Online Event Archive Recorded: March 19, 2026
Learn more about the application process to receive grant support for your direct service to clients, while building your agency’s knowledge on how to address heirs’ property challenges and ensure your homebuying clients retain their intergenerational wealth.
The Field Empowerment Fund (FEF) empowers NCRC network members to level up established service lines.
The Housing Counseling Services series within FEF supports HUD-approved housing counseling agencies in building know-how for their staff and driving homeownership opportunities for their clients, such as through pre- and post-purchase counseling.
Speakers
Laura Bentley, Director, Grant Administration, Community Impact, NCRC
Luis Ortiz, Senior Program Manager, Community Impact, NCRC
Transcript:
NCRC video transcripts are produced by a third-party transcription service and may contain errors. They are lightly edited for style and clarity.
Bentley 0:07
Hello everyone, thank you for joining us. We’re going to get started here. Welcome to the 2026 field Empowerment Fund, housing, counseling services, grant programs, informational webinar. Really excited to have you with us today and share some information about the program, and we will kick it off right now. So first, some housekeeping things before we get started. First is that the NCRC Code of Conduct applies to this as well as all gatherings. Secondly, this session is being recorded and it will be posted to the FEF-HCS homepage. For any questions, we do have a Q and A module at the bottom of your screen, so please go ahead and add any questions there as we go through the presentation, and we’ll be sure to answer as many as we can during our Q and A session at the end. And of course, if you do have any further questions following the session, we’ll be sharing our information at the end of the presentation, and so you can definitely reach out. We’d be happy to help as well with any further questions. At your bottom right, we have some essential links. The first is the NCRC homepage, and the second is the FEF-HCS homepage, specifically so Field Empowerment Fund – Housing Counseling Services, that is the acronym that we use to describe the program, and that FEF page is where you’ll be able to see the recording, as well as all other important information related to the program. For those of you who may not be familiar, we are the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and we are a national nonprofit network organization of over 700 members, we focus on a wide variety of topic areas, from health equity to research to housing counseling, all under the same umbrella and with the same mission of building wealth in low-wealth communities across the nation. In terms of our agenda for today, we’re going to introduce ourselves for the community impact team. We’re going to talk about the FEF-HCS grant program in general, and then get into some more specifics regarding eligibility criteria, what the benefits of the program are, what the specific timeline is, and also give you a preview of the application content so that you can be prepared if you do proceed to submit your application, and then lastly, we will have a Q and A at the end for any questions. My name is Laura Bentley. I am the director of grant administration with NCRC and the community impact team. And there are two members of our team as well who I would like you to all be aware of and get to know, if you don’t know them already. Our first is Luis Ortiz. He is our program manager, actually, as well as Dia Henderson, a second program manager on our team. So Luis will be here, is here on the presentation today with me. He is the lead for the FEF-HCS program. Dia works on other programs within our department. So if you are kind of engaged with us in other ways, you might know Dia from those programs. But with that, I will pass it over to Luis to take over the rest of the presentation.
Ortiz 3:12
Perfect. Thanks, Laura. All right. So let’s get started. So the Field Empowerment Fund, or FEF, as we call it, is designed to support NCRC network members in strengthening and expanding the service lines that they already have in place. So this is really about helping your organization level up the work that you’re already that you’re already doing in the community, in your communities. So within FEF, this series specifically focuses on supporting HUD-approved housing counseling agencies like yourselves in advancing homeownership. This includes activities specifically pre-purchase counseling, helping clients get prepared and positioned to successfully buy their home and it’s important to note that this opportunity is not focused on any other services such as rental counseling or foreclosure prevention. The emphasis is on homeownership and the services that directly support that goal. Additionally, the program includes a strong focus on building knowledge around heir’s property issues. This is critical in helping first-time and low-income homebuyers not only achieve homeownership, but also understand how to retain and pass down wealth across generations.
