 Hi folks. Thanks for joining us. How are you doing? So we think that people will be filtering in after lunch. Can you hear us okay? Wonderful. So thank you for joining us for this afternoon session on opportunity zones, market or mirage. How many of you have experience with opportunity zones? Know what opportunity zones are. Pretty much everyone, right? Almost everyone. I'll give a couple of opening contextualizing remarks, but just to level-set, this is not a one-on-one on opportunity zones. I'm Fran Siegel, Executive Director of the US Impact Investing Alliance, which is a field-building organization focused on impact investing. One of the ways we work, one of our work streams is focused on federal policy. So what we call private capital for public good, working with members of the administration, working with regulators and legislators to think about ways to catalyze private capital for public sector outcomes. And we got involved with opportunity zones, relatively early. Jim Sorenson is on the Alliance's board and he introduced us to Economic Innovation Group, the the folks that developed the Investing in Opportunity Act, which became Opportunity Zones in the 2017 tax bill. And we recognized early on that if it were to pass, it would be the first excuse me, first community investment incentive in the last 15 years since new markets tax credits and felt like a kind of once-in-a-generation opportunity to really make an impact. We have been very focused, laser-focused on the issue of access to data, accountability, transparency, and community engagement as a path to community outcomes, which we believe is legislative intent, that is community economic development. Most recently, and perhaps most significantly, we partnered with the New York Federal Reserve Bank and the Beck Center at Georgetown, thanks to some grant support from the Rockefeller Foundation, to develop an Opportunity Zone Reporting Framework, which is a private sector framework that we are asking fund managers, communities, and other constituencies to use. And at the nucleus, at the center, is managing impact around communities. And so I'm excited to potentially talk about that in a little bit. So I'm joined by four expert panelists. I feel so fortunate to be working with you all and to be speaking with you all. I'm just going to say your name and say your impressive title, and then we'll get to work and discussion. So to my immediate left, your right is Otis Rowley, managing director, economic resilience and operations, and the U.S. Jobs and Economic Opportunity Initiative at Rockefeller Foundation. I'm gonna give it a little air because that's like a heavy title. And it's a heavy job and it's great to be working with you. Geron Smith, director of Urban Affairs and Revitalization, the executive office of the president. That is actually not your right title. So I'm going to ask you to say it. Well, deputy assistant to the president and deputy director for the Office of American Innovation. Yes. Yes, great. And so thank you for being here. Lisa Woods, managing director of KPMG and Jim Sorenson, who, among many other things, is the president of the Sorenson Impact Foundation and the benefactor of the Sorenson Impact Center at the University of Utah. So I'd love to start with you, Geron, and do what we're calling the Washington Lightning Round. So thank you for coming. You're on the road going to other cities, and we're so excited and grateful to have you here, and you've been so instrumental in working with communities, working with the White House and working with members of the administration around Opportunity Zones. And the first question I'd like to ask you, which is completely unfair, but I'll ask it anyway because it's a burning question for all of us, and that is when can we expect the final rules and regulations around Opportunity Zones? So as you probably know, regulations are in a kind of state of becoming. It's been tranched and we have been waiting for final regulation, and especially as far as it relates to the investability around small business. Can you get out your crystal ball? Well, a little bit. I can't give too much information, of course, and I answered this question pretty often as soon. You know, we're going to try to get them out as soon as possible. Hopefully before the end of the year, we know the end of the year is really important for Opportunity Zones. But it's been a process because it's been important for the White House and Treasury to thread the needle for congressional intent. And so we took time to get information back from the marketplace. And I'm happy to say that that's really helped with us finalizing the rules. We've just started really engaging with Treasury on that final tranch. And I feel very optimistic about the results. And we're trying to get that out as soon as possible, hopefully before the end of the year. OK, that's exciting. And of course, as you know, this group and others feel that it's really important to set a national standard for reporting, for impact reporting. And some of us, and certainly the Alliance has been active, writing public comment letters, testifying for an IRS and Treasury panel, trying to make the case, and many others in our field have tried to make the case. So excited to see those come out. Can you speak a little bit about the White House opportunity and revitalization council? We were joking earlier that you that we that I'm going to make you an Opportunity Zone concert T-shirt with all the communities and cities that you have visited. And so can you talk a little bit about the council and the tour that you've been on and Scott Turner and others have been on. So we have a team. We've amassed a team of experts from so the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council. What it does is take all the different economic development and community development tools throughout the federal government and targets them into Opportunity Zones so that we can do two things. One, show the federal government's commitment to the social impact of economic impact projects that are on the ground, but also to encourage state and