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One of the participating banks, First Fidelity, has operated its own "in-house" CDC since 1982. In 1994, First Fidelity issued $55 million in mortgage loans which complemented multi-million dollar investments in low income tax credits and loan to non-profit developers. Despite its previous experience with community development lending, First Fidelity recognized that the transaction costs involved in neighborhood business lending warranted its participation in the NCDLC. By sharing participation in business loan opportunities with NCC and other participating banks, First Fidelity limits its loan loss exposure. It will occasionally provide a supplemental loan or line of credit to a NCDLC borrower. Targeted businesses also benefit from technical assistance and marketing support from New Community's business mentorship programs.
Leading financial institutions in New York have embraced a new, innovative private sector effort focusing on neighborhood business development. The New York City Investment Fund is a program targeted toward business investment and job creation in blighted neighborhoods. One million dollars each has been committed by over fifty New York-based corporations. One of the important features emphasized by the funds chairman, Henry Kravis, and its president, Kathryn Wylde, is the commitment by these companies to making their human capital available to complement small business investment resources. According to the New York Times (1/30/97) description of the fund, Goldman Sachs is providing programmatic access to its investment analysis department and firms like Merrill Lynch and Tiffany are contributing retailing expertise and related specialists. Intriguingly, in the Bay Area, Henry Kravis' business partner, George Roberts, is similarly working with the Roberts Foundation's executive director Jed Emerson to foster the provision of targeted capital resources to impressive community development job creation initiatives such as those operated by the Asian Neighborhood Design CDC in Oakland and San Francisco.
BOC programs regularly facilitate access to banks, business assistance programs, and local and state governmental actors for entrepreneurs seeking to engage in stimulate expanded business activity in areas previously perceived as "declining." Such networking organizations are also successful in linking business development opportunities in a number of communities which previously had focused on business generation in an isolating, if not competing fashion. Instead, collaboration is now becoming the norm, allowing an apparel manufacturer in Brooklyn to make a connection to an Asian export/customs brokerage specialist in Manhattan's Chinatown District. The BOC networks have proved so effective that banks are now corresponding directly with managers of these programs, asserting their interest in making loans available to local entrepreneurs assisted by the BOCs. Perhaps inspired by its frequent interactions with the BOC Network, Chase Manhattan in 1994 opened its own Business Resource Center and recently announced the creation of the Chase Non-profit Resource Center which will provide technical assistance to CDCs and related entities.