JPMorgan Chase Foundation: Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods

Partnerships for Raising Opportunity in Neighborhoods (PRO Neighborhoods) is a five-year, $125 million effort to drive inclusive economic growth by helping communities access the tools they need to address neighborhood quality issues that are among the biggest barriers to economic mobility. Because these challenges are major drivers of wealth and income inequality in chronically distressed neighborhoods and among communities of color, small business owners and low-income families, JPMorgan will focus its efforts to reach these populations. PRO Neighborhoods consists of three components: (1) an annual national competition to support Community Development Financial Institution Collaboratives (CDFI Collaboratives); (2) seed grants to support new financing mechanisms that expand affordable housing connected to economic opportunity drivers; and (3) forward-looking data tools that help cities plan their neighborhood investments equitably and efficiently.

The PRO Neighborhoods initiative will include a series of competitions to encourage CDFIs to collaborate and invest in local solutions to grow small businesses, build health and education facilities, open retail centers, and support community services. A CDFI Collaborative is a new model for CDFI growth and expansion created by JPMorgan Chase. Collaboratives consist of a set of CDFIs that align their talent, technology, and balance sheets to address a specific community development challenge, such as alleviating blight, lack of flexible debt capital for minority- and women-owned businesses, or the need for critical services such as clinics and child care centers in distressed neighborhoods.

The JPMorgan Chase Foundation is soliciting proposals from CDFI Collaboratives organized around a shared community development objective to address a documented challenge within their service area or areas. There are three primary objectives:

1. To create access to greater and more sophisticated streams of capital for local and regionally focused CDFIs with less than $75 million in net assets by pooling balance sheets, technology, and talent
2. To seed creative and collaborative problem-solving to address persistent community development challenges in JPMorgan Chase footprint cities and areas
3. To deploy capital to low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods and to serve LMI individuals and small businesses (with revenue under $1 million)

The Community Development Challenges program allows applicants to use data and other evidence to define the local problem and encourages creative and entrepreneurial partnerships and solutions in response. For example, key challenges that will be considered include (but are not limited to):

• Commercial and residential blight in chronically distressed neighborhoods
• An insufficient number of affordable housing units connected to economic opportunities
• A deficit of healthy food and other healthcare resources
• Disconnection of low-income individuals from key opportunity drivers such as employment, quality schools, and transportation
• High barriers to accessing capital for traditionally underserved and underrepresented small businesses

Funding Uses: At least 51 percent of the funding must be used to leverage another capital source, including, but not limited to, public funding, balance sheet capital dedicated to the grant activities, private debt or other philanthropic investment. Other eligible uses of the remaining funds include:

• Technology or other systems development
• Operational expenses related to executing grant activities
• Partnership activities

Preference will be given to applications that dedicate a greater portion of their grant amount to balance sheet activity and/or technology or systems development.

Amount: Three-year grants of up to $5,000,000 will be awarded.

Eligibility: The CDFI collaborative must consist of between two and five CDFIs with net assets of or below $75 million. Each collaborative is required to identify a lead organization to handle the primary grantee responsibilities for the group, such as financial administration, deliverable accountability, and reporting. The lead organization must be a 501(c) (3) public charity, but does not have to be a CDFI or a CDFI with net assets below the $75 million limit.

Note that CDFI collaboratives working in JPMorgan Chase footprint cities will be given strong preference (see the solicitation for a complete listing; no New Mexico cities are listed).

Link: https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/news/stories/pro-neighborhoods-intro.htm

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