As the CDFI Act requires, these assistance agreements include performance measures that (1) the Fund negotiated with the awardees and (2) are generally based on the awardees’ business plans. Although awardees’ assistance agreements are not subject to the Results Act, the act establishes performance measurement standards for the federal government, including the CDFI Fund. As of January 1998, the Fund had entered into assistance agreements with 26 of the 31 awardees for 1996. As a result, the assistance agreements focus primarily on what the awardees will do, rather than on how their activities will affect the distressed communities. According to most of the case study awardees, difficulties in isolating and measuring the results of community development efforts and concerns about the effects of factors outside the awardees’ control inhibited the awardees’ use of accomplishment measures. We found that most of the goals and measures were related; however, in some agreements, the measures did not address all key aspects of the goals. Impact of the BEA Program Is Difficult to Assess

In the BEA program, as of January 1998, about 58 percent of the banks had completed the activities for which they received the awards and the Fund had disbursed almost 80 percent of the $13.1 million awarded in fiscal year 1996. Our case studies of five awardees and interviews with Fund officials indicate that although the BEA awards encouraged some banks to increase their investments, other regulatory or economic incentives were equally or more important for other banks. In addition, more complete data on some banks’ investments are needed to guarantee that the increases in investments in distressed areas rewarded by the BEA program are not being offset by decreases in other investments in these distressed areas. Discussions with our five case study banks indicated, however, that regulatory and economic incentives have a greater influence on these banks’ investments than the prospect of a BEA award. Fund Does Not Receive Information on Postaward Activity

The Fund does not require awardees to notify the Fund of material changes in their investments after awards have been made. For example, the effects of investment in community development may not be readily distinguishable from other influences and may not be observable for many years. Under the Results Act, an agency’s strategic plan must contain (1) a comprehensive mission statement; (2) agencywide strategic goals and objectives for all major functions and operations; (3) strategies, skill, and technologies and the various resources needed to achieve the goals and objectives; (4) a relationship between the strategic goals and objectives and the annual performance goals; (5) an identification of key factors, external to the agency and beyond its control, that could significantly affect the achievement of the strategic goals and objectives; and (6) a description of how program evaluations were used to establish or revise strategic goals and objectives and a schedule for future program evaluations. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has provided agencies with additional guidance on developing their strategic plans. Mission

In its strategic plan, the Fund states that its mission is “to promote economic revitalization and community development through investment in and assistance to community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and through encouraging insured depository institutions to increase lending, financial services and technical assistance within distressed communities and to invest in CDFIs.” Overall, the Fund’s mission statement generally meets the requirements established in the Results Act by explicitly referring to the Fund’s statutory objectives and indicating how these objectives are to be achieved through two core programs.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO discussed the results of its ongoing review of the administration of the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, focusing on the first year's performance of the CDFI and the Bank Enterprise Award (BEA) programs and opportunities for improving their effectiveness.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) as of January 1998, the Fund had entered into assistance agreements with 26 of the 31 CDFIs that received awards in 1996; (2) these agreements include performance goals and measures that were based on the business plans submitted by awardees in their application packages and negotiated between the Fund and the awardees, as the CDFI Act requires; (3) GAO found that the performance measures in the assistance agreements generally assess activities rather than the accomplishments reflecting the activities' results; (4) according to Fund officials and CDFIs in GAO's case studies, this emphasis on activity measures is due, in part, to difficulties in isolating and assessing the results of community development initiatives, which may not be observable for many years and may be subject to factors outside the awardees' control; (5) GAO further found that although the performance measures in the assistance agreements are generally related to specific goals, they do not always address the key aspects of the goals, and most assistance agreements lack baseline data that would facilitate tracking progress over time; (6) although the Fund has disbursed about 80 percent of the fiscal year 1996 BEA award funds, it is difficult to determine the extent to which the program has encouraged the 38 awardees to increase their investments in distressed communities; (7) GAO's case studies have five awardees and interviews with Fund officials indicate that although the prospect of receiving a BEA award prompted some banks to increase their investments, it had little or no effect on other banks; (8) GAO found that, in general, other regulatory or economic incentives exerted a stronger influence on banks' investments than the BEA award; (9) in addition, some banks do not collect all of the data on their activities needed to guarantee that increases in investments under the BEA program are not being offset by decreases in other investments in these distressed areas; (10) the CDFI Fund's strategic plan contains all of the elements required by the Government Performance and Results Act and the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) associated guidance, but these elements generally lack the clarity, specificity, and linkage with one another that the act envisioned; and (11) although the plan identifies key external factors that could affect the Fund's mission, it does not relate these factors to the Fund's strategic goals and objectives and does not indicate how the Fund will take the factors into account when assessing awardee's progress toward goals.