BIPOC Community Developer Initiative

The community development financial and capital systems in Northern New England and the United States have historically marginalized Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). To work toward greater equity in the professional landscape of housing and community development, our community development funding system must seek to leverage state, federal, private, and philanthropic resources to offer a holistic platform that opens the door for new and historically marginalized participants in the deployment of the state’s community development resources. As we work toward a Northern New England housing finance system that prioritizes investments that address racial inequality and economic marginalization, we are seeking to take steps to ensure there are opportunities for BIPOC owned, founded, and led organizations to take the lead in how investments reach communities. 

GROVE Impact, a national collective foundation, issued a report on the barriers restraining diversity in real estate and community development. The report includes a database that tracks Black and Hispanic developers across the nation. Vermont is identified as a state with a severe underrepresentation of developers of color, with an estimated market potential to add 11 new firms if capital, technical, and system barriers are reduced. Vermont is increasingly an outlier in not having formal developer initiatives focused on increasing diversity within the community development field. 

Emerging Developer TA Provider RFP

Vermont Housing Finance Agency (VHFA) is seeking an organization or consortium to design a housing development technical assistance (TA) program for BIPOC seeking to develop housing in Vermont. VHFA is providing up to $15,000 for a contractor or consortium to design a TA program that could be operationalized in 2024. The initial funding is essentially a planning grant to develop programming components. Once the program is designed, additional funding will be made available to launch and offer the programming for BIPOC individual and BIPOC owned entities.

Technical assistance is a powerful tool for helping historically marginalized individuals and owned or led organizations in navigating housing and community development resources, permitting, and technical environments. The successful respondent to this funding opportunity will help Vermont's community development systems take critical next steps to establish the framework, structure, and components of a developer TA program.

A full description of the program goals and instructions on how to apply is available in the Request for Proposals: Emerging Developer TA Provider (PDF - updated 2/16).

The schedule for the RFP is as follows. Note that the due date has been extended, and the dates posted below reflect the updated schedule. Please check this page for updates on program design and availability in the future.

  • RFP Issued: December 27, 2023
  • Question Period: December 27, 2023 - January 12, 2024
  • Applications Due: February 26, 2024
  • Applicant Interviews: February 28 - March 5, 2024
  • Application Decision Notification Date: March 7, 2024
  • Please check this page for updates on program design and availability in the future.

For more information, please see:

Questions about the scope of work and other aspects of the RFP may be directed to Seth Leonard, Managing Director of Community Development, VHFA, [email protected].