Cdfi 0001 Healthy Food Financing Initiative -supplemental Question

Healthy Food Financing Initiative -

Financial Assistance (HFFI-FA) Program

Supplemental Questionnaire

OMB No. 1559-0040

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 1559-0040; expires 06/30/2011. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 30 hours, including the time to review instructions, search existing data resources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Comments concerning the accuracy of the time estimate and suggestions for reducing this burden should be directed to the Program Manager, Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, 601 13th Street NW, Suite 200 South, Washington, DC 20003.

Healthy Food Financing Initiative -

Financial Assistance (HFFI-FA) Program

Supplemental Questionnaire

CDFI Program Applicant: You indicated on your FY 2012 Financial Assistance application an interest in applying for a Healthy Food Financing Initiative Financial Assistance (HFFI-FA) Award. As stated in the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), the CDFI Fund is issuing this questionnaire soliciting details about your current and proposed healthy food financing activities. Only organizations who have submitted an FY 2012 Financial Assistance Application, and indicated interest in the Application in applying for an HFFI-FA award are eligible to apply.

If you remain interested in applying for an HFFI-FA award, please complete and submit this questionnaire according to the directions in this document. Please refer to the NOFA for additional details about HFFI-FA.

Applicants should not reference their FY 2012 Financial Assistance Application or any of the FA Application materials in the HFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire since those materials will be not be referenced during the scoring process for HFFI-FA. Please note the CDFI Fund does not anticipate making combined FA and HFFI-FA awards in excess of $5 million.

1. Deadline and How to Submit

1. Applicants are required to answer all questions listed in the HFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire.

2. The HFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire is due within six weeks of this application announcement. All Applications must be submitted by this date and time.

3. Late Applications will not be considered for review by the CDFI Fund.

4. Do not submit any additional materials. The CDFI Fund will only read requested information. Your response to the HFFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire may not exceed 15 pages.

5. HFFI-FA applicants must submit the HFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire through the organization’s myCDFI Fund account.

6. The Supplemental Questionnaire is the only application material that needs to be submitted to be considered for a HFFI-FA award.

7. Applicants will also need to complete a Signature Page in the myCDFI Fund system.

2. Contacting the CDFI Fund

The CDFI Fund will respond to questions between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time through the application due date. The CDFI Fund will not respond to phone calls or e-mail inquiries received after the deadline.

CDFI Fund Contact List (Not toll-free numbers)
Main Office:	(202) 622-8662 (202) 622-7754 (fax)	www.cdfifund.gov	For general inquiries, phone numbers for individual CDFI Fund staff, access to MyCDFI Fund and program Web page.
Program Support:	(202) 622-6355	[email protected]	For information about the HFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire and other programmatic questions.
Compliance and Monitoring Support	(202) 622-6330 (202) 622-7754 (fax)	[email protected]	For status of compliance with other awards including outstanding reports.
IT Support	(202) 622-2455	[email protected]	For information about registering and creating accounts on MyCDFI Fund.
Legal Support	If you have any questions or matters that you believe require response by the CDFI Fund’s Office of Legal Counsel, please refer to the document entitled “How to Request a Legal Review“ on the CDFI Fund’s Web site at www.cdfifund.gov.

HFFI-FA Supplemental Questionnaire

Requested HFFI-FA Award Amount

1. Please list the total dollar amount of both the HFFI-FA and FA award requested:

$______________­­ (FA Program)

$______________ (HFFI-FA Program)

Note: Applicants should request an amount that can be used to finance activities to support their HFFI-FA, and can be committed within two years of an award and fully expended within three years of execution of the assistance agreement. The CDFI Fund does not anticipate making combined FA and HFFI-FA awards in excess of $5 million.

1. Target Market Profile for Healthy Food Financing Initiative

A. Provide a detailed description of the Applicant’s Target Market for its HFFI-FA activities:

1. Quantify the extent to which the Applicant’s activities will provide goods and services to communities that: (i) lack access to healthy food options; (for example, food deserts, which do not have a supermarket or large grocery store within a 1 mile radius; 10 miles, in the case of rural areas; (ii) indicate patterns of non-healthy food consumption (such as low rates of fruit and vegetable consumption; (iii) suffer from poor health indicators (such as high rates of obesity, diabetes and other diet-related chronic disease); (iv) have high concentrations of persons participating in food assistance programs (for instance, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; Women, Infants, and Children food packages; school lunch programs); or (v) demonstrate other indications of need for healthy food finance interventions).

NOTE: HFFI-FA awardees will be required, as a condition of their assistance agreements, to ensure that at least 75% or the equivalent of their HFFI-FA awards will be used to finance healthy food retail outlets¹ in census tracts that have been identified as food deserts by the USDA. A complete list of these food desert census tracts may be found at: http://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx , under the link for “food deserts.”

