Corporation for Enterprise Development

Corporation for Enterprise Development
Abbreviation	CFED
Motto	Expanding Economic Opportunity.
Formation	1979
Type	Public Policy Think Tank
Headquarters	1200 G Street NW
Location	Washington, D.C.
President	Andrea Levere
Website	cfed.org

The Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED) is a national nonprofit based in Washington, DC dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for low-income families and communities. CFED uses an approach grounded in community practice, public policy and private markets. CFED publishes research, partners with local practitioners to carry out demonstration projects and engages in policy advocacy work at the local, state and national levels. The organization works domestically with satellite offices in San Francisco, CA and Durham, NC.

History

CFED was founded in 1979 by Bob Friedman. The organization was initially focused on economic development and microenterprise. It worked to reduce unemployment and expand opportunity by advocating for policies that would make it easier for entrepreneurs to start or expand a small business. In 1988 CFED launched the Development Report Card (DRC) for the States, a broad-based report that used multiple indicators to rate the economies of all 50 states. The DRC was widely used across the field and provided policymakers and businesses a comparative measure to assess each state's business climate.^[1] The DRC was retired in 2007^[2] and was replaced with the Assets & Opportunity Scorecard.[1]

CFED was one of the first champions of Individual Development Accounts (IDA) – matched savings accounts that help low-income people save for a particular goal, such as buying a home, paying for post-secondary education, or starting or expanding a small business.^[3] In 1997, CFED launched the American Dream Demonstration, which was the first large-scale test of IDAs as a social and economic development tool. After seeing the success of IDAs, Congress passed the Assets for Independence Act (AFIA), providing $125 million over five years to fund IDAs.^[4] The AFI Program is administered by the Office of Community Services, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.^[5] There are currently hundreds of IDA programs across the United States. CFED is well-known in the field as the expert on Individual Development Accounts, as well as other asset building programs and policies.^[6]

Assets Learning Conference

CFED is best known for its Assets Learning Conference.^[7] The biennial conference brings together over a thousand leaders in the asset building field to discuss ways that assets can help create prosperity and expand economic opportunity for Americans.^[8]

Policy Influence

• Individual Development Accounts

• CFED is one of the organizations leading efforts to pass the Saver's Credit Expansion and recently launched the Saver's Credit Alliance, a coalition of the corporate sector, nonprofit sector and national organizations who support the expansion.^[9] On January 28, 2010 President Barack Obama announced that he plans to include an expansion of the Saver's Credit in his 2011 budget as a component of the agenda of the White House Middle Class Task Force, as well as in the State of the Union. The Savers Credit will increase the net worth and retirement security of as many as 50 million low- to moderate-income working American families and could increase their assets by as much as $44 billion. Reform measures supported by the Administration and Congress would benefit more than 50 million Americans include: provide a flat 50% match on deposits into qualified retirement accounts up to $1,000/$500 per year for joint/single filer, automatically deposit this match directly into a designated account through submission of IRS Form 8888, extend this benefit to households earning less than $65,000.An expanded Saver's Credit will build on the expansion of automatic enrollment in employer-sponsored accounts and employer innovation for automatic enrollment into IRAs to enable families to build a larger nest egg for their retirement and for other eligible uses.^[10]

Policy Advocacy

• The Savings for Working Families Act (SWFA) would make IDAs available to as many as 2.7 million low-income Americans. IDAs are matched savings accounts that help low-income families build appreciating assets and become financially self-reliant.^[11]
• Children’s savings accounts (CSAs) are financial products that seek to expand economic and educational opportunities for children by encouraging long‐term planning, building family wealth, and promoting financial literacy.^[12]
• Manufactured Housing Reform
• Self-Employment Tax Initiative

Programs

• American Dream Match Funds

A national initiative geared at promoting matched savings accounts for working families by partnering them with individual donors and philanthropists, matched savings/economic independence programs, corporations, financial institutions and policymakers.^[13]

• Asset Building for Children

The next step after the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) Policy and Practice Initiative which focuses on children's development accounts for the benefit of children growing up in homes with more modest means as a way to save money for college, financial security, or wealth building.^[14]

• Individual Development Accounts

Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) are matched savings accounts that help people with modest means to save toward the purchase of a lifelong asset, such as a home. CFED was an early leader in the creation and growth of IDAs as a practice, and later as a federal and state policy strategy for economic security.^[15]

