Adrian Franco, Officer and Director, and Chelsea Cruz, Program Manager, Communications and Outreach

Promoting community development is an important function of the Federal Reserve System. Through a variety of programming and analysis, the New York Fed seeks to help advance economic mobility and resiliency of communities across the Second District. As part of that effort, we encourage capital providers to allocate funding to innovative, measurable, and impactful projects. This year, we’ve taken steps to formalize our work and create a new team in the Outreach & Education function focused on this space by launching the Community Development Finance initiative (CoDeFi).

Kausar Hamdani, Senior Vice President; Claire Kramer-Mills, Assistant Vice President and Community Affairs Officer; and Jessica Battisto, Senior Analyst

Last week, we released the City of Rochester Credit Profile, a prototype report for assessing economic well-being at the neighborhood level. It’s based on our Community Credit framework, and to understand what’s new and why this is significant, we’ll take a step back and explain the framework first.

Tony Davis, Officer and Director

We’re midway through our third roadshow of the year, which has given us the opportunity to visit local business, education, and community leaders in Syracuse, Ithaca, and Rochester, New York. This morning, President Dudley delivered remarks on workforce development during our first stop at Onondaga Community College.

Claire Kramer-Mills, Assistant Vice President and Community Affairs Officer

There’s no question that Latino-owned small businesses are critical to U.S. economic success. After all, Latino entrepreneurs have the highest growth rate of all ethnic groups in the United States, and Latino-owned businesses are responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in sales annually. Despite these successes, many Latino-owned small businesses lack the financing necessary to grow.