In addition, to further facilitate completing the response to question #1 above, Applicants are encouraged to use other tools available for identifying areas with high need for healthy food interventions, including:

• USDA’s Food Environment Atlas, available on the USDA’s website at http://maps.ers.usda.gov/foodatlas/ which provides a resource for obtaining census tract level data relating to food access, food consumption, diet-related health indicators, and participation in food assistance programs.

• The Center for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss-smart/.

2. Healthy Food Financial Products

A. Describe the Applicant’s proposed and/or current Financial Products that will be used to support the Healthy Food Financing Initiative.

1. Describe the proposed financial products that will be funded through a HFFI-FA award, and how these compare with prior financial products that the Applicant has previously provided in support of healthy food interventions.

2. Describe how the Applicant’s proposed and/or current financial products that support healthy food interventions address the financing needs of the Applicant’s customers.

3. Discuss how the Applicant’s current and/or proposed financial products that support healthy food interventions are (or will be) leveraged with:

• Public sector resources made available under other programs identified as part of the Federal government’s proposed Healthy Food Financing Initiative²

• Other public sector resources, such as Choice Neighborhoods (HUD) or Promise Neighborhoods (Education), that promote a comprehensive approach to neighborhood transformation;

• Private sector resources, including philanthropic contributions; and

• Other resources including local community resources.

3. Development Services for Healthy Food Financing

A. Describe the Applicant’s Development Services that will be used to support your HFFI-FA Initiative.

1. Describe the development services (e.g., training, technical assistance) that the Applicant offers and/or intends to offer in conjunction with its HFFI-FA activities. Describe the format of the instruction (such as one-on-one sessions, group training, or on-line counseling), any fees or costs charged to the customer, and any systems used to evaluate effectiveness.

2. Discuss how these development services are linked to the financial products that support healthy food interventions. What is the relationship between the number of clients receiving development services and ultimately qualifying for financial products that support healthy food interventions? How will development services make an impact within the next 24 months?

3. Describe the Applicant’s strategy to ensure that community residents will utilize the healthy food options being financed through HFFI-FA. The Applicant should specifically discuss its (and any partner’s) education and outreach efforts to residents of the communities.

4. Projected HFFI-FA Activities

1. Describe the Applicant’s strategy for identifying potential borrowers, investees or activities, including the extent to which the Applicant has used or will be using community alliances or strategic partners (including banks, credit unions, CDFIs, local governments, tribal agencies, schools, health departments, community based organizations, non-governmental organizations, etc.) to identify projects aimed at increasing access to healthy foods.

2. Describe the extent to which the Applicant’s HFFI-FA interventions will work in concert with other federal and local initiatives as part of a broader strategy for revitalizing local communities.

3. Describe the Applicant’s pipeline of HFFI-FA projects. Be sure to identify the number and dollar amount of transactions that have already been identified, for which underwriting is completed or underway. Of those underway, please describe a sample of transactions (up to three) that can reasonably be expected to close within 24 months. Provide the amount of HFFI-FA financing needed and total activity or project costs, and the status of project financing.

5. Track Record and Management Capacity for Providing Healthy Food Financing

A. Describe the Applicant’s track record in financing healthy food interventions.

1. Discuss prior healthy food financing activities, with a particular focus on those that were specifically provided in the Applicant’s designated Target Market.

B. Describe the Applicant’s management team and key staff for its healthy food financing activities.

1. What key staff and management team are responsible for implementing the Applicant’s healthy food financing activities? What are the qualifications of these staff members and how do they help implement the Applicant’s products and services?

2. Describe the status of new or vacant positions and the strategy for filling the positions, as well as the expected date of filling them.

C. Describe the Applicant’s ability to track and report healthy food financing outcomes.

1. What outcomes does the Applicant intend to track and measure to report on program success (e.g., number and type of healthy food outlets developed or rehabilitated; total square footage of commercial retail space developed and rehabilitated; number of jobs created for residents of low-income communities; etc.)?

2. Describe the Applicant’s experiences in collecting and analyzing outcome data, particularly as it relates to healthy food financing activities, tracking those results over time, and reporting findings.

3. Discuss how the Applicant will ensure that its HFFI-FA financed activities will lead to significantly improved healthy food options in low-income communities.

4. Describe specific program design features, outreach methods or other aspects of the Applicant’s HFFI-FA strategy that the Applicant believes can be replicated by other service providers.

5. Discuss the Applicant’s strategy for sharing program outcomes, including both “best practices” and “lessons learned,” to better inform the national agenda.

1 Healthy food retail outlets are commercial sellers of “healthy foods” including, but not limited to, a grocery store, mobile food retailer, farmers market, cooperative, corner store, bodega or a store that sells other food and non-food items along with a full range of “healthy foods.” A healthy food retail outlet might also be an existing retail store that upgrades to offer a full range of healthy food choices, or a nonprofit organization that expands the availability of healthy foods, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, in underserved areas.

2 For a complete list of HFFI programs, please see the following website: http://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/

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