Webinars

OFN's CDFI Loan Fund Technology Landscape: User Survey Results report is now available for download. Based on OFN's 2016 survey of 100 CDFI loan funds, the report explores common software solutions used by loan funds—including customized spreadsheets and databases and popular mainstream programs like Excel, QuickBooks, and Salesforce—and provides user feedback on them. As technology has become an essential tool in the support of CDFI operations, CDFIs need to understand the performance factors of these different programs, and CDFI Loan Fund Technology Landscape provides useful insight into different solutions that can help CDFIs exploring new technology options.

How can CDFIs finance innovative economic development efforts that revolutionize opportunity in rural communities? It wasn’t long ago that a group of 10 towns and 17 townships in southwestern Minnesota would have ever dreamed of securing high-speed broadband connectivity. And if they did, they never imagined it could be affordable. Then along came a citizen effort to deliver fiber optic broadband access to homes and farms, businesses and government agencies, and schools and hospitals. The outcome is the RS Fiber Cooperative. RS Fiber provides high speed, fiber optic broadband to the citizens of Renville and Sibley Counties. It is the first operational fiber optic cooperative in the country. Rural Electric Economic Development, Inc., a CDFI serving the area, was instrumental in financing this effort. This webinar illustrates how a CDFI can finance rural broadband infrastructure, how the CRA can facilitate bank financing, and how a group of dedicated citizens can organize to successfully bring their rural communities into the 21st century web of communications.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has launched the fourth Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods (PRO Neighborhoods) competition to identify strategic Collaboratives that advance inclusive economic growth. This is part of a $125 million, five-year initiative to identify and support custom solutions for the unique challenges facing disadvantaged neighborhoods in U.S. cities. Listen to the information call to learn more about the program and RFP. Proposals are due by Wednesday, May 10.

CDFI Program FA, TA, NACA Application and Use of Award Proposed Form

Presenters from Opportunity Finance Network and the Center for Responsible Lending will discuss the broad implications of the CFPB rules on small-dollar lending, specific components of the rules and how they may or may not affect small-dollar loan products offered by CDFIs.

This Staying Connected Call is on USDA's recently announced interim regulations that open the USDA's Community Facilities Relending Program to mission-driven lenders. This program will increase the availability of low-cost, long-term capital for CDFIs.

Listen to this presentation from Bank of America to learn how you can apply for an irrevocable letter of credit that is required to access new long term, low-cost, fixed rate capital for critical community facility infrastructure.

This webinar will discuss ways in which CDFI credit unions and CDFI loan funds leverage each other's work through partnerships that provide greater access to affordable consumer financial products and services.

OFN’s report, CDFI Collaborations: Keys to Success, looks at 12 different CDFI collaborations of varying sizes and purposes, identifies five factors that contribute to collaboration successes, and proposes a three-year strategy to promote more CDFI collaborations. Listen to authors Donna Fabiani, OFN, Donna Gambrell, former director of the CDFI Fund, and Adina Abramowitz, principal of Consulting for Change, and representatives of the collaborations featured in the report.

This webinar will discuss financial challenges today’s consumers face and products in the marketplace that provide better options to manage these challenges.

OFN recently completed a 20-year analysis of OFN Member CDFIs' performance, including a growth rate analysis of a set of CDFIs that have been OFN Members for the entire time period. You'll hear the results of the study, learn the characteristics of CDFIs with different growth rates, and listen to a discussion on what the findings mean for CDFIs, funders, investors, and the future of the industry. Funding for this report was provided by Capital One.

This is a webinar that discusses the latest Performance Counts paper on liquidity and cash management. It highlights from the paper and gives two CDFIs with examples of different practices related to liquidity and cash management.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is inviting CDFIs to apply for its Small Buildings Risk Sharing (SBRS) Initiative. The purpose of SBRS is to support and encourage the production and preservation of affordable housing. The program provides insurance and reinsurance for multifamily housing projects whose loans are originated, underwritten, serviced, and disposed of by approved lenders, including CDFIs. CDFIs and other lenders participating in the SBRS may elect to access low-cost fixed-rate long-term financing through the Federal Financing Bank (FFB). FFB pricing will be benchmarked to comparable Ginnie Mae securities.

This webinar will discuss core components and considerations CDFIs should know when developing a small-dollar loan product. Presenters from the Center for Financial Services Innovation will discuss the Compass Guide to Small-Dollar Credit.

This webinar will discuss the importance of credit building for CDFI borrowers. Presenters from Credit Builders Alliance will talk about the process of reporting both personal and business credit to the major credit bureaus.

This webinar will cover health center financial and operating metrics and trends from 2010 – 2013, for use in loan underwriting. The session will allow CDFIs to gain a greater understanding of the sector’s key benchmarks and trends during this critical period of health system transformation.

This webinar will cover topics related to the changing revenue landscape for community health centers. What's happening with grants to care for uninsured patients? What’s happening with Medicaid expansion? What is the potential impact of ongoing health care reform initiatives? Join us to have these and other questions answered related to revenue changes for CHCs.

This webinar will help CDFIs navigate the online resources available to assess market needs for CHC services. We will look at sources detailing local conditions and needs, as well as sources for individual, state-wide and national CHC data, enabling comparisons to broader norms as well as local competition.

This webinar will present the “Dos and Don’ts” of Leveraging Health Resources Service Administration (HRSA) Capital Grants through a New Markets Tax Credit Structure. The session will review HRSA approval requirements that health centers must obtain when using HRSA capital grants. It will also discuss how to structure HRSA grants with bridge loans and align the HRSA approval process with a typical NMTC closing process.

This webinar examines the differences between failed or failing health centers and their more successful counterparts, shedding light on the factors that may contribute to health center failure. This analysis seeks to provide lenders with the insight necessary to determine the potential early warning signs of future financial distress when underwriting health center loan requests—whether for capital project financing, working capital, or growth capital.