city localities to also design a strategy or use their resources and tools to create that social impact on the ground. And so we've looked at all of our, like I said before, economic development tools as well as our safe community tools. That's everything from mentoring to gang prevention to drug prevention programs to everything from entrepreneurship, development and workforce development. And so those tools are all located on our website, OpportunityZones.gov. You can look at the 160 agency actions. And myself, I've been to almost 15 or 20 different cities. Scott Turner's upwards of like 50. And we got a lot of great insight from localities. And what we're working to do now is start to use our platform to build partnerships and do workshops to help individuals on the ground and in the community, leverage the tool to help empower those communities. Workshops that would deal with entrepreneurship, training to be marketable for equity investment or technical assistance for some of our community development tools and also for local leaders, what does deals look like? You know, and we did a recently did a summit in Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi with Milken and we spent a day just going over a deal flow because, you know, many of our major cities get involved in many of those different things, but our rural economies don't always have those resources. And so we're we're looking to put out more information, a toolkit through a couple of different key agencies such as HUD and EDA, Economic Development Administration under Commerce. And so you'll you'll be able to capture all of that activity on OpportunityZones.gov. I should have bought that URL. I could have done some arbitrage. Oh, yeah, amen. I should have seen that coming, Geron. Right. Great. Well, thank you. I look forward to hearing more in a moment. Jim, I'd love to turn to you and you wear a number of different hats in the OpportunityZones space and indeed in the impact investing space. You are in addition to being the president of the Sorensen Impact Foundation, you're also raising an opportunity fund. So you're also a fund manager as well as an investor in funds. And so wondering if you could talk a little bit about what your experience has been to date in raising an impact fund, an opportunity fund. And if what the what kind of deal flow you're seeing for the for this fund, you'll be happy to, you know, I think there have been a few challenges that we've had to face and others have faced in raising an OpportunityZone fund. Maybe I'll talk a little bit about those. And then I think some of the opportunities and I think positive aspects that we're experiencing, you know, I think the biggest challenge I think has been kind of the slow and complex nature of the regulations. And we're really hoping that we get all of them out by the end of the year. I think it will really help things to move along. I think the other aspect is that the regs are really not consistent with traditional commercial practices in terms of, you know, how funds structures are set up and, you know, how the financial markets understand investing in funds and so forth. So there's there's a learning curve for investors as well as really even the the the warehouses that will put, you know, investments like this onto their platform that takes more time. I think the markets a little fragmented because it's a it's a non-traditional more difficult process and, you know, lining up investments with investor needs in terms of their their gains and the timing around those gains and and their preferences. And of course, the illiquidity is something that is different for many investors. You know, they're typically used to shorter time horizons. So these are some of the challenges that I think that you you face with catalysts were a very intentional double bottom line fund. It's committed to competitive returns alongside measurable social impact. And I think one of the things that I think has been heartening to me is that that thesis of impact alongside investment has really resonated with investors that are more traditional in their investment. You know, practices in the past. I remember a dinner that we had with an investor that probably was going to be about a an hour long dinner. And we talked about, you know, the kind of the tax arbitrage and the the, you know, investment potential. But then we got into the impact side and that really took over the conversation. And this investor really identified, you know, with his own hometown with issues that we were talking about and they resonated with him. And this notion of being able to, you know, help a community alongside, you know, a market rate return really I think was the reason that this investor decided to invest in, you know, this new fund that that was investing in opportunity zones. We have also, I think, found surprisingly a number of like-minded partners and developers that share the same ethos that we have. So that's part of our sourcing strategy. We look for developers that have been in communities, that are committed communities, that are really also committed to sustainable investing and feel like, you know, those kind of partnerships are going to be necessary to be able to be successful in generating impact alongside the investment. And then also the community engagement is a huge piece that we look at. And then I think we're finding really good opportunities in kind of the heartland areas and that's really what I think this legislation was intended to do was to really motivate capital to be able to be flowing into under-capitalized communities. Communities, you know, like Louisville and Nashville and Columbus and Tacoma. You know, we have a pipeline of about 50 deals at this point that represent about a billion dollars in potential investments that give us great encouragement that the deal flow is there and that communities in particular that are proactive are really playing a role to bring to the forefront. We take a very measured approach in our impact. We have about 20 different databases that we look at in these communities, everything from income levels to housing to access to services that inform ultimately what impact we can generate and measure over time. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity with this program to be able to address, you know, the needs and opportunities within these distressed communities. Jim, can you talk a little bit about the nature of the deal flow? Are you looking at certain kinds of real estate development, housing? What constitutes it? You talk about 50 deals and the potential deals on the pipeline. What does that pipeline look like? They vary. So in some cases, there's a need for more affordable housing and we find developers that have, I think, innovative approaches to that in maybe a co-living model in some cases. We look at others that may have food deserts or they really don't have a good health provider. And, you know, the development is programming in those kind of tenants. We see the opportunity for, you know, education in charter schools and so forth. It really comes down to a mix and it comes down to really the needs within the community. Now, I think there are themes in other areas of impact that such as infrastructure, even clean energy. You know, we have not focused so much in those areas, but more in the traditional needs of, you know, distressed communities. Thank you. Otis, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about how foundations can help influence the market. Rockefeller Foundation and Kresge Foundation were among the first national foundations to see this unique opportunity in opportunity zones to understand fundamentally that there is a window in which to shape the market, especially as the regulatory framework sharpened up and was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what led you to announce these six cities that you have invested in the Opportunity Zone Academy and just can you talk about the strategy and the role that Rockefeller Foundation is playing as a national philanthropy? Sure. I really appreciated the title for the panel in terms of market or mirage and particularly because the way that the tax credit was established the foundation felt that it was doing a lot in terms of the tax credit to really help to create that market. But in many ways it would have been and could have been just a mirage, though, for the community residents in the qualified opportunity zones where you see a future ahead of you, where a community that had been historically disinvested in both by the public and private sector having the chance to have all this capital come in and a better future. But it's a mirage because you can't really realize that that new opportunity and in understanding that the foundation thought it was crucial for us to kind of step in and step up and try to affect change in that regard. So that it is both a market for for investors as well as those who have been long term investors and stayed in those communities through the good times and the bad times. And so for us, it is 13 cities, both the six cities that we are doing the the Community Capacity Building Initiative, as well as the seven cities by which we're doing the Opportunity Zone Academy. And we see this work as something that is replicable and and that we're trying to encourage other foundations and other like minded individuals and organizations to do the same type of work to really invest deeply in the communities and the cities so that they are coming to the table with the resources that many of the investors have. We think that the community in the cities should know the the complicated components of a deal. They should have an understanding of the tax regs. They can and should have the wherewithal to negotiate in the best interests of the community and of the city. And often that's not that's not going to just happen. The and the best way for that to occurs for the cities and the communities to be able to to have the resources brought to bear to do that. And so we've invested in in these 13 cities, partnered with some phenomenal organizations with the LISC and BCT partners, cities of service, Smart Growth America, Locust, all around. How do we bring the technical assistance human resources to the cities and communities and our chief opportunities owned officers that we're we're funding and six of those cities. We we have worked with the cities that they could look for and hire individuals who are as masterful negotiating with billionaires at the Mahogany boardroom table as they are negotiating in a storefront church basement with Mrs. Jenkins. Right. And I think because Mrs. Jenkins is as important as the billionaire. Right. And and so for for this work to matter and for the opportunity zones to truly bring the opportunity that we think they can, we thought it was crucial for us to make this investment. And we're hoping to not be the only ones to do it. We we see others doing it elsewhere. In many ways, the model for the Cozos came from the Abel Foundations investment in Baltimore. And so we're learning and growing and hoping to push out the information so that others can do the same so that it's not a mirage. Yeah. Yeah. So Baltimore has a I don't know if Ben has called a chief opportunity zone officer, but he's talked some talks about himself as sort of a matchmaker where he is identifying community assets, community needs, community priorities and really matching them and identifying deals and then matching it with fund managers. And in the early days of the of the of the opportunity zones, there was just this fundamental gap. It was really clear that and in sit that cities lacked some of the resources and the expertise base to have the conversations with the catalyst funds of the world and others. Right. I mean, Jim, it runs an impact opportunity fund, but there are plenty of opportunity funds that are run by incumbent real estate developers. And so understanding how to hold your own with with some of those folks with the gyms of the world, but also, you know, some other folks that maybe where where it's important to assert the community's priorities. Yes, completely. I think many of the cities that we we are investing in and just throughout the