Community Development Partnerships

Financial Services Roundtable - Community Build Day (FSR CBD) represents 100 of the largest integrated financial services companies providing banking, insurance, and investment products and services to the American consumer. The mission of FSR is to unify the leadership of large integrated financial services companies in pursuit of three primary objectives:

• To be the premier forum in which leaders of the Untied States financial services industry determine and influence the most critical public policy issues that shape a vibrant, competitive marketplace and a growing national economy;
  
  
• To promote the interests of member companies in federal legislative, regulatory, and judicial forums; and
  
  
• To effectively communicate the benefits of competitive and integrated financial services to the American public.

The mission for Community Build Day is to illustrate the financial services industry’s commitment to the communities in which they work and to further develop relationships with elected policymakers.  Industry companies are committed to improving their communities and helping those who are there. Companies may be competitors in the marketplace, but allies when it comes to helping strengthen our communities and helping the people who live there.

State Farm has served as a National Sponsor and participating company for the past six years.

The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) is a nonprofit association that engages in communication, education, engineering and research. Its mission is to reduce deaths, injuries, property damage, economic losses and human suffering caused by natural disasters.

IBHS members are insurers and reinsurers that conduct business in the United States or reinsure risks located in the United States. Associate membership is open to all others who support the group's mission.

National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) – is a strong voice of fair housing. NFHA works to eliminate housing discrimination and to ensure equal housing opportunity for all people through leadership, education and outreach, membership services, public policy initiatives, advocacy and enforcement.

NFHA and State Farm have for several years been engaged in joint efforts to promote fair access to property insurance. As a consultant, NFHA has been charged with advising State Farm about ways to enhance its service and presence in select markets. NFHA has provided ongoing insight and commentary on many issues and has played a key role in the development of business and public policy strategies that support State Farm’s mission.

State Farm / NFHA Community Programs:

Home Preservation and Insurability Partnership (HPIP) - is an education outreach project in two communities of Washington, D.C. The program helps homeowners make the needed repairs to keep their homes in insurable condition. NFHA provides funds to repair, weatherize, and rehabilitate single family homes in the form of a one-time $3,000 grant for repairs to each household.

Anti-Predatory Lending Campaign – sponsored by State Farm Bank®. A public service awareness campaign making consumers aware of predatory lenders and what they can do to avoid them.

Gulf Rebuilding Efforts -- State Farm is supporting fair housing centers in the Gulf Coast region to teach 2005 hurricane survivors about mortgage lending, loss mitigation and insurance. Participating centers are located in Mobile, AL; Biloxi, MI; New Orleans, LA; and Houston, TX.

NeighborWorks® Insurance Alliance (NIA)

In 1994, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation convened the National Insurance Task Force (NITF), now known as NeighborWorks Insurance Alliance (NIA). This group of leaders from community-based organizations and the insurance industry came together to discuss ways to improve providing property-casualty insurance in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. Currently, this group includes representation from 25 of the insurance industry's top 50 property-casualty insurance carriers, insurance industry trade associations, insurance regulators, educational institutions, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation and the members of the national NeighborWorks® network. The NIA's mission is "to develop partnerships between the insurance industry and community-based organizations to better market the products and services of both, for the benefit of the customers and communities they serve."

Neighborhood Housing Services of America (NHSA)

NHSA is a private, nonprofit corporation, established in Oakland, California, in 1974 to operate a secondary loan market for NeighborWorks Network Organization. NHSA is part of the NeighborWorks American system. A secondary market is a nonconventional loan market that is created when a lender sells a package of loans to an investor. Familiar examples of secondary market agencies are the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and Federal Housing Authority (FHA). Secondary markets provide immediate liquidity to lenders and allow them to make new loans. Without immediate liquidity, NWO would have to wait 15 to 30 years, or whatever the term of the loan, to make new loans in the community.

The NHSA secondary market purchases loans made by NWO. This allows NWO to replenish its revolving loan funds so it can make new loans in the community. This replenishment, provided by the secondary market, is vital to NWO. Without it, NWO wouldn't have the capital it needs to maintain the momentum of neighborhood revitalization or to keep pace with the demands to grant new loans in the community.

Social investors, such as State Farm support the NHSA secondary market by providing low-interest rate investment capital. NHSA uses investment capital to purchase the loans made by NWO.

How State Farm supports NHSA
Since 1993, State Farm has invested more than $245 million in NHSA to provide low interest financing to new and existing homeowners. Clayton Adams, State Farm Vice President-Community Development, is Vice Chairman of the NHSA board of directors.