Lender Application for 2023-2025 Pilot Community of Practice

Thank you for your interest in being part of the Underwriting for Racial Justice pilot program. This program will engage up to 20 lenders that are changing elements of their underwriting to explicitly increase lending to people of color in their communities.

Pilot participants will

Connect, share and learn together about challenges and successful approaches.
Have access to examples, templates, and aggregate loan approval and performance results from the various programs.
Have access to a credit risk decisioning model to help determine potential underwriting approaches to eliminate racial bias, manage for risk, and report on their loan program results.
Have the opportunity to be featured, if desired, in program publications distributed by Beneficial State Foundation.

Other program benefits may include trainings, consultant support, and access to loan guarantee funds, depending on needs identified throughout the program.

This program will take place from 2023-2025; data will be collected for two years of program operations at each institution, and peer group meetings will be held monthtly for at least one year. Data collection may go past 2025 for institutions that start their loan programs later during the period, and peer group meetings may meet for longer than one year if the group chooses to do so.

All applications for the first cohort must be submitted by April 15, 2023.

Please complete this application to participate in the program

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First and Last Name *

Title *

Organization / Institution *

Email Address *

City (intended service area for loan program) *

State *

Type of Institution *

What are the primary reasons you are interested and/or benefits you see in this program (Choose top 3): *

Contribute to a movement for racial justice in banking

Learn from and connect with peers in real time

Get templates and examples

Get ideas and support with regulatory compliance regarding SPCPs

Get loan loss reserves

Get data-driven analysis to determining an underwriting approach to try

Get data analysis on the progress and results of my program

Hear regulator point of view

Other Other

Your priority/intended customer for the loan pilot (Please list race and/or ethnicity, as well as any additional characteristics) *

Type of Loans you will provide (Choose all that apply) *

Please describe your best estimations for your URJ Pilot program loans (very rough estimates are fine). Note that if you have already started making loans with this new underwriting approach, you can include those loans:

Number of loans *

Average loan size ($) *

Total loan portfolio ($) *

Please describe the time frame you used in your estimates above: *

Will you be starting a new underwriting approach or continuing an approach you’ve already begun to increase capital to people of color? *

If known, what changes to your underwriting will you make / are you making? (If unknown, type "unknown") *

If known, what changes to your pricing, terms, or other loan product elements will you make / are you making? (If unknown, type "unknown") *

Please confirm that you will be able to commit to the following. (Note this is not a formal commitment, but rather an opportunity to evaluate readiness. A subsequent participant agreement form will be provided to all institutions that are accepted into the pilot). I / my institution will: *

Please feel free to provide any comments about the commitment list above

Please confirm you will have active participation and input from *

Organizational and/or Program Decisionmakers

Chief Credit Officer or equivalent

Lender / relationship manager

One or more representatives of your priority audience (applicants / borrowers of color)

Do you expect to use new / alternative data sources for your underwriting processes? (Examples might include bank account transactions, rent, utility, and telecommunications payment history; accounting software records; payment processing records) *

No

Not sure

Yes, we will / already do (please describe): Yes, we will / already do (please describe):

Where is your institution on its racial justice journey? (Choose all that apply) *

Not discussed at an institution level

Leadership has made racial justice solidarity statements

Leadership has made specific actionable racial justice commitments

There is a general agreement across our organization that racial justice is an important part of the institution's work

We have participated in institution-wide training

We have started or implemented internal operational actions and/or hiring decisions to advance racial justice

We have started or implemented product-related actions to advance racial justice

Racial justice is core to our mission

Other Other

Are you currently collecting or are you planning to collect applicant and borrower race data for the loan program related to this pilot? *

Currently ask race and ethnicity from applicants and borrowers

Will/can ask race and ethnicity from applicants and borrowers

Will not ask race and ethnicity from applicants and borrowers

Currently ask staff to mark race and ethnicity when known (like HMDA)

Will/can ask staff to mark race and ethnicity when known (like HMDA)

Will not ask staff to mark race and ethnicity when known (like HMDA)

To what extent are your institution’s teams composed of people from your priority groups?

	%
Executive leadership	%
Loan officers/ lending	%
Credit and risk management	%

If a loan guarantee were available to your institution for this program, would you be interested? *

No, we do not anticipate needing a guarantee for the program

No, we already have a guarantee source in place

We may use one if available

A guarantee through URJ is necessary for participation in the pilot

What dollar ($) amount of guarantee would/did you estimate needing, and what percentage (%) / calculation is this based on?

Have you created, or are you considering creating, a Special Purpose Credit Program (SPCP) plan related to this? *

Do you anticipate that your institution will need training or consulting support *

	Training	Consulting	Neither
Getting buy-in at your institution	Training	Consulting	Neither
Banking and racial justice - history and present	Training	Consulting	Neither
URJ program implementation	Training	Consulting	Neither
SPCP Plan development	Training	Consulting	Neither
Other	Training	Consulting	Neither

Please elaborate on the above -- share any specific needs you anticipate:

Are there other things that would be beneficial to you and your institution that we might provide with this program?

What other comments or questions do you have?