United States, the the level of expertise that you need to negotiate these deals, many of the cities have economic development authorities, economic development corporations, community development corporations where that expertise is there. But let's be frank, they've they've often not had the incentive to do this work in those distressed areas. I would argue that the intelligence, the skill sets, the expertise, the experience that you need to do a deal in a distressed area is not very different than the the those skills that you need to do the deal in a hot market area, just just not the incentive. The mayors or chief executives often are eager for the ribbon cuttings and the ground breakings. And God bless them. Those are wonderful things. But in those things happen more frequently in the hot areas than in those distressed areas. And so the argument that they didn't necessarily have the resources in many, particularly the largest cities, is not necessarily true. The where there was a lack of expertise, though, was really around how you apply those skill sets to those distressed areas, right? And where there was a lack of knowledge, even for people who were subject matter experts in their city, they often did not spend a lot of time, energy and effort in those more distressed areas because they were historically disinvested in both by the public and private sector and often ignored by both sectors. And so what was really attractive to us about this legislation was to bring that attention to these eighty seven hundred plus distressed areas and then any role that we could play and that we're trying to play in terms of our grant making and investing to really bring the attention to those areas and then to add some fuel to the fire in terms of having some individuals who who did know those areas and were willing to apply those resources and those skill sets that they that they've used elsewhere in these in these distressed communities. And we're and we're seeing some some proof of that this is working already. And it's very early. Many of our coals are just coming on board. And we're eager to really try to put in infrastructure so we can start capturing, measuring and reporting out on on what we're seeing in both in terms of success and failure so we can learn learn from both. Otis touched on something that's that's important around the interest around opportunity zones, the reporting around opportunity zones really captured the imagination of a lot of different folks and put a spotlight on community investing and disinvested and underinvested communities. Of course, this community, our community has a lot of experience investing in these and these areas, both rural and urban and using the the the bright spotlight of opportunity zones to talk in a fulsome way about what it means to invest in communities is seems like a very unique opportunity that we're working on. And so while opportunity zones is an equity tool, there's Community Reinvestment Act money, there's new markets, tax credits, there's grants, there's philanthropies or more philanthropies need to step up, community foundations need to step up. And it feels like a kind of a unique moment for us as a field. And for those of us that that care about bringing economic vitality back to communities. So Lisa, you work at KPMG. And my understanding is that you made it 150 folks in across the firm across the country engaged in opportunity zones and that you are the ringleader of this group. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about what draws you to this work. What does KPMG as a firm from a kind of practice perspective bring to the table. And if you can give us an example of a community that you've observed that has been doing some interesting albeit like early work around opportunity zones. Yeah, so I am one of the national leaders of the opportunity zone practice at KPMG, which is a motley crew of tax audit and advisory folks from all over the country that are doing something with opportunity zones. My particular focus is on impact. And what's really exciting to build on what you said is that I'm getting in front of clients that I would have never gotten in front of to have a conversation about impact because of opportunity zones. And so I'm really hoping that this sort of opportunity zone interest pushes impact investing more into the conversation more often because of that interest. So I am seeing a lot of that. I have the pleasure of working with a lot of really interesting clients on this. One of them is Erie, Pennsylvania. I work for with the Erie downtown development corporation. And if you don't know what's going on in Erie, it's definitely something to look up in a story to know. I think that the positive narratives and the bright spots and sort of the islands of good out there need to be talked about. And those narratives have to be repeated. And the models have to be replicated. So eddc.org is a good place to get information about it. Erie was, I think, the first place to come out with an investment prospectus with Bruce Katz. And they have since just trailblazed this. And in the poorest zip code in the nation, which is downtown Erie, they have already attracted more than 90 million dollars of investment, which is pretty incredible. And to me, it's a story that shows that this is working exactly how it was intended to in a place that really fits that traditionally disinvested definition. And the 90 million dollars, some of it came 50 million dollars, I believe, came from a local insurance company. Can you talk a little bit more about where that money came from in this very, very disinvested census tract? So I can't talk about the whole capital stack, but I can't talk about Erie insurance because they made their investment public. So they're a really interesting company. They have been philanthropic for their whole existence and do a lot very quietly around Erie that has great impact. They decided before opportunity zones even were part of the tax law and were in the picture to partially fund this downtown development corporation and just coincided, luckily, with the establishment of the