CDFI Fund Opens the FY 2024 Bank Enterprise Award Program Funding Round

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) opened the fiscal year (FY) 2024 funding round for the Bank Enterprise Award Program (BEA Program). Application materials are now available on the BEA Program page of the CDFI Fund’s website in anticipation of the publication of the FY 2024 Notice of Funds Availability (NOFA) in the Federal Register on April 29, 2024. The FY 2024 BEA Program NOFA states that up to $40 million is available in awards to eligible Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-insured depository institutions. 

BEA Program Overview 

Through the BEA Program, the CDFI Fund provides monetary awards to FDIC-insured banks and thrifts that successfully demonstrate an increase in their investments in Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) or in their own lending, investing, or service activities in the most economically distressed communities. Distressed Communities are defined as those where at least 30% of residents earn an income that is less than the national poverty level and where the unemployment rate is at least 1.5 times the national unemployment rate.

The formula-based grants are awarded to successful applicants for increasing Qualified Activities from one period, known as the Baseline Period, to a later period, known as the Assessment Period. There are three categories of Qualified Activities:

• CDFI Related Activities: Equity Investments, Grants, Equity-Like Loans, Loans, Deposits, and/or Technical Assistance provided to Certified CDFIs.
• Distressed Community Financing Activities: Direct lending or investment in the form of Affordable Housing Loans, Affordable Housing Development Loans and Project Investments, Commercial Real Estate Loans and related Project Investments, Education Loans, Home Improvement Loans, Small Business Loans and Project Investments, or Small Dollar Consumer Loans provided to residents or businesses located in Distressed Communities.
• Service Activities: Financial products and services, such as checking accounts, savings accounts, check cashing, financial counseling, Individual Development Accounts, or youth savings accounts provided to residents of Distressed Communities; as well as opening new branches or ATM machines in Distressed Communities. 

Full definitions of the Qualified Activities may be found in the BEA Program Regulations, which are also posted on the CDFI Fund’s website.

New CDFI Fund Title VI Worksheet Requirement 

All Applicants must be compliant with federal civil rights requirements in order to be eligible to receive federal financial assistance awards from the CDFI Fund. New for this round of the BEA program, the CDFI Fund is requiring all Applicants complete a Title VI Compliance Worksheet once each calendar year. This requirement applies to Applicants, as well as their prospective subrecipients that are not direct beneficiaries of federal financial assistance (e.g., Depository Institutions Holding Company and their Subsidiary Depository Institutions). Completion of the Title VI Compliance Worksheet is required for the Bank Enterprise Award Program, Capital Magnet Fund, CDFI Program, NACA Program, and the Small Dollar Loan Program. The Title VI Compliance Worksheet is not required for the New Markets Tax Credit Program or the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program. 

Information on the CDFI Fund Title VI Compliance Worksheet can be accessed here. Under the “Resources” heading are the worksheet questions, a technical User Guide for how to submit in the CDFI Fund’s Awards Information Management System (AMIS), and a recorded video tutorial on submitting in AMIS. The deadline to submit the Title VI Compliance Worksheet in AMIS is June 25, 2024. 

What’s New This Round

The following outlines the substantive changes from last year’s funding round:

• Return to the Standard Baseline and Assessment Period: For the FY 2024 BEA Program Funding round, both the Baseline and Assessment periods will be 12 months (they were 18 months in FY 2023). 
• Distressed Communities Eligibility Data: All FY 2024 BEA Program Applicants must use the 2016-2020 American Community Survey (ACS) BEA Program Distressed Communities Eligibility data provided by the CDFI Fund via the CDFI Fund Information System (CIMS), to determine whether Qualified Activities occurred in Distressed Communities during the Baseline Period and Assessment Period. 
• Single Deadline for Finalizing Transactions and Application Submission in the CDFI Fund’s Awards Information Management System (AMIS): FY 2024 BEA Program Applicants will be able to create, edit, and delete all transactions until the Application submission deadline in AMIS (or until the Application is submitted, if submitted prior to the deadline). Previously, the transaction deadline was prior to the Application submission deadline.

Deadlines 

Please reference the FY 2024 BEA Program NOFA and BEA Program Application Instructions for detailed information regarding all relevant deadlines for the FY 2024 BEA Program funding round. As a highlight:

• Part I of the FY 2024 BEA Program Application: The SF-424 must be submitted through Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on May 28, 2024.
• Part II of the FY 2024 BEA Program Application: Applicants must sign and submit their electronic BEA Program Application in AMIS by 11:59 p.m. ET on June 25, 2024. 

Application Materials

In addition to being available through Grants.gov, the FY 2024 BEA Program NOFA and BEA Program Application Instructions, as well as other important guidance materials are available on the CDFI Fund's website at www.cdfifund.gov/bea under “Step 1: Apply.” The electronic FY 2024 BEA Program Application is currently available in AMIS.

Required Application Systems

All applicants must be registered and have active accounts in SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and the CDFI Fund’s AMIS to apply to the FY 2024 BEA Program funding round. Applicants should either create these accounts if they do not exist or confirm that their existing accounts are up to date as soon as possible in order to avoid potential application submission problems. The CDFI Fund provided an initial overview of the steps to register in SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and AMIS in a blog post released on March 1, 2024. More detailed information can be found in the FY 2024 BEA Program NOFA.

CIMS has also been updated to include the BEA Qualified Distressed Community Determination for census tracts located in US territories and possessions, and the overall Persistent Poverty County designation of these areas. Applicants should use CIMS to geocode all their transactions.

Learn About Applying to the BEA Program 

The CDFI Fund will be conducting two live webinars to provide applicants with an overview of the FY 2024 BEA Program Application and a forum to ask questions. Advance registration is not required to participate in the webinars. Please access the webinars, using the links provided below, at least five minutes prior to the beginning of the webinar.

Viewing these webinars requires the use of Zoom. 

An AMIS Training Manual for Applicants can be found on the website at www.cdfifund.gov/bea under “Step 1: Apply.” In addition, the CDFI Fund will make available a pre-recorded webinar to demonstration the electronic application submission process in AMIS.

Reasonable Accommodations

Requests for reasonable accommodations under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act for either the webinars or conference calls should be directed to Jay Santiago at 202-653-0300 no later than 48 hours before the webinars begin.

Questions 

For more information on the BEA Program, please visit the BEA Program webpage of the CDFI Fund’s website: www.cdfifund.gov/bea. For questions regarding the BEA Program, please contact the CDFI Fund Help Desk at (202) 653-0421 or via email at bea@cdfi.treas.gov. The CDFI Fund will not answer questions about the FY 2024 round of the BEA Program after 5:00 p.m. ET on June 21, 2024