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Achieving Sustainability, Scale and Impact in Community Development Finance: Strategic Collaborations for Success
October 10–11, 2006
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

A Partnership between the Federal Reserve System and Aspen Institute

Conference Proceedings

The Workshop

This workshop is a continuation of the conversation begun at last year's Houston event, An Orientation to the Capital Markets: New Avenues for the Changing Context of Community Development Finance. It is the fifth in a series of regional events that the Federal Reserve System and Aspen Institute are hosting.

The agenda will touch on the following topics:

Aspen Institute's Research on Scale, Impact and Sustainability
Collaborative Business Models
New Approaches to Fund-Raising

The conference format will be highly interactive, polling participants' responses at each session. Dialogue on future action will be customized based on participants' real-time feedback.

The Purpose

This workshop will showcase business models and fund-raising techniques that have the potential to strengthen community development organizations' capacity to increase their impact in target communities, expand their reach and become more sustainable.

Pre-conference Recommended Readings:

Aspen Institute's article on scale, impact and sustainability
Dallas Fed publication on community development finance
Aspen Institute website

Program Agenda

Tuesday, October 10

8:30 a.m:	Registration and Breakfast
9:00 a.m.	Opening Remarks Gloria Vasquez Brown Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Alfreda B. Norman Assistant Vice President and Community Affairs Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
9:15 a.m.	New Pathways to Scale (Topics: Aspen Institute's research on scale, impact and sustainability and its work with other Federal Reserve Banks.)
	Kirsten Moy Director, Economic Opportunities Program, Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C.
	Greg Ratliff Senior Fellow, Economic Opportunities Program, Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C.
10:15 a.m.	Innovations in Business Models (Topic: Speaker provokes thinking outside the box by showing innovative business models that have been successful in a changing and highly competitive environment.)
	Langdon Morris Principal, InnovationLabs, Walnut Creek, Calif.
11 a.m.	Break
11:15 a.m.	Community Development Landscape (Topics: "State of the state" of community development industry and review of successful tax increment and special assessment district financing projects.)
	Moderator: Edwina Carrington Principal, Reznick Group, Austin, Texas
	Steven A. Carriker Executive Director, Texas Association of Community Development Corporations, Austin, Texas
	Kenneth E. Powell Managing Director, Stone & Youngberg LLC, Richmond, Va.
12:05 p.m.	Luncheon Address
	Mark Pinsky President and CEO, Opportunity Finance Network (formerly National Community Capital Association), Philadelphia, Pa.
1:35 p.m.	Collaborative Business Models (Topics: Presenters show how their collaborative business models work, why they are successful and how they grow scale.)
	Moderator: Michael V. Berry Manager, Emerging Consumer and Compliance Issues, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
	Christine Neal Vice President and Treasurer, Unified Western Grocers Inc., Commerce, Calif.
	Tom Bledsoe President, Housing Partnership Network, Boston, Mass.
	Marisa Barrera Executive Vice President, ACCION New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M.
	Larry Garcia President, El Paso Affordable Housing CUSO
3:05 p.m.	Break
3:15 p.m.	New Approaches to Fund-Raising (Topics: How to fundraise from the following sources: the Internet, Calvert Foundation's Community Investment Notes and the wealth management sector.)
	Moderator: Dana Bezerra Program Officer, The F.B. Heron Foundation, New York, N.Y.
	Harry E. Gruber President, CEO and Chairman of Board of Directors, Kintera Inc., San Diego, Calif.
	Shari Berenbach Executive Director, Calvert Foundation, Bethesda, Md.
	Kathy Leonard Vice President, Investments, UBS Financial Services, Boulder, Colo.
4:30 p.m.	Local Responses (Topic: Hear how local leaders respond to the day's information.)
	Moderator: Jim Reid CEO, Momentum Texas, Dallas, Texas
	Margo Weisz Executive Director, PeopleFund, Austin, Texas
	Stephan Fairfield President and CEO, Covenant Community Capital Corp., Houston, Texas
5:15 p.m.	Reception
6:15 p.m	Adjourn

Wednesday, October 11

8:30 a.m:	Participant Feedback
	Moderator: Langdon Morris Principal, InnovationLabs, Walnut Creek, Calif.
9:30 a.m.	Breakout Sessions
	Kirsten Moy Director, Economic Opportunities Program, The Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C.
	Greg Ratliff Senior Fellow, Economic Opportunities Program, Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C.
11:00 a.m.	Report Out on Next Steps
11:30 a.m	Closing Remarks Alfreda B. Norman Assistant Vice President and Community Affairs Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
11:45 a.m.	Adjourn

About the Speakers

Marisa Barrera
Executive Vice President, ACCION New Mexico, Albuquerque
Barrera has worked at ACCION New Mexico since 1996. As executive vice president, she is responsible for board support, donor development, strategic planning and organizational oversight. In 2005, the New Mexico Business Weekly named her among the top Forty Under 40 business leaders in the state. The Small Business Administration honored her with the New Mexico Financial Services Advocate of the Year award in 1999. Barrera is a board member of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, a national association of over 400 microenterprise development programs in the U.S. She received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of New Mexico.

