Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)

RESEARCH RESOURCES

Aspen Institute & the Federal Reserve: Achieving Sustainability, Scale, & Impact in Community Development Finance
http://innovationlabs.com/aspen
Starting in April 2005, the Federal Reserve and the Aspen Institute have collaborated on a series of (roughly) quarterly workshops on how to build sustainability in community development website. This website contains links to the presentations of these workshops, as well as information about future events.

CEDRIC Research Repository (Federal Reserve, Chicago)
www.chicagofed.org/cedric
The Chicago Federal Reserve, both through its publication, Profitwise, and through a number of national conferences that it has sponsored, has been an important research center on issues concerning community development financial institutions.

Communities and Banking (Federal Reserve, Boston)
www.bos.frb.org/commdev/c&b
The Boston Federal Reserve publishes the quarterly on-line periodical, Communities & Banking. The site also has links to many other community development finance publications and resources.

Community Development (Federal Reserve, San Francisco)
www.frbsf.org/community/index.html
The San Francisco Federal Reserve publishes the quarterly on-line periodical, Community Investments Online. As well, it maintains the Center for Community Development Investments and a host of on-line resources about Community Reinvestment Act review schedules, an important tool for community groups seeking to keep local financial institutions accountable.

Community Investment Network
www.communityinvestmentnetwork.org
A project of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the Community Investment Network provides information on issues ranging from Community Reinvestment Act ratings on banks, predatory lending policy debates, and financial educations programs, to community development policy and links to local community reinvestment coalition organizations across the United States.

Faith, Hope and Capital
www.pbs.org/capital
Aired on public television in 2000, this series provides a wealth of information. Particularly worth checking out is the “real stories, real people” section, which includes text of interviews of more than 20 community development finance analysts and practitioners.

Indivisible: Stories of American Community
www.indivisible.org/home.htm
Indivisible is a national documentary project exploring community life in America today. Through photographs and recorded voices, Indivisible focuses on the real-life stories of struggle and change in twelve communities—from Delray Beach, Florida, to Ithaca, New York; from the North Pacific Coast of Alaska to Chicago’s Southwest side; from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to the Yaak Valley, Montana.

*NEW*
PolicyMap
www.trfund.com/stories/policy-policymap.html
PolicyMap, a project of The Reinvestment Fund, a Philadelphia-based CDFI, allows users to use GIS mapping technology to create custom maps, tables, and charts that help organizations map their social impact investments and better target their work to benefit disadvantaged communities.

Woodstock Institute
www.woodstockinst.org
Founded in 1973, this Chicago-based organization has been an important advocacy group regarding enforcing Community Reinvestment Act provisions obliging banks to invest in their communities, as well as being an important research institution.