opportunity zones. They felt very strongly that it was important for them to invest in their community and to be an anchor institution and really help align the various stakeholders in the community around a specific objective and strategy and thereby projecting confidence for other investors from outside of Erie. And what's interesting is that they're not investing in the opportunity zone for that 10-year payout specifically. They're investing because they are getting a different kind of impact. They're growing really, really quickly and they need to hire about 600 people a year and they need to attract that talent to Erie Pennsylvania. So it's in their best interest and they understand that it's in their best interest to revitalize that community so that the best talent wants to come and stay in Erie. So I think that's a conversation that you can have with corporate anchor institutions or potential anchor institutions where they can see a value that far exceeds what their monetary return would be. And Lisa, you talked about working with different types of clients around impact. What kind of tools or frameworks do you use to help folks that may be new to impact and motivated around impact because of opportunity zones? How do you help them think about impact? So I mean, you know, it's great when a client comes and says, you know, we can spend a lot of money on this. It's OK that it's not a requirement, but we feel like it's really personally important or the market is asking for us to be really very specific and intentional around impact. That's fantastic. But to be honest, it doesn't happen a lot. So our ability to fall back on things like the as reporting framework, you know, is really important because we're able to provide even those clients that don't have a budget to spend on on impact and impact strategy and reporting. We're able to provide them with, you know, sort of a way to do it on their own, sort of a self self help guide to impact. So I've seen it, you know, all the way from just here. Here's the link to the us reporting framework. Do this to, you know, developing a full blown, you know, bespoke strategy and reporting methodology. Thank you. So, Jim, I want to ask you one last question, specifically around the opportunity zone catalyst challenge, if you feel like you can talk about it. Can you describe what the catalyst challenge is? What the objectives of it are? And if there are any early indications you can share about the applicant pool? Sure. A little bit about the, and we call it the Forbes Opportunity Zone challenge because Forbes is our partner. Forbes is really good at lists. So the purpose behind this was really to identify, recognize, spotlight and hopefully disseminate best practices and innovation of really the top funds as well as the top communities. And we had a fairly lengthy application process this year that was set out to a whole host of interested parties. And and we just have recently gotten the results back. And I think this is an encouraging data set. Keep in mind that it's not comprehensive. It's self-reported and obviously I think those that are more oriented towards impact are probably reporting. But I think it's really encouraging. I can give you just kind of some highlights of the results. We had about 120 applications that boiled down to about 113 that were scored. And they totaled about 15.2 billion in potential investments into Opportunity Zones. There were 62 funds that submitted and 51 communities that applied. And again, it was a very rigorous application. The funds listed as priority in terms of their geographies, 85 percent were focused in urban areas, 50 percent in rural and 39 percent in suburban. So it was good to see rural communities that were strongly represented. And then 16 percent of the funds intend to invest in businesses. And I think that kind of reflects kind of a lagging of the business regs that hopefully come out by the end of the year and remove some of the concerns or ambiguities as it relates to investing in small businesses. In terms of the areas of focus, interestingly, about 75 percent were focused on encouraging small businesses. That doesn't mean they were investing in small businesses, but in real estate that would encourage small business formation. 71 percent housing, about 60 percent environment. 65 percent had a strong focus on racial equity. About 52 percent education, 47 percent gender equity and about 44 percent were in transportation. As it relates to the communities, we had about 1,400 projects, prospective projects that were reported by the 51 communities. So there are multiple projects in many of these communities. 86 percent of these communities have at least one shovel ready project, which I think is encouraging to know that they've gotten to that stage. And they report on, there were communities that represented about 24 states. I think of investments that have been made, and there's been about 3 billion that were reported in terms of investments that had been made. 50 percent were listed in as commercial investments. Now, those may include ready housing as well as mixed use, which was 26 and a half percent. Three percent were industrial, 3.8 percent residential, but that's kind of a misnomer because there's residential in some of the other categories and about 16 percent in other types of investments. I think anecdotally, we were very impressed by some of the very innovative approaches and the collaborative approaches that we saw within these applications. And the plan is ready to boil this down and really summarize the learnings and hopefully be able to inspire, motivate and inform others as to how to really generate impact and financial returns. Thank you. I believe that this is the first time you're sharing these high level data takeaways. We're in the selection process at this time. And what is the timeline for announcing? So we tend communities and tend funds and the idea is really to lift up best practices around impact and community engagement. So into to lift up best actors as a way of again shaping the market. I think in some ways when you think about all of our