FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers on Thursday honored the recipients of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund's 1999 awards.

The First Lady likes to say it takes a village to raise a child. At Treasury we like to add that it takes capital to build a village," Secretary Summers said. Through CDFIs, communities are coming together to bring prosperity to areas that have not seen prosperity."

The awards, totaling more than $112 million, were given to more than 250 banks, thrifts and community development financial institutions through CDFI Fund programs.

The mission of the CDFI Fund is to promote economic growth and access to capital in communities across the country by directly investing in and by expanding the ability of financial service organizations' to lend, invest, and provide services in underserved markets.

The CDFI Fund leverages Federal dollars by requiring that participating institutions provide at least a dollar-for-dollar match with funds from non-Federal sources for the assistance it receives through the CDFI program's core and intermediary components. CDFI award recipients are held to performance standards that help ensure that the CDFI Fund's investment will result in a significant community impact. Local organizations make the decisions about how to best meet community needs.

Since 1996 the CDFI Fund has provided more than $300 million to promote community and economic development and to encourage private sector investment in underserved markets.

Please visit the Fund's website http://www.treas.gov/cdfi for a complete listing of the 1999 CDFI awards.