• innovation@cfed

innovation@cfed was launched in 2008 by CFED to identify individuals at the cutting-edge of social innovations that expand economic opportunity for low- and moderate-income Americans. Each year, innovation@cfed solicits applications for individuals to submit ideas to be developed through a partnership with CFED. Innovators-in-Residence, Innovative Idea Champions and Innovative Idea Engineers are individuals selected through this process who establish a partnership with CFED, which provides financial, technical and staff supports to help bring their social innovations to scale. innovation@cfed is also founded on the notion that collaboration fosters innovation and as such hosts a number of virtual and in-person convenings aimed at bringing innovators together.^[16]

• Manufactured Housing

I’M HOME, or Innovations in Manufactured Homes, is a CFED initiative to support programs nationwide which help families who choose manufactured homes. The goal of I'M HOME is "to ensure that these families receive the same treatment and benefits as owners of any other type of home. They coordinate a national policy coalition around manufactured housing issues and by providing technical assistance and peer learning opportunities to a network of 30+ nonprofit partners who install high-quality manufactured homes, help homeowners in manufactured housing communities secure long-term control over the land beneath their homes, advocate for public policies that help owners of manufactured homes, promote access to fair and responsibly-priced mortgage financing for manufactured housing."^[17]

• Self-Employment Tax Initiative

SETI has supported 34 organizations implementing tax preparation programs that have served over 20,000 disadvantaged self-employed businesses. SETI local partners help identify, test and refine promising practices for using the tax code as a means of fostering small business development. SETI promotes sound tax policy for start-up self‐employed filers. SETI engages with policy partners to help analyze and understand self‐employment tax policies at the national and state levels in order to help grow businesses and reduce the tax gap attributed to self-employed businesses.^[18]

Publications/Tools

• The Assets & Opportunity Scorecard is a comprehensive look at wealth, poverty and the financial security of families in the United States. The Scorecard assesses the 50 states and the District of Columbia on how well residents are faring and what states can do to help residents build and protect assets.^[19]
• Weathering the Storm: Have IDAs Helped Low-Income Homeowners Avoid Foreclosure?, a study conducted by CFED and the Urban Institute, tracked 831 homebuyers in 17 states who purchased homes using IDAs (Individual Development Accounts) between 1999 and 2007. Compared to other low-income homebuyers who purchased homes in the same communities and over the same time period, IDA homebuyers both obtained significantly preferable mortgage loan terms, with only 1.5 percent having high-interest mortgage rates, compared to 20 percent of the broader sample and were two to three times less likely to lose their homes to foreclosure. This study provides the first evidence available on loan terms and foreclosure outcomes of IDA homebuyers. The findings suggest that participation in an IDA program with its related services and restrictions can improve homeownership outcomes for low-income households.^[20]

• The Assets Research Library provides a listing of research and resources on asset building and expanding economic opportunity. Resources are organized by CFED’s priorities: Savings & Financial Security, Affordable Housing & Homeownership, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development.^[21]
• The Financial Security of Households with Children study analyzed data on the net worth and asset poverty of households with children, and found that many families are financially unstable.^[22]

References

1. ^ http://www.businessnorth.com/viewarticle.asp?articleid=1154
2. ^ http://cfed.org/knowledge_center/research/DRC/
3. ^ http://www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/quarterly/2007_vol1/IDAs-and-banks.html
4. ^ http://www.results.org/issues/us_poverty_campaigns/economic_opportunity_for_all/building_savings_and_assets/individual_development_accounts/
5. ^ http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/afi/assets.html
6. ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-13222537.html
7. ^ http://cfed.org/knowledge_center/events/alc2010/
8. ^ http://okpolicy.org/blog/financial-security/asset-building/the-2010-assets-learning-conference-creating-the-save-and-invest-economy/
9. ^ http://saverscreditalliance.cfed.org/signup
10. ^ http://saverscreditalliance.cfed.org/signup
11. ^ http://cfed.org/policy/federal_policy_advocacy/policy_highlights/ida_tax_credit_swfa/
12. ^ http://preview.cfed.org/assets/documents/onepagers/childrens_savings_accounts.pdf
13. ^ http://cfed.org/programs/admf/
14. ^ http://cfed.org/programs/abc/
15. ^ http://cfed.org/programs/idas/
16. ^ http://cfed.org/programs/innovation/
17. ^ http://cfed.org/programs/manufactured_housing_initiative/im_home/
18. ^ http://cfed.org/programs/seti/
19. ^ http://scorecard.cfed.org/
20. ^ http://cfed.org/knowledge_center/research/weathering_the_storm_have_idas_helped_low-income_homeowners_avoid_foreclosure/
21. ^ http://cfed.org/knowledge_center/assets_research_library/
22. ^ http://cfed.org/knowledge_center/research/financial_security_of_households_with_children//

External links

• Corporation for Enterprise Development
• The Assets and Opportunity Scorecard