The FEF-HCS series is made possible through partnerships with KeyBank and HSBC, these partners are investing directly into communities where they have a bank branch presence. So funding is the target geoc… I hate this word, geography… Laura, targeted geography…
Bentley 5:11
I’m too busy chuckling a little bit, Luis.
Ortiz 5:12
…geographically. I always gets stuck on that word, geographically. Within those footprints, you got it through these partnerships, a total of $4 million have been committed $2.5 million from KeyBank, $1.5 million from HSBC, and these funds are specifically designated for sub-grants that directly support direct-to-client housing, counseling services. And again, it’s important to emphasize that these funds are meant to support counseling activities that directly impact clients on their path to home ownership. As you can see, there are three rounds of funding. We’re completing the 2025 round now, kicking off the 2026 round of funding, which includes $850,000 from KeyBank, $510,000 from HSBC. This multi-year structure provides a great opportunity for agencies to plan ahead to build capacity and potentially participate in multiple rounds of funding.
All right. Next slide, eligibility. So to be eligible for this funding opportunity, there are three key requirements. First, your organization must be an active NCRC, 501 c3, member, and you don’t have to be a member to apply, but if awarded, membership will be required. Secondly, you must be a HUD-certified, HUD-approved housing counseling agency. This is important because funding is specifically intended to support high-quality, HUD-compliant housing counseling services. And third, and this is an important update, your organization must have a physical office location or be currently serving clients in an eligible geography. So I want to emphasize this third requirement is a change from 2025 previously, eligibility was more strictly tied to having a physical office in the geography. Now it’s more inclusive. So if you do not have a physical location in that area, you may still be eligible if you are actively serving pre-purchase clients in that geography. This change is intended to better reflect how agencies are delivering services today. You know, a lot of it is remote. And to expand access to funding for organizations already making an impact in these communities. And to help determine eligibility, there is a program eligibility checker available for each funder at ncrc.org/fef, and we’ll take a look at that site on the next slide.
All right, so, so in order to determine if you’re eligible to apply for the FEF-HCS grant opportunity, you’re going to have to go to enter your address into the eligibility checker. And Laura, I think it’s best if we just go over to the website and kind of go from there so that I can better explain how this is done.
Bentley 8:42
Sounds good. So I’ll stop here for one second. Bear with me. Here we are coming back.
Ortiz 8:52
Perfect. So this is the field, Empowerment Fund, housing, counseling services, web page. It’s important that everyone is able to access this web page. As you can see, there’s a register now for the the today’s call, but there’s also going to be, this is where we’re going to place the application link, also on, I think it’s the 23rd we’ll discuss that a little bit more. And as you scroll down, you’ll see other, some other information that we’re discussing now. And as you scroll down a little bit further, you’re going to see the awardees from previous years. If you scroll a little bit back up, Laura, you’re going to see the eligibility checker for each one of the funders. And let’s go ahead and click on the HSBC eligibility checker. This is where you’re going to go ahead and enter your office location into the map, and then we’re going to hit check eligibility. Let’s see what.
Bentley 10:02
I popped in the NCRC office.
Ortiz 10:07
Yeah, so we’re using the NCRC office address, and as you can see, our office is not located. Our office isn’t located in an eligible geography, but if you scroll, if can you scroll out a little bit on that?
Bentley 10:23
Yeah, I’m sorry I selected all the fonts, so it’s giving me that. Let me refresh you could maybe Okay, yeah, yeah, I got one second. Pardon my There we go. There we go. Okay, I’m back with you. Luis, unfortunately, not eligible,
Ortiz 10:48
Right. So listen, we’re not eligible. Our office location is but I believe you can scroll out a little bit, Laura, and if we scroll out, you see that there’s this blue area to the right of our office, and those are eligible areas. So even though, if we were a housing counseling agency that provides direct services, even though our office location is not in an eligible geography, if we’re providing pre-purchase services in that blue area, we will still you will still be and we will still be able to apply for this funding under the believe this is HSBC funding? Correct. All right, so, and we recommend that you go into both eligibility checkers to see your eligibility under both funding opportunities. So this is this one is clearly labeled, KeyBank, and you’ll do the same exercise here. You’ll enter your address, go to check eligibility, and let’s see what happens with KeyBank. So it looks like we’re not eligible in KeyBank as far as our office location is, what if we scroll out, there’s certain geographies that are eligible under KeyBank as well. So if we were to be providing pre purchase services in those blue areas, we would still be able to apply under the KeyBank funding as well. All right, I think we can, if we can go back to the to the original slide. Laura.