work, we are seeking to as impact investors as folks that care about communities, seeking to shape the market toward community outcomes. We had a rigorous three hour meeting actually turned out to be three and a half hours. Fran, you were on that advisory committee that is selecting and curating the winners. We hope to announce those shortly and then we'll announce the finalists, which will be the top two of the communities and top two of the funds at the Winter Innovation Summit in February, the first week in February in solid state. Thank you. Would love to open it up to the audience. I have many other questions I can ask the panelists, but thought you might have some as well. Are there questions folks want to ask? Yes. Hello. And so my question may be using the example of the insurance company in Erie. How do we make sure that the like the folks in those communities are also participating in the equity gains and into in the jobs essentially that are entering these communities? I can answer that one. So I love the fact that we're all on the same page. One theme that couple themes that you've heard out of this if you take anything is one intentionality, you know, collaboration and to have a strategy, right? And so what we've done as a White House, all of our convenings are very intentional on that social impact piece, which is why it's so important to have some of the local leaders on local elected leaders involved because they have that connectivity to the community. And we've approached them different types of ways. Sometimes it's a council person. Sometimes it's a congressional person or sometimes it's the local mayor. But they've definitely been a secret ingredient with having that connectivity to the ground and offering up the community on the front end, not on the back end, before decisions made, getting the community input on what they think is best for their community is an extremely important part of at least what we've done with our convenings. And we also have a partner with folks like Rockefeller, who also have more lists or enterprise, who also have community connections. But that's that's the heart, I think, of any type of good social impact project. And I can tell you, since I've been involved with Opportunity Zones from the beginning, that was really the goal of the legislation to have a tool that could help empower the community and be mutually beneficial to the investor in the community. But it takes those collaborations. It takes being very intentional. And once you have that, then it's developing the right strategy that is mutually beneficial. And I just want to add sometimes it's not obvious. Sometimes it's not linear. So I was talking to a client the other day that bought a property in Chester, Pennsylvania that was in an Opportunity Zone, and he's actually going to move some courier businesses that he has on to this property, which thanks to the regulation example about the landscaping business, we understand that he can do. We need more examples like that. And, you know, he was worried that he didn't have an impact narrative with what he was doing because he already has a lot of employees. He's not really bringing new employees in. And so we just tried to peel the onion back and unravel what he was doing. And it turned out he was doing a couple things that were important, I think, in his narrative. Number one, he worked really closely with architects and others to make sure that where the trucks came in were furthest away from where it would impact where people lived. So it wouldn't be as disruptive. But he also reached out to SEPTA, which is the public transportation, because the SEPTA station that was closest to this piece of land was just terrible, right? Just really in disrepair and awful. And they agreed that if he moved these businesses to Chester, they would rehabilitate this train station, which, you know, isn't really kind of part of his business plan, but certainly is going to have an incredible positive effect for the whole community. So I think it's, you know, kind of thinking outside the four corners of the deal to see the impact as well. I might want to make one other comment. I think, you know, we take a very intentional, deliberate approach in scoring as part of our due diligence process the impact. So the affordability as it relates to to housing in a project as as compared to the LMI in the in the community, the access to services. And and we really look for the opportunities that will encourage economic development with within the projects, because ultimately, you know, job creation and improvement of incomes for those that live there are key to the success in this program. I would just add, I think, ultimately, there has to be someone whose job it is to think in the terms that you just articulated, right, that for us, our investment in COSOS is not to just create a deal jockey, right, or another economic development officer in the city who who happens to care or focus in on distressed areas. They they should be in many ways like an expediter at a really good restaurant, right. Their job is not just to for those of you may have a spending time in the service industry. It's, you know, it's not just about hurrying and making sure that the food is on the table or just this or just there. It's about the overall experience because if that rocks, right, more people going to keep coming to the restaurant, the business is going to, it's the same way that that COSO should be thinking not just about how do I expedite this deal quickly for the investor, but it should be also about what's the ROI for the community, right. And if they're coming with that level of intentionality and focus both on how you can do well and do good, then they're going to navigate that deal in a way where they're consciously and consistently really pulling and pushing in regards to that. And that's why the COSO has to have real relationships, not just with the bankers and with investors, but also with the community. They have, and that's why the COSO should be someone kind of who is connected to, to the city so that they have that kind of that public public