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Upcoming Conferences and Workshops

View All Upcoming Events

10/25 - 10/26 | St. Louis, Mo.
Promising Pathways to Wealth-Building Financial Services

11/01 | Louisville, Ky.
Inner-City Commercial District Revitalization: The Power of Partnerships

11/05 | St. Louis, Mo.
St. Louis Neighborhood Data Gateway Launch

11/07 | Mississippi (multiple locations)
The Great American Treasure Hunt: Finding and Using Tax Credits to Maximize Your Return

11/08 | Covington, Tenn.
West Tennessee Asset-Building Summit

11/08 | Bolivar, Mo.
Innovation Communities

Spotlight on Past Events

CRA for Community-Based Organizations

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) hosted an interagency-sponsored workshop on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) on May 3, 2012, at the St. Louis Fed.

Designed for staff of community-based organizations interested in obtaining current information and training on the CRA and how it can benefit their organizations, the workshop explored effective ways to constructively work with banks to improve neighborhoods and communities. The session was interactive, and participants received resource materials.

View workshop presentations here.

St. Louis Neighborhood Market DrillDown

The St. Louis Fed was the site of the release of the St. Louis Neighborhood Market DrillDown, an assets-based approach to market research that combines numerous data sets to build an up-to-date set of community economic indicators tailored to the strengths of urban neighborhoods. Participants attended presentations, heard from a response panel, and joined in-depth discussions about the ways in which using this new data differently can assist in building a more sustainable and equitable St. Louis.

View conference materials: summary of conference proceedings, videos, speaker presentations, agenda, bios, additional resources

Neighborhood Revitalization and the Business District

The Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, JPMorgan Chase Foundation and New Directions Housing Corporation sponsored a presentation by Jeffrey A. Morgan on redevelopment of commercial corridors and neighborhood-serving businesses. Morgan is a 2011 Harvard University Edward M. Gramlich Fellow, architect/urbanist and candidate for Master in Design Studies at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. His presentation was followed by a panel discussion on current and past efforts to optimize neighborhood business district revitalization.

View event materials, including event videos and an interview with Jeffrey Morgan

2011 Exploring Innovation:
A Conference on Community Development Finance

Exploring Innovation: A Conference on Community Development Finance was held May 9-11, 2011, at the Chase Park Plaza hotel in St. Louis, Mo. The conference was attended by lenders, investors, nonprofit community development practitioners and others who learned how to use innovative business models that address the financing of all aspects of thriving communities—from housing and infrastructure to community engagement and leadership development. Learning tracks included retail products and services, the green economy, investments and equity, and financing comprehensive development. Employing innovative presentation and collaboration techniques, the conference:

• illustrated how innovation can result in new finance models;
• highlighted industry best practices, state-of-the-art policies and innovative thinking; and
• served as a catalyst for future discussions around topics of significant importance to community development.

View conference happenings: presentation summaries and videos.

Tapping New Sources and Exploring New Models for
Community Development Finance

Standard financing models cannot address the growing needs of the field of community development, according to experts Dione Alexander, Ian Galloway and Trinita Logue. Unconventional methods and new, collaborative financial models need to be explored, including platform/system financing, philanthropic equity, technology and microfinance/peer-to-peer lending. Innovative financial institutions and organizations are learning how to work together to connect lenders to investors, sometimes by creating new platforms and partnership structures. This was the message at the Nov. 10 public policy dialogue, part of the St. Louis Fed’s 2010 Exploring Innovation series. The dialogue was followed at all Bank locations by a discussion regarding the implications of these issues on society, including how organizations must address these concerns to attract investment, add value, and support economic and social development.

Footage from the videoconference portion: watch video | Post-event summaries: St. Louis, Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis