CDFI 201: Strategies and Practice

Join NCRC’s National Training Academy (NTA) for CDFI 201: Strategies and Practice! This training is part 2 in a three-part series that explores the entire ecosystem of CDFIs. Participants must have completed CDFI 101 to enroll in the course. Both the CDFI 101 and this CDFI 201 courses are prerequisites for the third training, CDFI 301, which will be in-person, in Las Vegas at the end of July.

CDFI 201 builds on the CDFI 101 training provided in June. Participants will roll up their sleeves and begin practicing the CDFI concepts introduced in the previous training. They will work in small groups to design their preliminary concepts around pursuing CDFI certification.

This training builds on CDFI 101 – we will roll up our sleeves and begin practicing the CDFI concepts introduced in the previous training. During this learning experience participants will work in small groups to design their preliminary concepts around pursuing CDFI certification:

Participants will engage in hands on learning related to the following topics as they pursue opportunities to help meet the credit and development services needs of their communities:

• Mission and Impact Alignment
• Organization’s Cultural Status and Transformational Change
• Marketing Plans and Tactics
• Partnerships and Collaborations
• Impact Data and Reporting Requirements

Participants will process how to align their CDFI strategy and mission to their impact data collection process. We will discuss organization’s culture and how their ideal state may result in transformational change to their organization. How will this be handled? How will the staff and board buy-in process go, best case scenario? We will consider how to build efficiency around their lending processes and marketing plans to bring customers in. Partnerships and collaborations are the base of CDFI operations and will be explored during the engagement. We will also present information on various data collection and reporting tools so you can tell funder how your portfolio is performing.

**Prerequisite: CDFI 101: CDFI Basics**