Students in Sioux Falls, SD at a Citi Foundation-sponsored training.

The Citi Foundation Invests in Main Street

For more than a decade, the Citi Foundation has partnered with NDC to provide training to community development corporations (CDCs), building their capacity to better serve local low- and moderate-income residents.  That tradition continues in 2010 with an ambitious schedule of 20 development finance training courses in communities from San Francisco to Sioux Falls, SD, and Chicago to New Haven, CT.  The curriculum is as broad as the geography, sampling the entire range of NDC offerings, including courses on Asset Management for Affordable Housing, Economic Development Finance, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, Financing Renewable Energy Projects and more.

Non-profit CDCs play a critical role in economic and affordable housing development activities in their neighborhoods.  With small staffs and even smaller budgets, CDCs face challenges when it comes to capacity building.  The time and financial commitment necessary to  travel to locations outside their local areas are often prohibitive.  Yet financial analysis and structuring skills are essential components of successful community development.  The Citi Foundation brings NDC training to CDCs at little or no cost, removing those obstacles. 

"We are committed to improving the standard of living of low and moderate-income families.  Making local capacity-building opportunities available to CDCs who serve these individuals is a core part of that commitment," says Brandee McHale, Director of Programs for the Citi Foundation. "Our partnership with NDC represents an investment in the affordable housing development, job creation and neighborhood revitalization efforts undertaken by non-profit practitioners - activities that ultimately empower community residents." 

And that investment pays off.  With over 2,000 attendees to date, the Citi Foundation has made the classroom-based training accessible for CDCs.  This year's impressive line up of courses will reach another 300 plus practitioners and, more importantly, affect the lives of the low and moderate-income residents in the hundreds of neighborhoods those practitioners serve.