Philadelphia, PA - September 22, 2008 "“ Just days before the first presidential debate, a new book released today by a national network of responsible lenders showcases the opportunity finance industry's 30 years of successful financing in underserved markets.

As most headlines highlight foreclosures and bailouts, these expert practitioners point to successes that argue for increasing profitable - but not profit-maximizing - financing to low-wealth and low-income people and places, not reducing it.

"Just as a lighthouse shows big ships safe harbors," says Mark Pinsky, Opportunity Finance Network's President & CEO, "opportunity finance illuminates ways to steer clear of unsafe lending and reduced credit practices in serving low-income and low-wealth people and places." Opportunity finance serves housing, small business, and community facility markets.

Published as a guidebook for the next President and Congress, "The NEXT American Opportunity: Good Policies for a Great America" was compiled by the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a national network of high performing community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Replete with new data and seldom heard stories, The NEXT American Opportunity is a comprehensive set of more than 200 smart, sensible, and proven federal policy recommendations to create opportunities for economic growth, including green growth, particularly when the economy is distressed.

In addition to providing sound policy recommendations, The NEXT American Opportunity highlights the inspiring achievements of this little-known and under-reported financial markets phenomenon.

"The magic of opportunity finance is no sleight of hand," notes Pinsky. "It's what happens when sound, wise, market-based strategies are given a fair chance."

To date, the opportunity finance industry has financed more than $25 billion in underserved markets in all 50 states, yielding more than 200,000 jobs, 500,000 housing units, and the nation’s biggest pool of charter schools - all with its winning "slow and steady" strategy.

"There are predatory lenders and responsible ones," Mark Pinsky observes. "Our economic crisis should not be blamed on borrowers. It is the product of irresponsible lending. Over 700 CDFIs - steady, sturdy engines of success - have proven it's possible and profitable to lend and invest responsibly to low-income and low-wealth individuals and communities across the U.S."

Amid some of the worst news since the Great Depression, The NEXT American Opportunity offers insight from 54 successful practitioners into everything from the Capital Magnet Fund to New Markets Tax Credits, from manufacturing to manufactured housing, and from disaster relief to charter schools. Taken together, they make The NEXT American Opportunity an indispensable resource for policy makers, opinion leaders, journalists, and industry leaders alike.

Among The NEXT American Opportunity's key recommendations and findings:

• That the U.S. Department of Treasury's CDFI Fund receives a minimum of $250 million per year to continue to provide the equity capital for profitable and responsible lending. The CDFI Fund is unlike every other federal program and agency; it invests in financing strategies rather than projects and leverages $19 or more in non-federal support for every $1 it invests.

• Across the country, CDFIs are helping thousands of low-income and minority families create wealth through homeownership. CDFIs, including California-based Clearinghouse CDFI, have provided $4.7 billion in financing for more than 50,000 home loans since 1980, reaching out to female, rural and minority borrowers across the U.S.

• CDFI's are vital lending laboratories providing responsible loan opportunities for charter schools. For example The Reinvestment Fund, a CDFI based in Philadelphia, has provided $120 million in financing to 42 charter schools since October 2007.

• CDFIs are national leaders in financing green real estate development, green affordable housing projects, and green energy production, often in redlined areas. Because the marketplace around these green dynamics is new and evolving, many green businesses need funding - which CDFIs offer - that is risk tolerant and flexible.

An eye-opening page turner, The NEXT American Opportunity - edited by OFN's Sandra Kerr and Cheryl Neas - presents 40 stunning success stories. In seven clear, themed sections, articulate and inspiring practitioners share - many for the first time - the lessons their CDFIs have learned through a series of strategic and profitable investments.

According to Pinsky, no other federal funding is more productive than the CDFI Fund in the U.S. Treasury Department - every public dollar leverages between $19 to $27 in new private sector investment. Less than 10% of the capital CDFIs hold comes from government.

Are these results replicable, scalable and sustainable? Yes, says Kerr - and they're already attracting bipartisan support. According to President George W. Bush's FY2008 budget request, "the CDFI Fund helps address the urgent problems of declining economic and social infrastructure, loss of jobs, lack of private enterprise, and deteriorating housing facing many American communities today." From across the aisle, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has said in the Congressional Record, "CDFIs have a history of prudently using scarce public funds to leverage additional private funding to finance emerging domestic markets."

To learn more about what makes the opportunity finance industry poised to point the way to sound financial policy and practice, and to arrange interviews with its lenders, borrowers and visionaries, please contact Jeanine Plant at jplant@pro-mediacommunications.com or
212.245.0510.

Opportunity Finance Network

Opportunity Finance Network

Opportunity Finance Network is the leading network of private financial intermediaries that delivers both sound returns and real opportunities for low-wealth people and communities in the U.S. Opportunity Finance Network Members originated more than $12.5 billion in financing in non-conforming urban, rural, and native communities through 2006. This generated or maintained 175,710 jobs; 39,583 businesses; 533,394 housing units; and 5,858 community facility projects. More information is available at www.opportunityfinance.net.

More from Opportunity Finance Network