Super: Future of Growth & Opportunity
Super: Aspen Ideas Festival 2010
Super: Cheryl Dorsey, President, Echoing Green
Super: Michael Rubinger, President & CEO, LISC
Super: Anne Finucane, Global Strategy & Marketing Officer, Bank of America
Super: John Fetterman, Mayor, Braddock PA
Super: Willie Foote, CEO, Root Captial
Super: How can partnerships generate growth and economic opportunity?
V/O (Michael Rubinger): My optimism is based on the fact that if you go back, I mean the
one advantage that I have of being old is that, I can look back twenty-five or thirty
years and remember that cities and low-income communities were in much worse shape then,
than they are now in spite of whatís happened in the past couple of years. Cities were pretty
much being written off. They were disinvested, deteriorated, abandoned, crime was rampant,
social disorganization was the norm. People literally were saying cities were in anachronism
and we had to find a new way and yet all of that turned around. Cities came back, over
the last twenty to twenty-five years, low-income communities did better over that period of
time, why? And I would argue that was because partnerships were created at all levels, among
government, the for-profit sector, banks, Bank of America in particular I might add,
and non-profits like LISC.
V/O (Anne Finucane): Big is not always bad and sometimes it is the largest resources
that can do the most and umm, you might not expect this but itís the large banks, the
large financial institutions that work with the groups like LISC and others because our
whole, our whole play here is that itís our obligation and our opportunity here to see
economic growth. In order to set opportunity in motion, the theme here, itísÖitís aÖ
what kind of resources can we bring to bear? Itís the lending, itís the investing, itís
the charitable giving and frankly, sometimes itís the ability to have been doing it for
decades.
V/O (Michael Rubinger): The private sectorÖletís face it, the banks were the major provider
of capital for the turnaround of cities and low-income communities over the last twenty-five
years. No matter what you may think of banks at this moment, that is a fact. The Bank of
America invested a billion dollars just through LISC during that period of time, thatís in
addition to everything else they did and all the other banks did as well. So I would argue
that those partnerships are there, theyíre there today. They havenít gone away. The
danger is now that we overlook them, that we lose the momentum that weíve developed
past the last twenty years or so. Itís just important to keep in mind that that infrastructure
is there and to continueÖwe need to continue to nurture and support it.
V/O (Moderator): And weíre doing that better than other places are doing.
V/O (Michael Rubinger): And thatís certainly my impression and I think thatís something
that makes us unique and I think itís something we have to continue and nurture.
V/O (Willie Foote): Given my perspective on this, the crown jewels of the United States
experience is exactly what Michael just highlighted. That the CRA and the low-income tax credit
and the SBA providing not only loan guarantees to incent banks to work with small businesses
and low-income communities but also training, art, technical colleges, all that stuff doesnít
exist anywhere else..in the world like weíve got it.
V/O (Moderator): Inaudible
V/O (Anne Finucane): Big banks often work through CDFIs, something that Michael runs,
a CDFI, and we- they are become in essence, in America, the micro-financers. We provide
them with capital, we provide them market or below-market loans, with investments, with
charitable giving, and thatís in essence what Willie and Cheryl are also talking about
on a completely different level. Itís CDFI in the US, I think, has really served as a..as
a, as a prototype for investments going forward.
V/O (Cheryl Dorsey): In terms of the burgeoning field of impact investing, so itís you know
making investments that generate you know, eco-Ösocial, ummm and environmental returns
as well as financial return, itís a burgeoning market. Itís about a hundred billion dollar
per year annually. So you know, itís expected to be capitalized at about 500 billion in
five years, but we need to do all the stuff that happens to create new markets. You gotta
create intermediary structures, you gotta put metrics in place, you gotta put rating
systems in place that bring the clarity that markets need to function. So we need to incent,
that kind of you know capitalization and that kind of architecture building.
V/O (Moderator): And you incent it how?
V/O (Cheryl Dorsey): I think public/private partnerships, using the bully pulpit of an
administration that believes that private sectors are going to sort of push these new
way of thinking out. And then again, I think, sort of the investment of human capital is
absolutely critical you know Michael Milken talks about you know the most important asset
class is human capital, we need to invest in things like education reform, thatís gonna
get us up and out of this. Itís really important
V/O (Anne Finucane): The bottom line is itís a country capable of um setting in motion
enough change, whether itís the regulatory reform, whether itís what Michael and Cheryl
and Willie have talked about in terms of uhh investing and then making that into something
greater.
Super: Aspen Ideas Festival 2010