April 26, 2024

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

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 websitein 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:

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:

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:

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. 

 Date and Time   Access Link
FY 2024 BEA Program Application Webinar 1May 9, 2024 
2:00 PM ET
 
Access Webinar
FY 2024 BEA Program Application Webinar 2May 22, 2024
3:00 PM ET 
Access Webinar


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

This post was originally published here.