Bentley 12:42
Good, one second, here.
Ortiz 12:43
And what I did want to mention is, when it comes to these geographies, if your agency serves areas that fall within both funders geographies, you can absolutely be considered under both funding pools during this review process. However, it’s important to note that agencies will not receive separate awards, so instead, being eligible in both geographies simply provides additional consideration and flexibility during the selection process. Let’s see here. And also keep in mind that you’re going to be required to check eligibility like we just, like we just went over and do the program requirements. We will be verifying eligibility in the areas that you work in. So we will do a part of the review process is verifying that you’re eligible in these areas. I think we’re ready for next slide. All right, eligibility geographies. The following states contain eligible geographies, so please use the map tool for exact locations within the state, so similar to what we just did, but this slide kind of outlines the states that have eligible geography. So you know, for HSBC, you have to be in one of those states, and for a KeyBank your state, it has to be one of those states in order to qualify. But you still need to go into the eligibility checker to make sure that the areas that you provide services or your office location is located within an eligible geography.
All right, I think we’re ready for the next slide. Laura. All right, so let’s talk about some benefits, obviously, starting with benefits to awardees, starting with the funding support. Selected agencies will receive subgrants to directly support their housing counseling services. These funds are intended to enhance your ability to serve clients, specifically those working towards homeownership. The. minimum award amount is $10,000; however, final award amounts may be, may vary depending on several factors, including the number of applications that we receive, the number of clients that your agency serves, and how well your work aligns with NCRC’s partnership with KeyBank and HSBC, I know $10,000 is the minimum amount. We haven’t determined a maximum amount yet, but last year’s awards, most of them, were significantly, significantly higher than that. So just keep that in mind. In addition to funding, there also is a strong knowledge building components. Awardees will participate in a virtual training session focused on their heir’s property challenges and strategies for preserving general generational wealth for clients. And to ensure agencies fully benefit from this opportunity, there’s a minimum benefit, a minimum attendance requirement of one member of leadership and one HUD certified housing counselor per agency. The training will be hosted by NCRC National Training Academy, and we have an anticipated date for this training of July 2026. We’ll send out additional information once we have a concrete date set. So be on the lookout for additional information on that training. All right. Next slide, let’s walk you through some of the key dates for this opportunity so that you can plan accordingly. This application period opens on March 23, 2026 and will remain open through May 1 of 2026. During these times, the agencies can submit their applications for consideration. Make sure that you stick to that application period. We don’t anticipate extending that period at all. In June 2026, NCRC will announce the selected awardees for both KeyBank and HSBC geographies. The performance period will officially begin July 2026, and also in July, there will be the required training for all attendees focused on the heir’s property that we discussed earlier. Midway through the performance period, an interim report will be due on January 30, 2027, and this will cover activities from the beginning of the performance period, so July 1 through December 31, of 2026. The full performance period will conclude in June of 2027, and finally, the closeout report will be due on July, July 31 of 2027 which will cover the second half of the performance period from January 1 through June 30 of 2027. You know, this time I gives you almost a full year to implement those services, along with some structured checkpoints and to track progress and outcomes.
