About Financial Innovations Roundtable (FIR)

The Financial Innovations Roundtable develops concrete ideas that links conventional and nontraditional lenders, investors and markets to provide increased access to capital in low-income communities. The Roundtable also promotes partnerships to implement ideas. The outcomes of the Roundtable are the development of joint programs, tools and approaches to financing development in low-income communities. The goal of the Financial Innovations Roundtable is to extend innovation to the financial institutions and instruments needed for community development across the United States.

Goal of the Roundtable
The Host Organization

Goal of the Roundtable

The goal of the Financial Innovation Roundtable is to extend innovation to the financial institutions and instruments needed for community development across the United States. The Roundtable includes 90 members in the field of finance and related areas. Participants include leaders from conventional financial institutions including banks, mortgage companies, insurance companies and investment firms as well as leaders from public agencies, non-traditional lenders, foundations, pension funds, religious institutions and universities.

The Roundtable meets as a whole group once a year, but various initiatives and research occur between the sessions. The Roundtable develops concrete ideas that will link conventional and non-traditional lenders, investors, and markets to provide increased access to capital in low-income communities. The Roundtable also promotes partnerships to implement the ideas. The outcomes of the Roundtable will be the development of joint programs, tools and approaches to financing development in low-income communities.

Topics addressed by the Roundtable:

The Host Organization

The School of Community Economic Development (CED) at Southern New Hampshire University (formerly New Hampshire College) is hosting the Financial Innovations Roundtable. The School of CED is a nationally recognized school that has been serving adult learners and involved in public policy, research and institution building in the field of Community Development Finance since 1982. The School of CED was the first program in the country to confer Masters and Ph.D. degrees specifically in CED. The mission of the School is to build better practices and policies that serve low-income and marginalized communities around the globe. The focus of the School has been to train practitioners from community-based organizations and government agencies and to provide them with skills in planning, management, finance, and other appropriate development skills. As a School geared toward practitioners, the School's purpose over the past 23 years has been to build an internationally recognized program dedicated to fostering the design and implementation of CED principles and practices.