Fiscal Year 2009 Round of NACA Program Opens

September 29, 2008

WASHINGTON -The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund today released its fiscal year 2009 Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) for the Native American CDFI Assistance (NACA) Program. This annual funding notice provides up to $8 million in appropriated funds, subject to final appropriations, in the form of financial assistance awards and technical assistance awards to CDFIs and entities proposing to become or create CDFIs that primarily serve Native American, Alaskan Native or Native Hawaiian communities.

To make this funding opportunity available to the public as soon as possible, the CDFI Fund is posting the NOFA electronically on the Grants.Gov website (www.grants.gov) in advance of the Federal Register publication on Wednesday, October 1, 2008. Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to read this funding notice thoroughly. Additional guidance can be found on the Native Initiative web page.

"Native CDFIs are on the front lines of providing vital financial products and services, creating needed jobs and helping foster economic growth in our nation’s Native communities,” said CDFI Fund Director Donna J. Gambrell. “With the opening of the fiscal year 2009 round of our NACA Program, the CDFI Fund is making available critically needed capital that will help these community-based lenders grow and do more for the communities they serve. I am also pleased that we are opening the 2009 round earlier this year which will provide applicants an additional month to prepare their application over last year."

Since 2002, the CDFI Fund has made 177 awards totaling $31.3 million through its various funding programs aimed at benefiting Native communities. In five short years, the number of Native CDFIs has grown from 14 to 47 – a 335 percent increase. In addition, the CDFI Fund has awarded over $7.5 million in contracts to organizations that provide capacity-building and financial services training programs that are focused on Native Communities.

Learn About Applying to the NACA Program

The CDFI Fund has simultaneously posted a webcast version of an application workshop on its website so that interested parties may learn how to apply to the NACA Program at their convenience over the internet.

To access the webcast and the presentation, please visit the How to Apply section of the CDFI Fund's website.

Questions

For more information on the NACA Program or the Webcast of the Application Workshop, please contact the CDFI Fund’s Office of Policy and Programs by e-mailing cdfihelp@cdfi.treas.gov or by calling (202) 622-6355.

Certification

The CDFI Fund is conducting a conference call specific to Native CDFI Certification. This calls will serve as a forum for potential certification applicants to ask questions of CDFI Fund staff about becoming a certified Native CDFI. The date and instructions for accessing the next conference call are outlined below.

Date: Thursday, October 9th, 2008 from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EDT

Instructions: To access the conference call, participants need to call (202) 927-2255 and enter in the pin number 998803. No prior registration is necessary.

Background

The CDFI Fund invests in and builds the capacity of community-based, private, for-profit and non-profit financial institutions with a primary mission of community development in economically distressed communities. These institutions – certified by the CDFI Fund as community development financial institutions, or CDFIs – are able to respond to gaps in local markets that traditional financial institutions are not adequately serving. CDFIs provide critically needed capital, credit and other financial products in addition to technical assistance to community residents and businesses, service providers, and developers working to meet community needs.

In 2004, the CDFI Fund introduced the NACA Program, which was specifically designed to encourage the creation and strengthening of CDFIs that primarily serve Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian communities. Organizations funded serve a wide range of Native communities, and reflect a diversity of institutions in various stages of development – from organizations in the early planning stages of creating a CDFI, to tribal entities working to certify an existing lending program, to established CDFIs in need of further capacity building assistance. Two types of funding are available: financial assistance awards, available only to certified CDFIs and primarily used for financing capital; and technical assistance grants used to acquire products or services such as computer hardware and software, staff training, etc.

The CDFI Fund's vision is an America in which all people have adequate access to affordable capital, credit and financial services.

For more information about these awards, or about the CDFI Fund and its programs, please visit the Fund’s website at: http://www.cdfifund.gov.

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