Next slide, this slide outlines the key components required as part of the application. So it’s important to begin gathering some of these materials early if you don’t have them readily available. First, you’ll need to provide an application point of contact. There should be someone who could respond to any follow-up questions that we have during the review process. Next, you’ll include your organization’s address and confirm your eligibility based on the funders’ footprints that we discussed earlier. Also, we will need to you to upload your 9902 for FY 25 quarter four, covering the period from October 1, 2024 through September 30 of 2025. This helps to demonstrate your agency’s housing counseling activity and capacity. And one thing that I did want to mention is important that you upload the report that is already in the HUD HCS system, as opposed to maybe a 9902 that is generated from your client management system. We will only consider reports coming from the HUD HCS system. In addition, you’ll be required to submit a roster of all active HUD-certified housing counselors, including their HUD ID numbers and copies of their HUD certificates to ensure compliance and verify that your team meets program requirements. And lastly, you’ll confirm your agency’s ability to attend the required heir’s property training. Remember that at least one member of leadership and one HUD-certified counselor must participate.
All right. Next. Line. So upcoming key dates. Application period opens, March 23, 2026 at 10 pm. There’s going to be a link, a live link in the website that we just visited, ncrc.gov/fef that we shared earlier, and it closes may 1 of 2026 at 5 pm once again, no extensions, and there’s a posted a link there for FEF, the homepage for the FEF-HCS grant there at the bottom.
Yeah, let’s go to next slide. Okay, we also want to invite you to connect with us in person at the NCRC Just Economy Conference. This is taking place April 14 and 15th, here in Washington, DC. It’s a great place to it’s a great opportunity to engage directly with our team and connect with peers across the network that do a lot of really cool work and maybe similar work that you also do. And in addition to networking, the conference will feature a variety of workshops and sessions focused on topics like housing, community development, economic equity, and there’s a lot of valuable content that you can bring back to your organizations. And if you’re interested in attending or want to explore the full agenda of the workshops, you can visit ncrc.org/conference. Think there’s going to be a link in the chat for that as well. We’d love to see you there and continue the conversation in person.
All right, next, next, next slide. If you’re not already a member of NCRC, we encourage you to learn more about joining the network by visiting our membership page. Like Laura mentioned earlier, NCRC is a network of over 700 local and nonprofit and national nonprofits as well as government and educational institutions. And while funding opportunities like this, FEF-HCS series are a great benefit, membership also provides access to a wide range of additional resources, partnerships, training opportunities, advocacy efforts that can support and strengthen your organization’s work. I also want to emphasize that NCRC membership is required if you are selected for an award. So if you’re considering applying and are not currently a member, it’s a good idea to start exploring that process now.
And that’s it, just the best way to get in contact with us. If you have any questions regarding this, opportunity is to email impact@ncrc.org. You can also schedule a meeting directly with me through Zoom at my calendar link, which is listed here. I will also be holding and announcing and holding some open office hours during the application period, so that if you have any questions, you could just hop on and I can help to answer any questions that you may have at that time. But you know, you could feel free to email or request a meeting there on our calendar link as well. The NCRC, the FEF-HCS homepage is listed on here. The membership email is listed on there. In case you wanted to reach out to some of our membership teams to have them answer any questions regarding membership, benefits, costs, things of that nature. And that’s all I have. I think we can open it up for questions, Laura?
Bentley 24:05
Yeah, yeah. So I’ve been adding or answering a couple of those in the Q and A as I’ve been going as quickly as I can here, so I will raise a couple of those here for the group. One question that we had is, is there a difference between having a HUD-certified counselor doing work and being a HUD-certified housing counseling agency? There? There is a difference to that, and you must be a HUD-certified agency. So that would be something to verify and ensure that you have that certification.
Ortiz 24:39
Right. So you need to be a HUD-certified housing counseling agency, but you also must have a HUD-certified housing counselor employed at your organization in order to be able to participate, since they’re going to be the ones doing the pre purchase counseling.
