The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is a federal law that encourages banks to serve neighborhoods and individuals with low- and moderate-incomes (LMI)***. This toolkit will help you learn how to develop and enhance partnerships with banks to support employment and economic advancement for people with disabilities.
***NOTE: For a lot of you LMI means labor market information. However, to a bank this means low- and moderate-income. They need you to respond to them in terms of LMI as low- and moderate-income, due to their requirements under their federal regulators. So, for the purposes of this toolkit, LMI will be used for low- and moderate-income.
Should my SVRA work with banks?
Here is a brief explanation of the opportunity to work with banks. We hope it will stimulate some thoughts and get you interested in starting this journey.
People with disabilities face persistent barriers to economic security, as reflected in their dramatically higher rates of poverty and under-employment compared to people without disabilities. In addition, people with disabilities typically earn less — median annual earnings are nearly $10,000 lower – and are much more likely to experience prolonged periods of poverty and bear higher costs for essentials such as housing.
State vocational rehabilitation agencies (SVRAs), in particular, play a vital role by helping people with disabilities obtain and maintain employment. Their impact is amplified by federal matching funds; for every $1 a SVRA receives, it can draw down an additional $3.69 in federal resources to support employment initiatives. Yet, there are additional programs with untapped potential to further advance economic opportunities.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) is a federal regulation designed to encourage banks to meet the credit needs of low- to moderate-income (LMI) households. Banks can fulfill these obligations through:
- investments (e.g., grants),
- service activities (e.g., financial education),
- or loans (e.g., small business loans or funding for training centers).
The intersection of the CRA and SVRA funding holds tremendous, yet underutilized opportunity for advancing one of the core goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): economic self-sufficiency. By leveraging CRA investments as matching funds, SVRA have the potential to unlock additional federal resources to support employment initiatives for people with disabilities. This innovative and transformative approach was piloted by National Disability Institute (NDI) with support from VRTAC-QM.
In Florida, a $10,000 bank investment generated an additional $36,900 in federal funds, while in North Carolina, a $20,000 investment unlocked $73,800 – empowering agencies to address local employment barriers for individuals who are blind.
The following case examples further illustrate the profound impact that community investment partnerships can have in expanding employment opportunities for people with disabilities. These examples reflect more than financial outcomes; they showcase how strategic collaboration can move communities from disparities toward inclusion and empowerment.
Case Study and Success Story
This opportunity is all about partnership and shared focus for community impact. It’s best to approach new partnerships on a small scale and, like all relationships, they can grow over time. As an example, here are case studies from the North Carolina pilot with state vocational rehabilitation agency and bank perspectives.
Overview of the Toolkit
Welcome to the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center for Quality Management’s (VRTAC-QM) toolkit on building bank partnerships for state vocational rehabilitation agencies (SVRAs), developed by National Disability Institute. Within this toolkit, you will find tips and tools to explore the benefits of these partnerships for your agency, the people you serve and for your bank partners. We hope that you will find information here to strengthen your service impact and community connections. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us with questions, comments or requests for additional technical assistance.
You may use the toolkit in a ‘start-to-finish’ manner, as it is designed in a process flow, or you may pull information à la carte if you already have experience with bank partnerships and the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).
In each of these sections, you will find links to information and tools that will support your journey along this path. This material has been developed with the input and insight of leaders from the banking industry and financial regulators.
Within financial institutions, you can develop powerful allies by recognizing the alignment between your missions. This toolkit serves as a guide to finding that alignment.
The information is organized into the following sections:
- Getting Started
- Developing Potential Projects
- Developing Bank Partnerships
- Sustaining and Growing Partnerships
Technical Assistance and Resources
Please do not hesitate to reach out to us with questions, comments or requests for additional technical assistance. Contact the NDI Technical Assistance Team at ask@ndi-inc.org.
Our team would like to share the following resource it has been of great value to us in developing this toolkit.