Industry & Member News

Starbucks Coffee Company (NASDAQ: SBUX) today held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Seattle, where Howard Schultz, chairman, president and ceo attributed the company’s success to its long-standing commitment to helping communities thrive wherever around the world it does business.

You have probably heard about the departure of Cliff Rosenthal, President and CEO of the Federation for more than 30 years. It is difficult, of course, to part with someone who has meant so much to this organization, and who has brought the Federation and the CDCU movement to heights that, as Cliff says, we never dared dream of back in 1980.

RCAC recently launched a new small business lending program, and its first loan created five new jobs in rural California.

RCAC received a $4.3 million loan from the U.S. Treasury Small Business Lending Fund and a $231,000 capital grant from the Create Jobs for USA Fund, a collaboration between Starbucks and Opportunity Finance Network; both of these sources will be used as lending capital for RCAC’s small business loans. RCAC will make direct loans to eligible businesses in California; participate in a California state guarantee program; and partner with Valley Small Business Development Corporation, an experienced small business CDFI lender in California’s Central Valley, for loans in that region.

Residents of the 54-unit Big W Mobile Home Park in Derry recently purchased their park, making it New Hampshire’s 100th resident-owned manufactured-housing community.

Using funding from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund and education and technical assistance and training from the Community Loan Fund’s ROC-NH program, residents organized and formed the Foxy Terrace Cooperative in January 2007 to convert their privately owned manufactured home park to resident-ownership.

FIELD at the Aspen Insititue, in partnership with Justine PETERSEN and with support from the Citi Foundation, is launching the Asset Building through Credit pilot program. Five microenterprise organizations, selected for their experience in delivering credit-building products and services, will test the effectiveness of secured credit cards in building entrepreneurs' credit and connecting them to the formal financial system.

A long-time challenge facing microenterprise programs is how to reach larger numbers of entrepreneurs efficiently despite the distance to a program office. In order to bridge the distance gap, more and more practitioners are providing distance based business development services. The greater availability of computers with high-speed Internet access, and the prevalence of hand-held devices, even among the disadvantaged have facilitated the quick ramping up of these services. And, practitioners are using a range of strategies-from phone and web-based webinar technology to podcasts and social networking.

On August 24, CDFI Fund Director Donna Gambrell joined Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and Representative Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) at the 10th Annual Native Hawaiian Convention to announce $11.85 million in awards under the Native American CDFI Assistance Program (NACA Program). The 35 Native Community Development Financial Institutions receiving awards are headquartered in 17 states and serve mostly rural communities.

Mark Pinsky will be moderating a roundtable discussion on how community-based financial institutions are an important driver for urban business growth and could be an important way to resolve the challenges that small businesses face in accessing capital. How have Chicago CDFIs helped to grow Chicago’s urban businesses and what can be learned about the future of community-based capital for small business growth

In an announcement ceremony today at the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama announced an innovative healthy food financing initiative – the California FreshWorks Fund. A project of The California Endowment and an all-star team of partners, FreshWorks is a $200 million public-private partnership loan fund created to increase access to healthy, affordable food in underserved communities, spur economic development, and inspire innovation in healthy food retailing.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund announced on Monday that it will award New Jersey Community Capital (NJCC) $1.5 million in financial assistance to foster revitalization in New Jersey's underserved communities. The Community Loan Fund of New Jersey, Inc.—NJCC's first and largest loan fund—was among 155 CDFIs selected for funding, and was one of three New Jersey organizations to receive an award. 2011 marks the fourth consecutive year in which NJCC has received critical funding from the CDFI Fund.