Bentley 24:55
Exactly, yeah, we have a question, maybe just to reiterate, Luis, and I can go back to the eligibility checker here, but we have a question of if our office isn’t within an eligible area, but we service some areas that are in that eligible area, are they eligible to apply? So maybe just go over the if your office isn’t within the area,
Ortiz 25:16
Right, right, right. So if you’re so there’s two ways to kind of qualify for the for the for this opportunity. One is if your address, your office, is in an eligible geography. So you’re going to enter your information into one of the into both of these checkers, actually, because you should be applying for both the HSBC program and the KeyBank program. So enter your office address. If it’s in the blue area, then you’re good to go. But even if it’s not in the blue area, if you scroll out of the map, but using the little minus sign there to kind of expand the map some, you’re going to be able to see if other areas within or near your office that you are that are eligible, and if you’re currently servicing clients in that area, you still will be eligible to apply for for that opportunity, for that particular funder. We’ll do some. The application that you’re going to be completing will ask questions if you’re not, if your office isn’t in the in the eligible area, it’s going to ask a few other questions. If you say, well, our office isn’t in the isn’t eligible, but we do service some clients in the next town over which appears to be eligible. So we’ll ask a few more questions as far as how many clients or what percentage of your clients are in that eligible area. But I hope that answers your question.
Ortiz 27:00
Yeah, that’s that’s helpful. We have a question here. What’s the maximum amount that you can apply for? And I just want to flag that you won’t be asked to request a certain award amount that’s not part of the application. The award values are determined in the selection process based on the volume of applications and other factors from those who have applied. And so what we do know is that the minimum award is $10,000 but it can be more than that, again, depending on the selection process and the number of applications, et cetera. We have a question here. Luis, how can folks see if they are an NCRC member?
Ortiz 27:44
Um, that’s a good question. If you’re not sure if you’re an NCRC member. I think the best way to do it, should we give that membership@ncrc.org? I think just go ahead and send an email to that email address asking if you’re a member, and one of our membership teams will will respond and let you know if you are and if you’re not, they’ll also give you the steps that you need to take in order to apply for membership and just go over the benefits of being a member.
Bentley 28:20
Yeah, exactly. And so we’ll leave that up there for any folks who either want to double-check on their membership status. Aren’t sure if it’s still active, or if you’re not, you know, familiar with us, you’d like to learn more about joining. That’s the that’s the place to go. We have a question here. Would we qualify for a sub-grantee of a HUD intermediary? Yes, you would just note that you’ll need to apply like do the application yourself, under your agency name, not related to your intermediary. So the grant will go directly to you if you’re awarded, and if you are an intermediary, or thinking about your sub-grantees and your network, we’d love for you to share the word with them. An intermediary is not able to apply on behalf of its its agency, so each agency would need to apply separately and be assessed separately that see here, and there’s a question, does an organization need to use their main address is their location, or can they use any physical building location if they have multiple the address that you’re going to want to use is your headquarters. So your office headquarters, one that appears on your 9902 and is associated with your organization with HUD. But as Luis had mentioned, if again, you service a different area as well that’s also eligible, you can just go through that second process of noting the percentage of your clients that you serve in the eligible blue areas as well.
Okay, let me see, Luis, what else might be new here? There’s a question to put the eligibility link in the chat. That’s the FEF homepage. So for folks who are looking at this current slide to your bottom left, the FEF homepage, ncrc.org/fef, that’s where the the checkers are located.
Ortiz 30:28
Where the checkers are located. That’s going to be also where the application link will be located once it opens on the 23rd.
Bentley 30:38
Exactly. Yeah, let’s see, there’s a question for organizations who are part of the previous cohort and receive funding in previous years, you are able to receive funding again through this current round. And there’s a question about how we evaluate organizations in that situation. Obviously, we’re looking for current grantees who have been timely in their reporting and correctly carrying out the grant requirements for this year in order to be eligible for the upcoming application. So bear that in mind, but there is no inability to apply from one year to the next, so we invite you to apply again. Let me see, there’s a question, if there’s going to be an opportunity to apply for funds in future years. Do you want to just mention the multiple year structure, Luis.
Ortiz 31:42
Yeah, yeah. So this is definitely a three year, three year opportunity. We’re already well into the 2025 round, closing it out here in a couple of months. 2026 rounding is opening here in March, and we’ll definitely have a round in 2027 with similar award amount. So, so definitely another opportunity next year.
