OCC's Community Affairs Department conducts
outreach and develops many
publications to help national banks and federal savings associations to provide financial services to underserved markets. In support of this goal, we:
- Administer the national bank public welfare investment authority (12 CFR 24) and the comparable authority for federal savings associations (12 CFR 560.36)
- Provide community development training and technical assistance
- Offer customized consultations to help you identify community development finance opportunities and resources
- Facilitate communication among lenders, community groups, and government officials through workshops and conferences
- Publish community development information on best practices and investment opportunities
- Compile Resource Directories on a range of community development topics
Stay up to date with OCC's Community Affairs List Service.
 | | Community Affairs Year in Review 2011
The Fiscal Year 2011 Year in Review highlights the Community Affairs Department's national and regional activities to support the OCC's mission to ensure a safe and sound banking system. It features events held nationally and in each of the OCC's four districts to promote banker education and community reinvestment. |
 | | September/October 2012 Financial Literacy Update
This is a bimonthly e-newsletter that reports upcoming financial literacy events, new initiatives, and related resources of the OCC and other government agencies and organizations.
PDF version |
 | | Bank Financing of Healthy-Food Initiatives (August 2012)
This issue explores how banks can help finance the growing effort to transform low-income communities lacking grocery stores into thriving markets. |
 | | USDA's Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program (PDF) (June 2012)
Provides an overview of the USDA's Business and Industry (B&I) Guaranteed Loan Program, which is used to support business lending in rural areas. |
 | | SBA 504 Loan Program: Small Businesses' Window to Wall Street (PDF) (March 2012)
This newly updated publication provides an overview of the SBA's 504 Loan Program, which is used to finance long-term assets, such as owner-occupied commercial real estate and heavy machinery, at competitive rates. |
 | | Ending Homelessness: Financing Permanent Supportive Housing (February 2012)
NR 2012-29
This issue highlights how financial institutions can support community goals to end homelessness by providing financing to developers of permanent supportive housing.
PDF version (1.3MB) |
 | | Investing in Solar Energy Using the Public Welfare Investment Authority (July 2011)
NR 2011-89
This issue highlights the innovative investments national banks have made in solar energy-producing facilities using their public welfare investment authority.
PDF Version (4.2 MB) |
 | | Renewing Economic Growth: Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 (June 2011)
NR 2011-86
This issue explores three main features of the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, describing the programs and provisions and explaining their requirements.
PDF version (2.1 MB) |
 | | Charter School Financing Opportunities (Spring 2011)
NR 2011-65
This issue provides background information about charter schools; discusses the availability of federal, state, and local resources to support the financing of charter school facilities; and includes case studies of financing structures provided by banks.
PDF version (1.0 MB) |
 | | Community Affairs Year in Review 2010
The Fiscal Year 2010 Year in Review highlights the Community Affairs Department's national and regional activities to support the OCC's mission to ensure a safe and sound banking system. It features events held nationally and in each of the OCC's four districts to promote banker education and community reinvestment. |
 | | SBA’s and Export-Import Bank’s Working Capital Loan Guarantee Programs (April 2011)
NR 2011-44
This Insights report highlights two federal loan guarantee programs that help lenders and business borrowers finance the export of goods and services. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Export Working Capital Program (EWCP) and the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) Working Capital Guarantee Program (WCGP) work in a complementary fashion to guarantee loans made by commercial lenders to qualified exporters. |
 | | Public Welfare Investments: A Catalyst for Community Development (Fall 2010)
NR 2010-116
The articles in this issue highlight community development investing in the common types of public welfare investments; compare the public welfare investment authority provisions with CRA; and explain the public welfare investment submission process, as well as documentation requirements for public welfare investments.
PDF version (2.0 MB) |
 | | Road to Recovery: Banks Can Use Recovery Act to Help Pave the Way (Spring 2010)
NR 2010-48
Articles describe how banks and their local partners can help promote economic growth through programs authorized in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and subsequent legislation. The newsletter provides a snapshot of various Recovery Act programs designed to encourage lending, investments and community development services activities and outlines how such activities might help a bank's Community Reinvestment Act performance.
PDF version (2.1 MB) |
 | | Neighborhood Stabilization: Local Partnerships Are Rebuilding Communities (Fall 2009)
Features an overview of strategies that banks, nonprofit businesses and local government agencies have developed in response to the growing number of residential foreclosures. It includes the specific activities of selected national banks and their partners, and offers opportunities for others interested in supporting community stabilization. It also highlights a federal funding program and related national nonprofit infrastructure developed to facilitate the transition of real estate owned (REO) from financial institutions to the aspiring homeowners and nonprofits who can return them to the productive housing stock.
PDF version (1.4 MB) |
