farmington Hills, one of its largest employment centers. These locations build on Comerica’s 176-year banking legacy in Detroit and across Michigan.
For more information, visit 53.com.
