Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Web Resources

• Assets for Independence Resource Center—http://idaresources.org. A good resource for communities considering the IDA model for promoting assets.
• Center for Social Development (Washington University)—http://csd.wustl.edu/Pages/default.aspx. This website provides some excellent resources on IDAs in different contexts. It also includes several papers on policies related to IDAs.
• The Coalition of Community Development Financial Institutions—www.cdfi.org. This website pro­vides information for those interested in CDFIs. The coalition was developed in 1992 as an ad hoc policy development and advocacy initiative and represents more than 350 CDFIs in 50 states. The coalition is a primary source of information about CDFIs for the general public, the media, public officials, and the private sector.
• Community Reinvestment Fund (CRF)—www.crfusa.com. The CRF is a nonprofit organization that provides a secondary market for economic development loans. This website also provides infor­mation and resources for lenders, such as information on fair lending, lender liability, and housing-related sites.
• The Enterprise Development—www.enterweb.org/communty.htm. This website is an excellent resource for information on a wide variety of programs related to community economic devel­opment, including financing.
• The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) website on the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA)—http://www.ffiec.gov/hmda. This rich data source provides detailed data on home mortgage loans by census tract throughout the United States. The data are avail­able at several different levels and for several different years.
• Federal Reserve Board/Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Performance Ratings—http://www.federalreserve.gov/DCCA/CRA/crarate.cfm. The Federal Reserve regularly rates commercial lending institutions regarding their community reinvestment activities. You can obtain the full reports from lending institutions at this website.
• LETS-linkup—http://www.lets-linkup.com. This website provides information on more than 1,500 local exchange trading systems (LETS) in 39 different countries.
• National Community Capital Association—http://www.opportunityfinance.net. The National Community Capital Association is a membership organization of nonprofit groups that invest in poor communities.
• National Credit Union Administration—http://www.ncua.gov/Pages/default.aspx. This website pro­vides data and other information on federal and state-chartered credit unions across the country.
• National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions—http://www.cdcu.coop. This web­site provides basic information on and resources for CDCUs.
• Opportunity Finance Network—http://ofn.org. The OFN is a national network of community devel­opment financial institutions. The network helps pool funding for CDFIs, provides policy rec­ommendations, and consults on issues related to CDFIs.
• Slow Money—http://slowmoney.org. This organization is based on the popular book of the same name. It has established state organizations to recruit investors in local food and farms.
• Social Investment Forum—http://www.ussif.org. This website is an online guide to social investment. It provides information on how to investigate the investments of lending institutions. The web­site also provides some good information on community banks, community credit unions, com­munity loan funds, and microenterprise lenders.
• Woodstock Institute—www.woodstockinst.org. The Woodstock Institute is a Chicago nonprofit organization that works to promote community reinvestment and economic development in lower-income and minority communities. The institute engages in applied research, policy analysis, technical assistance, public education, and program design and evaluation. Its primary activities are CRA and fair lending policies, financial and insurance services, CDFIs, and eco­nomic development strategies.
• World Council of Credit Unions—http://www.woccu.org. This organization provides technical assis­tance and support for credit unions.