It might sound like a small thing, but when the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) was putting together its regional conference - scheduled for Thursday and Friday at the RiverCenter in downtown Davenport - organizers put their money where their mouth was. Printing, binders, and bags for conference attendees were all purchased from downtown Davenport vendors.
"It's important to have an economic impact," said Shelley Sheehy, secretary of the NCRC board and a local housing activist. "We came to town. We spent our money in town."
That gesture is an indication that the NCRC conference - with the theme "New Strategies & Partnerships for Developing Wealth in Communities" - is meant to do more than provide information or training to bank, government, and community-service leaders from the region. Yes, the conference is drawing people from at least six states in the upper Midwest, but one of its aims is to effect change in the Quad Cities.
The NCRC is expecting roughly 200 people at the conference this week, and Sheehy wants more than seminars to take place; she wants to see projects and initiatives find their funding over the two-day event. (On-site registration will be available on Thursday.) "Bring a deal and buttonhole those bankers or an investor," Sheehy has told people who are coming. And to representatives of financial institutions, she's advised, "Be ready to hear a deal." National representatives from U.S. Bank and National City Bank will be in attendance, she added, as well as decision-makers from First Midwest Bank.
The conference includes a wide range of sessions that give a sense of the NCRC agenda. Workshops are scheduled on New Markets Tax Credits, housing trust funds, lending regulations, brownfields, "advocacy and organizing for economic justice," and "mainstream services for the unbanked," among others.
"This is really the first conference of its kind, in terms of a regional conference" instead of a one-topic or training session, Sheehy said.
Sheehy is most responsible for the conference coming to Davenport. The NCRC holds an annual conference in Washington, D.C., each spring, and other training sessions in places such as New York City. The organization's board asked the staff to develop a conference that would address rural development and issues facing smaller cities, and Sheehy pushed for an Iowa site. "I really wanted to have it in Davenport because of all that's going on downtown," she said. And by that she doesn't just mean River Renaissance construction; she cited projects and programs involving United Neighbors, the Scott County Housing Council, and John Lewis Community Services as examples of partnerships that result in investment in the community.
The conference is intended to "have a direct influence over the way a community's capital is getting spent," said John Taylor, president and CEO of the NCRC. He added that he hopes the conference will ultimately help "create a collaborative body" that can effectively address the Quad Cities' unmet community and credit needs.
The goal is "to ratchet up the thinking of what is possible when people work together," Taylor said. "It's amazing the kind of creativity and camaraderie that develops around trying to make a difference."
Broadly speaking, the NCRC aims "to increase the flow of private capital into traditionally underserved communities," according to its Web site. The NCRC is a leader in fighting predatory financial services, such as high-interest mortgages for people who qualify for better rates. The organization also works to ensure that banks and financial institutions are reinvesting deposits in the community, that they're investing in an entire community and not just cherry-picking low-risk ventures, and that they're lending money to people all along the race and income spectrum.
That has traditionally involved an organization confronting a bank about its lending record in the context of the Community Reinvestment Act, which is designed to encourage banks and other financial institutions to "help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods," according to the government agency (http://www.ffiec.gov/cra/default.htm) that enforces the law.
The NCRC and many local organizations have often been watchdogs for the CRA, Taylor said, because they were more effective in getting banks to invest in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods than the federal government. "The enforcement came from the community," Taylor said. Activists would go to a bank's officials with information about its lending record and ask the financial institution to sign a contract agreeing to make specific investments or improvements.
While that process is often effective, it's typically not one that engenders partnerships; the process is contentious, as banks and consumer advocates argue about what the information means or how it was analyzed. This approach is also piecemeal and requires that an organization have the resources and expertise to regularly collect and analyze information about banks' lending practices. Big cities often have such groups, but not smaller urban areas or rural areas. "That's why you need this collaborative body," Taylor said. "This is more the building of an infrastructure for partnership. ... You get past ... all the anecdotal information, what a bank is or isn't doing." Such partnerships also create an atmosphere in which community groups can help financial institutions identify worthy projects in underserved neighborhoods.
A 2002 study of home-mortgage lending trends in Iowa - both Sheehy and the NCRC were involved - also stressed partnerships. "Community groups, local government agencies, and lenders should work together to ensure that certain neighborhoods or population groups do not receive a disproportionate amount of ... [predatory] lending," the report said.
The spirit of collaboration, of the power of working together, is also present in the NCRC National Center for Economic Justice project. The NCRC is working to purchase a building that will serve as the headquarters for NCRC and 15 to 20 other like-minded not-for-profit groups in Washington, D.C. Taylor is in the process of raising $6 million - he already has $4 million - and the total project cost will be roughly $10 million. Taylor said he wants to raise all the money by March.
The goal is to reduce the organizations' overhead and stabilize their rent so they can devote more of their resources to staff or projects, and to provide a "physical presence for us to be more synergistic," Taylor said. The gist of what's being done is to "multiply the impact of the whole," he said.
