Foreword
David Erickson
Center for Community Development Investments
This issue of the Community Development Investment Review explores how better data and technology can direct more capital to low-income areas. Better data on community development investments can turn uncertainty into quantifiable risk. In other words, better data transforms community development investments from being considered exotic, one-offs, public relations or philanthropy deals into regular assets with known risk parameters.
A mantra of the business world is “what matters gets measured,” but with community development transactions that is not always the case. To make this transition will require breakthroughs on a number of fronts. Articles by authors in this issue analyze the possibilities for improving data collection and analysis in the following ways: uncovering market opportunities in low-income areas (Yago, Zeidman, and Manning); tracking individual transactions (Kaplan); analyzing how nonprofits operate (Bamberger and Gross); and estimating the risk on aggregated pools of community development loans (Chen and Chang).
Technology also plays a role in how we make community development investing more efficient, and holds the promise of connecting disparate groups and lowering transaction costs. In this issue, two articles show how well-designed websites can connect borrowers with lenders in a way that could dramatically increase the flow of capital to low-income people and communities. One article delves into the lessons from international microcredit lending (Bruett) and the other focuses on domestic lending, particularly that which is motivated by the Community Reinvestment Act (Choi).
Perhaps the most important aspect of innovations in data and technology is that it generates hard evidence of the effects of community development investing. More data provides raw material for independent policy research and promotes transparency and good governance in both the public and nonprofit sectors. It also strengthens the public policy argument that community development investment creates value by promoting healthier and more vibrant communities better able to contribute to the common weal. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggests in this journal: “To know whether our policies and programs are delivering the desired results, we need to be able to measure inputs and outcomes, program by program and community by community.”
The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or of the Federal Reserve System. Material herein may be reprinted or abstracted as long as the Community Development Investment Review is credited.
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Table of Contents
By the Numbers: Data and Measurement in Community Economic Development
Ben S. Bernanke
Can Capital Markets Replace Banks for Funding Community Development?
Richard K. Green
Hunting for Data Sources: How Improving Data Can Increase Capital for Emerging Domestic Markets
Glenn Yago, Betsy Zeidman, and Jill Manning
Standard & Poor’s Small Business Portfolio Model Introduces a Potential New Tool for Community Development Loan Risk Analysis
Weili Chen and Winston Chang
Cows, Kiva, and Prosper.Com: How Disintermediation and the Internet are Changing Microfinance
Tillman Bruett
First Mover: The CDFI Fund’s CIIS Database Holds Promise to Create Substantial Data Repository for Community Development Investments
Heidi Kaplan
Creating a Marketplace: Information Exchange and the Secondary Market for Community Development Loans
Laura Choi
Count What Counts: Improving Charitable Investor Access to the Community Development Sector
with Better Data and Better Analytical Models
Lori Bamberger and Cort Gross