Shari Berenbach
Executive Director, Calvert Foundation, Bethesda, Md.
As executive director of the Calvert Foundation, Berenbach has distinguished herself as a leader in the emerging community investment industry, where she presently manages over $100 million in community investment assets raised from more than 2,000 private investors. Berenbach has more than 20 years' experience with microcredit and innovative approaches to finance. Prior to joining the Calvert Foundation, she worked for the International Finance Corp. and held private-sector positions at Citibank and Salomon Brothers. Berenbach was one of the pioneers in the microcredit field, working in more than a dozen countries. She currently serves on the boards of the Neighborhood Funders Group and Community Wealth Ventures and remains active in the Social Investment Forum. Berenbach is the author of numerous articles related to international microfinance and community investment. She holds an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia University and an M.A. in Latin American studies from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Michael V. Berry
Manager, Emerging Consumer and Compliance Issues, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Berry joined the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Consumer and Community Affairs Division in 1995 as a researcher and program manager. He now manages its Emerging Issues section and is managing editor of Profitwise News and Views. Before joining the Fed, Berry led the market research group at the RESCORP Companies, a real estate development and consulting organization specializing in community revitalization. Berry earned a B.A. in political science from Susquehanna University and an M.B.A. from DePaul University.

Dana K. Bezerra
Program Officer, The F. B. Heron Foundation, New York
Prior to joining Heron, Bezerra worked at Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor specializing in philanthropy and nonprofit management. Bezerra has served on the San Diego Economic Development Corp.'s Advisory Board for the Indicators of Sustainable Competitiveness, the advisory council to the chancellor for California State University and the William Randolph Hearst Scholarship Committee. An avid volunteer, she has been active as a financial literacy educator, a juvenile justice reintegration volunteer and a facilitator for programs such as Model UN and Second Chance/Strive. Bezerra holds a B.S. in agricultural business and public policy from California Polytechnic State University.

Thomas A. Bledsoe
President, The Housing Partnership Network, Boston
Bledsoe is president of the Housing Partnership Network and its four subsidiaries—Housing Partnership Fund, Housing Partnership Ventures, Housing Partnership Insurance and Housing Partnership Securities. He became the first full-time president of Housing Partnership Network in 1998. Under his leadership, the network has become a leading voice for high-capacity, partnership-based nonprofits in the affordable housing industry. Prior to joining the network, Bledsoe was executive director of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership, one of the nation's first public/private housing partnerships, operating programs ranging from services for the homeless to homeownership. While at MBHP, he spearheaded the growth of the National Association of Housing Partnerships as its board president. Previously, Bledsoe served as deputy secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Communities and Development and as director of the city of Boston's Office of Neighborhood Services. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Steven A. Carriker
Executive Director, Texas Association of Community Development Corporations Austin
Carriker has extensive experience in government, private business, nonprofit organizations, economic development and finance. Before joining TACDC, Carriker was chief operating officer for the Corporation for Development of Community Health Centers and served 12 years in the Texas Legislature. As state director of USDA Rural Development, he coordinated programs with such federal agencies as the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Economic Development Administration. In addition to having served as community development consultant to the Texas Association of Community Health Centers, Carriker was a special consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, reviewing and advising nonprofit loan programs the foundation funds. He holds a bachelor's degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin.

Edwina Carrington
Principal, Reznick Group, Austin
Carrington manages Reznick Group's first southwestern office, where she focuses on transaction consulting on all aspects of real estate including affordable housing and services in government contracting and the nonprofit sector. Prior to joining Reznick Group, Carrington served for four years as executive director of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. She has held leadership positions at the Texas Housing Finance Corp., Austin Housing Finance Corp. and Texas Housing Agency—the forerunner to TDHCA—where she developed the state's first Qualified Allocation Plan and rules for the then-new Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. Carrington received a 2004 Texas Houser Award from the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and a 2005 Outstanding Woman in Texas Government award from the State Agency Council to the Governor's Commission for Women. She holds a master's degree in public administration from Texas A&M University.

