New DC Development Bank

Just a tidbit of news about an organization I am involved with, following on a
blurb that appeared in the American Banker recently...I will send out more
complete details via this listserv next week. -Tim Walter-
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Community First Bank of D.C. has filed an application to become a federally
chartered bank in Washington, DC. The organizers plan to raise $7 million to
capitalize the bank and hope to open by the end of 1995. The bank will ask
Newt Gingrich and President Clinton to deposit their paychecks with the bank
as a way to back up their recent comments about redeveloping DC.

The effort to start a bank grew out of a community-level initiative began over
two years ago. That grassroots initiative formed what is now Community First,
Inc., a non-profit organization that is promoting increased access to capital
in distressed neighborhoods in DC. Several local foundations contributed
small but essential levels of support, and dozens of volunteers and
professional firms have contributed their skills to support the non-profit .

That non-profit has given rise to a legally separate body of bank organizers
who filed the charter application for the bank. The organizing group
received a great deal of early guidance (and moral support) from the Center
for Community Self-Help in Durham, NC and later help from South Shore Bank in
Chicago. The new bank will be an adaptation of these national models.
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Timothy R. Walter
Aspen Institute Rural Economic Policy Program
1333 New Hampshire Ave. NW, #1070
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 736-5834 tel, 467-0790 fax
timothy@aspeninst.org


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