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The debut of a new format for Dividend
This issue marks the debut of a new format for Community Dividend. We have expanded our content in a continued effort to meet the needs of our readership and reflect the diversity of the Ninth Federal Reserve District.
Familiar items like “Resources” and the event calendar are joined by two new departments. “News and Notes” is a collection of announcements and news briefs from around the District and beyond, and each installment of “A Conversation with . . .” will feature an interview with experts on a range of community development and consumer affairs topics.
In this issue, we focus on community development in rural areas and small towns. In contrast with some of their urban counterparts, rural community developers often face a lack of resources or visibility and other unique challenges.
The cover story discusses building capacity in rural community development corporations (CDCs)—that is, increasing the ability of CDCs to accomplish their goals. It examines a framework based on five components of capacity building and highlights rural CDCs in our District that illustrate various aspects of the framework. Brief profiles of the highlighted CDCs accompany the article.
A second feature explores revolving loan funds (RLFs) as a source of capital to finance business development in South Dakota. The article briefly describes three types of loan funds and identifies opportunities for future growth and enhancement of RLFs.
A conversation with Elise Hoben and Bob Poznanski, representatives of Rural LISC, concludes this issue. Hoben and Poznanski elaborate on some aspects of increasing the capacity of rural CDCs addressed in our cover story and offer a national perspective on issues facing rural CDCs.
We hope this information will be valuable for you in your rural and urban development efforts.