For more information about NCRC or the Midwestern Regional Conference, visit (http://www.ncrc.org).
"It's important to have an economic impact," said Shelley Sheehy, secretary of the NCRC board and a local housing activist. "We came to town. We spent our money in town."
That gesture is an indication that the NCRC conference - with the theme "New Strategies & Partnerships for Developing Wealth in Communities" - is meant to do more than provide information or training to bank, government, and community-service leaders from the region. Yes, the conference is drawing people from at least six states in the upper Midwest, but one of its aims is to effect change in the Quad Cities.
The NCRC is expecting roughly 200 people at the conference this week, and Sheehy wants more than seminars to take place; she wants to see projects and initiatives find their funding over the two-day event. (On-site registration will be available on Thursday.) "Bring a deal and buttonhole those bankers or an investor," Sheehy has told people who are coming. And to representatives of financial institutions, she's advised, "Be ready to hear a deal." National representatives from U.S. Bank and National City Bank will be in attendance, she added, as well as decision-makers from First Midwest Bank.
The conference includes a wide range of sessions that give a sense of the NCRC agenda. Workshops are scheduled on New Markets Tax Credits, housing trust funds, lending regulations, brownfields, "advocacy and organizing for economic justice," and "mainstream services for the unbanked," among others.
"This is really the first conference of its kind, in terms of a regional conference" instead of a one-topic or training session, Sheehy said.
Sheehy is most responsible for the conference coming to Davenport. The NCRC holds an annual conference in Washington, D.C., each spring, and other training sessions in places such as New York City. The organization's board asked the staff to develop a conference that would address rural development and issues facing smaller cities, and Sheehy pushed for an Iowa site. "I really wanted to have it in Davenport because of all that's going on downtown," she said. And by that she doesn't just mean River Renaissance construction; she cited projects and programs involving United Neighbors, the Scott County Housing Council, and John Lewis Community Services as examples of partnerships that result in investment in the community.
The conference is intended to "have a direct influence over the way a community's capital is getting spent," said John Taylor, president and CEO of the NCRC. He added that he hopes the conference will ultimately help "create a collaborative body" that can effectively address the Quad Cities' unmet community and credit needs.
The goal is "to ratchet up the thinking of what is possible when people work together," Taylor said. "It's amazing the kind of creativity and camaraderie that develops around trying to make a difference."
Broadly speaking, the NCRC aims "to increase the flow of private capital into traditionally underserved communities," according to its Web site. The NCRC is a leader in fighting predatory financial services, such as high-interest mortgages for people who qualify for better rates. The organization also works to ensure that banks and financial institutions are reinvesting deposits in the community, that they're investing in an entire community and not just cherry-picking low-risk ventures, and that they're lending money to people all along the race and income spectrum.
That has traditionally involved an organization confronting a bank about its lending record in the context of the Community Reinvestment Act, which is designed to encourage banks and other financial institutions to "help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods," according to the government agency (http://www.ffiec.gov/cra/default.htm) that enforces the law.
The NCRC and many local organizations have often been watchdogs for the CRA, Taylor said, because they were more effective in getting banks to invest in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods than the federal government. "The enforcement came from the community," Taylor said. Activists would go to a bank's officials with information about its lending record and ask the financial institution to sign a contract agreeing to make specific investments or improvements.
While that process is often effective, it's typically not one that engenders partnerships; the process is contentious, as banks and consumer advocates argue about what the information means or how it was analyzed. This approach is also piecemeal and requires that an organization have the resources and expertise to regularly collect and analyze information about banks' lending practices. Big cities often have such groups, but not smaller urban areas or rural areas. "That's why you need this collaborative body," Taylor said. "This is more the building of an infrastructure for partnership. ... You get past ... all the anecdotal information, what a bank is or isn't doing." Such partnerships also create an atmosphere in which community groups can help financial institutions identify worthy projects in underserved neighborhoods.
A 2002 study of home-mortgage lending trends in Iowa - both Sheehy and the NCRC were involved - also stressed partnerships. "Community groups, local government agencies, and lenders should work together to ensure that certain neighborhoods or population groups do not receive a disproportionate amount of ... [predatory] lending," the report said.
The spirit of collaboration, of the power of working together, is also present in the NCRC National Center for Economic Justice project. The NCRC is working to purchase a building that will serve as the headquarters for NCRC and 15 to 20 other like-minded not-for-profit groups in Washington, D.C. Taylor is in the process of raising $6 million - he already has $4 million - and the total project cost will be roughly $10 million. Taylor said he wants to raise all the money by March.
The goal is to reduce the organizations' overhead and stabilize their rent so they can devote more of their resources to staff or projects, and to provide a "physical presence for us to be more synergistic," Taylor said. The gist of what's being done is to "multiply the impact of the whole," he said.
For more information about NCRC or the Midwestern Regional Conference, visit (http://www.ncrc.org).