Bentley 32:06
Yeah, absolutely. Question, if the PowerPoint will be available, this recording is going to be added to the FEF website again. So if you check back there, and you know, a couple of days, our team will be able to add it back up there, and most of the information, if not all of it that you’ve seen in the slides is actually on the website, already in written form as well. So that would be a great resource for folks who are looking for the slides in the next couple minutes. A couple more questions. Yeah, go ahead. Luis.
Ortiz 32:49
I was just going to say I see a question relating to census tracks, and if we can use to that to determine how many clients would they typically serve in that area, or is it enough to confirm that they service that particular area that’s eligible?
Bentley 33:09
Yeah, you will need to list the percentage of clients that you serve in those areas. So depending on your different record keeping systems, how you keep track of your clients, and I would leave that to you to determine what would be the most effective way for you to determine but it’s within your client population. So if you serve 100 clients in a year, and looking at the neighborhoods that are marked blue, you see, okay, some of those clients, let’s say 20 of our clients this past year are in those neighborhoods, then you’ll be able to say 20% on your application, and just know that in the if you are awarded, the funding will need to be used in those specific eligible neighborhoods, and we will be doing kind of a sample set of that in your reporting. So do make sure that you are operating already in those areas, as that will be verified, and that’s where the grant funding needs to be used. Luis, we have a question about for organizations that do more comprehensive housing counseling beyond pre-purchase, such as foreclosure or rental counseling, are those services eligible to include in our accounts under this grant?
Ortiz 34:21
Not, not for this particular grant, the FEF-HCS series primarily focuses on pre-purchase counseling with a with an emphasis on increasing homeownership in LMI communities so no rental, no foreclosure in this particular opportunity. Those can be those services are supported by the HUD comprehensive housing counseling grant, and definitely others are focused on that as well, but not for this particular service.
Bentley 34:57
Absolutely and. Then, okay, we have just kind of to drive this point home regarding the eligibility locations. We have a question of my agency is just 40 feet outside of the service area. It’s coming up ineligible. Do I have to do the alternate way you do so in this case, because your grant funding is something that we need to be able to have a dedicated process for and make sure that that process is equal for everyone, and kind of has distinct guidelines that are in line with the agreements that we have with KeyBank and HSBC. If you are, if your office is showing up as ineligible in the checker, you do need to do that alternative method. And so we’ve been able to work since last year, where we were unfortunately only able to go off of ineligible or eligible. We’ve been able to work through this year to add that added flexibility. So that is the alternative option. And if you’re not showing up as eligible through that checker with your office address for your 9902, you are going to need to do that alternative method, and we appreciate your effort in doing that, and are excited to be able to offer that as an opportunity this year for some folks who weren’t able to access last year’s funding pool.
I’m going to glance in here for anything else. If there is a question that you have that’s very specific to your particular agency, again, I will pop back to our information page and leave that up as I’m glancing through again, and we are more than happy to help you determine specifically any answers to your questions or any situation that you’re currently dealing with, there’s a question about if the heir’s property training that is required is going to be virtual, and it will be virtual, just going to confirm that. There’s a question about, what if I’m not currently operating in the surface areas, but I plan to expand going forward into that area. Am I eligible? You’re not eligible for this round. You do need to already be serving clients in that area. But as Luis mentioned, there will be an upcoming round next year as well, and so in that case, you would be eligible to apply at that point when you do have clients already in those service areas. And I think with that, I think that’s all of the questions here without duplicating different answers. So I’ll give it a couple more seconds here. But with that, we’ve covered everything. So again, everyone, thanks for joining, and you have our information there. Impact@ncrc.org is how you can reach Luis, who will again be the point person on this particular program. And as he’s mentioned there, his Calendly is also available. So we really appreciate your interest in this program. We look forward to your applications and look forward to working with you as well, moving forward. And thank you again for the work that you do for this important pre-purchase work and helping folks build wealth through their housing. So thank you again, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.
