CDFI Web-Based Training

The CDFI Fund has contracted NeighborWorks America to be the provider of complimentary training and technical assistance designed to build your capacity. Training is offered through in-class sessions as well as on the Web -- an especially convenient and cost-effective solution for your training needs. This web-based training is delivered through two means: Webinars (live and recorded sessions) and eLearning (online) courses.

Webinar Descriptions

Loan Policies and Procedures

The course will take participants through the steps required to establish sound loan policies and procedures for business and housing lending.  Model documents will be available for download as well as examples of industry best practices.  This is a soup-to-nuts webinar with additional follow up available.

Topics covered include:

• Establishing a loan policy for your CDFI
  
• 12 elements of a good loan policy
• Sample loan policy table of contents
• Risk rating system
• Linking risk rating to reserve
• Lending control function

Whether your CDFI is a large or small organization, urban or rural, focused on housing or business lending, participants will benefit not only from the presentation, but from the questions and answer session following the presentation.

Managing Troubled Assets

This webinar introduces participants to the identification and management of troubled assets. Included in the presentation are:

• Definitions of problem assets
• Risk grading systems
• Use of delinquency/past dues as proxy for risk grade system
• Portfolio quality report
• The watch list
• Working with problem borrowers & restructuring
• Protecting collateral interest
• Calculating risk exposure
• Staff responsibilities
• Portfolio management and adjusting loan loss reserve
• Worst-case scenarios

There will be ample time to address all the questions from participants, and links to a variety of resources will be provided. The webinar is suitable for organizations experiencing portfolio downturns and/or trouble, and organizations that want to be prepared if and when portfolios become troubled.


Risk-Assessing Your Own Organization

This webinar introduces participants to risk-assessing assets within the CDFI. Emphasis will be placed on loan portfolios, but the methodologies introduced are suitable for other asset classes. Topics covered include:

• Portfolio management as a component of risk assessment
• Types of risk to be assessed
• Overview of Risk Assessment – who does it?
• The place for social metrics in a risk assessment design
• Internal versus external risk assessment
• Pre-loan versus post-loan assessment methods
• Steps in creating a portfolio risk assessment system

We will be using data and trends identified in CDFI applications, and presenting some model systems for different types of CDFIs (e.g., small, medium and large). Links to resources and other risk assessment-related tools will be provided.


Raising Debt and Equity from External Sources

The primary focus of this webinar is on which funding sources and mechanisms will provide sources of capital for CDFIs in the near term, and why. We will also focus on what CDFIs can expect in the context of pricing, terms and conditions. This webinar covers:

• Banks: the nature of their business and the regulatory and profit constraints under which they operate
• Major participants in the capital markets: banks, credit unions, insurance companies, pension funds, GSEs, MI firms
• Alternative sources of capital available to CDFIs, including pension funds, endowments, program-related investments, individual investors, and other institutional investors
• Explanation of basic financial concepts and terminology that these entities utilize in evaluating investment opportunities
• Financing vehicles: bonds, securitization, commercial paper, and insurance
• Current state of the markets, and how that affects various sources
• Progress of CDFIs in expanding financing options, and the remaining impediments

• Financing vehicles that make the most sense for CDFIs in the current environment: participations, loan pools, sales to secondary markets, PRIs, cooperatives, EQ2

The bulk of the information in this webinar will draw from the relationships with financial institutions and participants in the capital markets. We will also use materials from the Orientation to the Capital Markets, the conferences set up by the Federal Reserve Banks and the Financial Innovations Roundtable and presented at Federal Reserve Banks around the country.  These materials include definitions, tools, structures, and “how-to” methodologies for the range of potential funding activities in the conventional and capital markets.  The webinar will also draw heavily on the new book CDFIs, Capital Markets and Organizational Credit Risk, recently published by the Carsey Institute.

eLearning (online courses)

Foreclosure Solutions

Three online courses are being offered for free to staff at CDFIs through 9/30/11. These courses are focused on foreclosure intervention counseling and are designed to bring counselors the knowledge and tools they need while staying close to work. The courses are self-paced and can be taken anywhere there is an internet connection. For course descriptions, click on the links below.

To register to take one of these courses for free, write to NCHEC@nw.org and ask for the special CDFI registration 'discount code.'

HO109 el Foreclosure Basics E-Learning
HO322 el Using Effective Practices to Improve Your Foreclosure Counseling Program
HO346 el Understanding and Applying Foreclosure Intervention and Loss Mitigation Tools