Stephan Fairfield
President and CEO, Covenant Community Capital Corp., Houston
At Covenant Community Capital, Fairfield has helped low-income households build economic resilience through financial literacy, education, entrepreneurship and affordable housing. He also works to develop long-term poverty solutions through initiatives such as the Smart-Savings Program, designed to help low-income families establish a pattern of regular savings. Fairfield previously served 12 years as director of Houston's Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corp. He co-founded and was the first chairman of the Texas Association of Community Development Corporations. Fairfield has developed more than 900 affordable housing units and seven community facilities. He was awarded a Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University in 2003–04 to study land use planning and design. Fairfield was a recipient of the 2005 Texas Houser award and Fannie Mae's Maxwell award. Fairfield received a B.A. degree from Baylor University.

Larry Garcia
President, El Paso Affordable Housing CUSO
Garcia has extensive training and experience in financial literacy, homeownership, real estate and mortgage lending. Before becoming president of the El Paso Affordable Housing Credit Union Service Organization, he was president of a mortgage company specializing in the Hispanic and low- to moderate-income housing market. Garcia is director and treasurer of the Border Fair Housing and Economic Justice Center, which serves U.S.–Mexico border communities. He serves on the Consumer Federation of America's America Saves Hispanic advisory committee, co-chairs the El Paso Saves Campaign, co-chairs the Coalition for Family Economic Progress and serves on Fannie Mae's community technology and credit union advisory councils. Garcia spent 18 years on the board of TSWAG Federal Credit Union and West Texas Credit Union, nine of them as chairman. He also served on the El Paso County individual development account advisory board and predatory lending prevention task force and chaired the city of El Paso's fair housing task force. He has a B.B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Harry E. Gruber
President, CEO and Chairman, Kintera Inc., San Diego
Gruber has led Kintera, a supplier of Internet technology to the nonprofit industry, since co-founding the company in 2000. He also co-founded and served as CEO of INTERVU Inc., a publicly held Internet video and audio delivery company, and founded Gensia Pharmaceuticals, now known as SICOR Inc., serving as vice president of research. Gruber invented the technology for three additional public companies, all involved in drug development or gene therapy. After completing his training in internal medicine, rheumatology and biomedical genetics, he served several years on the faculty at the University of California, San Diego. Gruber is a member of the board of overseers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences and previously headed the development committee of the UCSD Foundation. He has authored over 100 original scientific articles and holds 33 patents and numerous pending patents. Gruber holds B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kathy Leonard
Vice President, Investments, UBS Financial Services Inc., Boulder, Colo.
Leonard has been a financial advisor specializing in socially responsible investing since 1983. Prior to working at UBS, she ran her own firm, The Center for Responsible Investing, for 12 years and worked at E. F. Hutton and Shearson. Leonard provides clients with wealth management and other services that help individuals, businesses and nonprofits integrate their social and financial goals. She was recognized by the Calvert Foundation as Community Investing Advisor of the Year in 2003 and 2004. Leonard has been a member of the Social Investment Forum since 1991 and was elected to its board in 2003. She was a founding member of the Environmental Council at the Boulder Chamber of Commerce and the Colorado chapter of Business for Social Responsibility, for which she served on the board. She earned a B.A. in English and history at the University of Colorado.

Langdon Morris
Principal, InnovationLabs, Walnut Creek, Calif.
Morris is a principal at InnovationLabs, which consults with organizations on how to create a sustainable competitive advantage, accelerate product and services design, increase organizational performance and solve other complex problems. His areas of expertise are innovation, strategy and collaboration methodologies. He is also an affiliate of WDHB Consulting Group and a senior practice scholar at the University of Pennsylvania's Ackoff Center, where he is researching complex social and business systems. Morris is a senior fellow of the Aspen Institute's Economic Opportunities Program and a member of the scientific committee of Business Digest in Paris. His books include Managing the Evolving Corporation and The Knowledge Channel: Corporate Strategies for the Internet. His most recent is Permanent Innovation, a guide to successful innovators' practices, principles and strategies. Morris is a former contributing editor to Knowledge Management magazine. He has taught M.B.A. courses in strategy at the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris and Universidad de Belgrano in Buenos Aires.

Kirsten S. Moy
Director, Economic Opportunities Program, The Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C.
In her role at the Aspen Institute, Moy promotes learning about poverty alleviation strategies, focusing especially on workforce development, microenterprise or self-employment, and access to capital and credit. Her areas of expertise are community development finance, financial services, affordable housing and socially responsible investing. Before joining the Aspen Institute in 2001, she was a distinguished visitor with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and directed a national research project, the Community Development Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative. Moy was the first director of the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. She has also served as a senior vice president and portfolio manager at Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, vice president in charge of the Social Initiative Investment Department at the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, a program investment officer with the Ford Foundation and a management analyst at Nabisco Inc. She has an M.S. in operations research from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Detroit.

