FBPD Professional Blog Post 1 Assignment

The Coalition Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) is a network of public and private lending organizations that provide funding to individuals or businesses in low-income communities across the country.  They have over 950 different representatives in all 50 states that are their promoting development loan funds, community under development banks, community development credit unions, microenterprises lenders, community development corporations, and community development venture capital funds.  (CDFI, 2012)  Their mission is “to unify national voice of community development financial institutions.  Our mission is to encourage fair access to financial resources for America’s undeserved people, and communities.” (CDFI, 2012)  Today the 950 public and private organizations are certified by the CDFI funding operations, in the effort of upgrading rural and urban communities.  They also get a lot of their money to distribute for the US government, via religious, corporate, individual organizations that help low income people obtain better housing, start or rebuild businesses within their own communities.  It states CDFI measures success by focusing on the “double bottom line”, economic gains, and the contributions they make to the local communities.  (CDFI, 2012)  In the effort to help people and/or businesses to become self-sufficient in their communities, they can also get training, technical assistance services, loans, grants, and etc.  The ultimate goal is to rebuild their credit, and their community, get educated, increase jobs, and some the opportunity to become entrepreneurs. 

The other website I found very informative was the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) and their mission is “to develop and establish a foundation for sustainable job growth and to rebuild durable regional economics throughout the US.”  They use two main economic components, innovation and regional collaboration.  “Innovations are the key to global competitiveness, new and/or better jobs, resilient economy, and to attain the national economic goals. EDA encourages initiatives that advance new ideas and create approaches to address rapidly evolving economic conditions.”  (EDA, 2012)  They offer grants to public and private sectors, as long as they meet certain guidelines that are associated with global competitiveness, create jobs, and other priorities listed below:

•       Collaborative Regional Innovation
•     Public/ Private Partnership
•     National Strategic Priorities
•     Environmentally Sustainable Development

    Economically Distressed and Undeserved Communities your idea falls under one of these categories, than you have a good chance of receiving a grant, and/or loan to establish your business.  The EDA also offers different opportunities news about federal funding grant opportunities for example:

•        FY 2012 Disaster Relief Opportunity
•        FY 2012 University Center Economics
•        Development Program Competition
•        Announcements of Federal Funding
•        Opportunity for the 2012 16 Challenge
•       Latest Approved Grants, and etc.

Overall I found EDA very informative because it gives you information on how to, as well as a list of the different type of grants, organization, and how much was granted, to encourage you more to apply.

http://www.cdfi.org/

http://www.eda.gov/about/