|
October 10–11, 2006
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
| A Partnership between
the Federal Reserve System and Aspen Institute |
|
Conference Proceedings [Aspen Institute
website]
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 [off-site PDF]:
- Dallas Fed publication on community
development finance [PDF]
- Aspen Institute website
[off-site]
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 |
| |
Facilitators:
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.
|
