Innovative Collaborative Models for Increasing Operational Effectiveness and Raising New Capital

The fourth in the continuing series of Scale and Sustainability Conferences co-sponsored by the Aspen Institute and the Federal Reserve System was held in New York on May 22 & 23, 2006. In addition to the broad overview of the research by Kirsten Moy and Greg Ratliff of Aspen, a series of panels on May 22, and a collaborative workshop on May 23, explored key issues of interest to CDFIs as well as many other types of community-based non-profit organizations that are interested in attaining greater scale and effectiveness in their operations.

Among the key issues examined through three fascinating panel presentations and discussions on May 22 were the concepts and experiences with shared infrastructure for operations, collaborative fundraising techniques and strategies, and pooling strategies used by issuers to increase their volume.

Key themes explored on May 23 included needs, opportunities, and possible collaboration opportunities for CDFIs, housing organizations, small businesses and social services agencies. Working in breakout teams, participants exchanged views on the key issues and challenges they face, and highlighted some key directions going forward.

This web site consists of a summary documentation of the entire conference, including concise text summaries of presentations and group dialogs, as well as the powerpoint slides that were presented, summary drawings prepared during the course of the conference, and photos.

Close to 200 people participated in the session, and we would like to extend our sincere thanks to everyone who presented and helped organize the meeting, as well as to all who participated!

The Federal Reserve System series of conferences on scale and sustainability with the Aspen Institute will continue in Dallas in the fall of 2006, and Washington DC in the spring of 2007. We invite you to return to this web site to keep abreast of this project.

This web site is a record of the event at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, New York. The documentation of the session includes text and images that were captured throughout the course of each day of the session and captures each group's work chronologically (in the order that things happened). The text is not a transcription of the event. Rather, it represents the documentor's synthesis of the team reports and group discussions.

This record is intended as a reminder to the participants of the conversations that took place during the conference, as a stimulus for further conversation and it serves as an artifact of the group's work.

For anyone who was not present at the event reading this, you may lose some of the energy and creativity the participants expressed - and some of the ideas may not translate completely without that context. If you have any questions about the content or anything that is represented here please speak to someone that participated in the process or Langdon Morris at InnovationLabs.

Photographs of participants and the scribing are included throughout the Real Time Record. To view a larger version of a board, click on the thumbnail image. The larger image will open in a new window.

Session Design, Facilitation and Documentation by

Langdon Morris
Michael Kaufman
Christopher Fuller