The NEXT American Opportunity is designed to provide practical answers to the questions voiced by federal officials in both the congressional and executive branches.

This Web site can help you answer some important questions:

• What are CDFIs doing, and where can they help solve stubborn problems?
• Which federal policies already incorporate CDFIs and which should?
• What are the real-world experiences underlying policy recommendations?
• Are there examples of solutions in practice?
• Do CDFIs offer solutions that are good investments?

The book and this Web site are intended as a resource to help policymakers put those solutions into practice. We encourage you to explore the opportunity finance role in the policy areas in which you’re interested by using the navigation on the left to find issue papers from the book. You can read the introduction for an overview, see the full contents, or order a brochure that summarizes the book.

If you’d like to know, right now, what the best and most effective solutions could be, visit the “Top Recommendations” page here, for the most high-impact ideas overall and on each issue.

If you would like to learn more about the work of community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and other opportunity finance institutions in your area, here are stories of people whose lives were changed, organizations that could start new programs, or businesses that made a critical step in their growth.

The “NEXT American Opportunity” project includes a representative sample of CDFIs from across the country. To learn more about opportunity finance, see:

• Opportunity Finance Network’s gallery of Member profiles.
• Opportunity Finance Network’s Member locator, searchable by state, name, and type of lending.
• The “About Opportunity Finance” section of this site.
• An article on “ethical subprime lenders” published in the November 24, 2008 issue of Newsweek

To talk about CDFIs and their work, click here to download “The Opportunity Finance Message” with information you can use in speeches or written material highlighting the role of opportunity finance.

Click here for information about Opportunity Finance Network; current work on our core issues.”

To request a hard copy of the book, click here.