Christine Neal
Vice President and Treasurer, Unified Western Grocers Inc., Commerce, Calif.
Neal has been at Unified Western Grocers, the largest wholesale grocery distributor in the western United States, since 2003. Her work has included strategic and capital management, lending arrangements and merger due diligence, as well as oversight of cash management, tax and payroll. Before joining Unified, Neal served as CFO of the California Restaurant Association, the largest state restaurant and hospitality trade organization in the United States. She was also controller for Gelson's Markets, an upscale grocery chain in Southern California. Neal serves on the board of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the American Red Cross. A certified public accountant, she earned her B.S. degree in accountancy and finance from Miami University.

Alfreda B. Norman
Assistant Vice President and Community Affairs Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
As head of the Dallas Fed's Community Affairs Office, Norman is responsible for supporting the Federal Reserve System's economic growth objectives by promoting community and economic development and fair and impartial access to credit. Norman was one of the first neighborhood development officers hired by Bank of America in Texas in 1992. Responsible for developing a strategic community development plan to extend credit to low- and moderate-income communities, she went on to assume statewide CRA responsibilities with Bank of America's mortgage lending group. In addition to banking, Norman has been a supervisor in the city of Dallas' Office of Cultural Affairs and held management positions at The Container Store headquarters in Dallas. Norman earned a B.A. from Southern Methodist University and is a graduate of the University of Virginia's Graduate School of Retail Banking.

Mark Pinsky
President and CEO, Opportunity Finance Network, Philadelphia
Pinsky joined Opportunity Finance Network (formerly National Community Capital Association) in 1995. Under his leadership, the organization introduced the Equity Equivalent investment, the CDFI Assessment and Ratings System™ (CARS™) and performance- based financing. In 2002, President Bush appointed him to the Treasury Department's CDFI Fund advisory board. Pinsky currently chairs the CDFI Data Project and serves on the board of the CDFI Coalition and advisory boards to the Center for Community Development Investments at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and several New Market Tax Credit community development entities. He is immediate past chair of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council. Pinsky has a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College.

Kenneth E. Powell
Managing Director, Stone & Youngberg LLC, Richmond, Va.
Powell focuses on public finance and economic development and has been a leader in the development of tax district financing in the mid-Atlantic area. Before joining Stone & Youngberg in 2005, Powell worked for Legg Mason in public finance for 11 years and practiced corporate and tax law for 16 years. He serves on the Tax Increment Finance Coalition and was on the boards of the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce, Powell Endowment for American Enterprise, Virginia State Bar's Tax Section, Virginia Public Safety Foundation, Virginia Education Assistance Authority, Economic Advisory Project for the Republic of Georgia and Virginia Economic Developers Association. Powell received his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Colorado and law degrees from the University of Richmond and College of William and Mary.

Gregory A. Ratliff
Senior Fellow, Economic Opportunities Program, The Aspen Institute, Washington, D.C.
Ratliff is one of the Aspen Institute's principal investigators for a research project exploring the scalability of community development financial institutions. In addition, he has been an advisor to the Annie E. Casey Foundation as it establishes a social investment program. Ratliff came to the Aspen Institute in 2002 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which he joined in 1991 as a program officer in the area of program- related investments. In 1996, he was promoted to program director of the Access to Economic Opportunity interest area. In addition to overseeing the foundation's program-related investments, he was responsible for program design and grant development focused on economic inequality and access to opportunity. Before joining the foundation, Ratliff was active in social investing with the ShoreBank Corporation in Chicago. He earned a B.A. degree in geography from the University of California, Los Angeles and an M.B.A. from Northeastern University.

Jim Reid
President and CEO, Momentum Texas Dallas
Before heading up Momentum Texas, Reid was president of the Texas Mezzanine Fund. He previously founded and was president of the Southern Dallas Development Corp. In 1998 he received the Dreamers, Doers and Unsung Heroes award from the Dallas Real Estate Council for his work in southern Dallas. Reid was a Dallas assistant city manager from 1983 to 1989, concentrating on zoning, planning, transportation and economic development issues. He has been an economic development consultant to a variety of organizations, including the National Governors' Conference and the White House Conference on Economic Growth, and numerous cities, including Dayton, Kansas City, Lubbock and Tulsa. He has a master's degree in public administration from George Washington University.

Margo Weisz
Executive Director, PeopleFund Austin
Weisz is executive director of PeopleFund, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote economic vitality and opportunity in low-income communities by providing financial services and technical assistance. She serves as board president of the Austin Community Land Trust. Weisz has lectured at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas, chaired the city of Austin's Small Business Task Force, and served on the executive board of the Texas Association of Community Development Corporations and on the Texas Community Council for Washington Mutual. She has received numerous awards and honors, including being named a 2006 Profiles in Power winner by the Austin Business Journal, the 2004 Ernst & Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year and a 2003 Marshall Memorial Fellow. Weisz holds a B.A. from Colorado College and an M.P.A. from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.