Forward Community Investments provides development services as an integrated part of its lending operations. Our services include one-on-one counseling to prospective nonprofit borrowers in a variety of areas including business viability, business plan review and loan application preparation.

FCI staff also provides direction on where and how to obtain financing from other private and public resources in order to leverage all resources effectively. We believe that good technical advice in the predevelopment stage helps ensure projects are realistic, financially healthy and have long-term viability that helps clients avoid delinquencies and defaults.

In 2004, FCI offered workshops in affordable housing development and nonprofit space development. Each track offered six workshop opportunities. The affordable housing development track was designed for affordable housing developers ? both the experienced and the not so experienced ? to hone their knowledge about developing, financing, building, marketing and selling their projects.

The nonprofit space development track was for those nonprofits contemplating a space purchase, remodel, rehabilitation or construction in the next 18 months. As part of this track, we also included a special half-day workshop for nonprofits interested in investigating the benefits of co-location options with other nonprofits. The workshop was intended to show nonprofits how greater efficiencies can be gained through economies of scale and shared infrastructure. We averaged 15 to 25 nonprofits in attendance at each workshop.

FCI will be offering more workshops throughout the coming months. Notice of those workshops will be made on Community Pages.