obligation, almost kind of legal obligation, while also having the freedom. And that's why many of our COSOs are connected to the EDCs and the EDAs because they're kind of city employees, but not, right. They have the flexibility and flow that they can do both acting on behalf of the city, but also on behalf of the private sector. And so forgive me for going speaking too long, but it's just I think that's, that's the only way. And that's why we made that investment in the COSOs and recognizing we don't have the money to create 10,000 COSOs, right. But that if we set up a model that makes sense that others were funded and people recognize how important it is. But there has to be someone who's thinking about it all day, every day, because it's not going to happen organically. It's not going to just happen because we want it to. Someone has to be literally their paycheck has to depend on it happening. Other questions? Yes, in the front. Voice. So an emphasis on economic development coordinators. And unfortunately, from thousands of opportunity zones, they do not have that resource. The government is cash strapped. They're not going to have someone who can think about that. I'm from one of those communities. And I happen to be a property owner in an opportunity zone. I can tell you over the last year, it's been almost impossible from the person with the property and the idea and and other resources to find information, advising and the early money to start doing the work because I've talked with private equity and they said, we love the idea, but you need to be shovel ready before we put a dollar in. And to me, that says an interesting thing about the risk that that those who are best off in hard off communities are expected to absorb in order to catch the attention of those investing in opportunity zones. So I'm wondering for those who don't have the benefit of an economic development coordinator or somebody really leading the charge, what are good resources for them in terms of organizations, consultancies or online resources, or even entities that are deciding to be the first money in? What are those early stage resources that people in my community and thousands of others could take access, get access to before they're at the point of being shovel ready? Or so one thing that we just did with our website, the biggest reason for the website was for smaller communities to find information and having some trusted center to find information, not only federally but having something to direct them to their local resources. And so we have Opportunity Zones dot gov. I mentioned that earlier today and then I also spoke a little bit about the toolkit that we're using to empower our regional administrators or some of the economic development people under EDA, which connects to a lot of those development systems around the country. And so we're also hoping to host convenings to help get information out and be the connector to a private sector leaders. Of course, from the federal perch, we can't pick winners and losers. And so far as like putting out there who you should connect with all these to these folks say something to give those recommendations. But we we've certainly thought a lot about that and are having a conversation with Congress on how we can appropriately deploy technical assistance because the the last thing we want is for rural communities to spend a lot of cash on a consultant that is just giving them public information for the most part, because with these rules, you know, everyone's waiting to see the rules finalize. And like I said, in the year, I think we're in a good place. Can I just make another plea? Not the week before Christmas. Yeah, that's not a good No, I don't think that would be good at all. We I think we're really close. I wish I can tell you more about I feel confident about it. But the thing is, you're right that like that 40 percent of opportunity zones are rural. And we we understand that and we've tried to use our platform to kind of get information out to people and host convenings. But also, you know, investors are at different stages too. And so some of the investors you're talking about are talking shovel ready. There's also investors who are looking more longer term. And so it's really getting out in that ecosystem. I also I don't know when you spoke to them, but I also think that the second set of regulations did a lot to calm people down about the time limitations a little bit. It provided some safe harbor, it provided some breathing room. So people aren't we're I'm seeing people less anxious about Oh my gosh, it has to be shovel ready. It has to be ready to go. I can't, you know, I only have a very short time to kind of spend my money. So I think the more education people have and the more clear the regulations become the easier it will be, hopefully to attract capital at earlier stages. I've got a bunch of information with me that I can give you if you find me afterwards, just explaining different parts of the regulations for something that's supposed to be sort of do it yourself. It's pretty complicated. But if you know, if you have a long trip plane ride and you want to something to make you fall asleep, I've got a bunch of stuff with me. I also want to say I think some of the reasons why we're investing in these 13 cities, though, is also to provide information beyond the 13 cities. Right. So we made some early grant making to the National Governors Association around some of the stuff recognizing that while particularly for our target population in terms of low wage workers, the vast majority of them are in the urban centers that, you know, opportunity zones are everywhere. Right. And so in many, many jurisdictions, a lot of the economic development work happens at the state level, at the county level, because as you as you mentioned, they might not be an EDO or EDA in a particular town or area. And so for us, it's our hope and some of our future investments in the very not distant future, but hopefully Q1 investments that we're trying to make also Q1 of 2020 that we're trying to make is also around pulling together data hubs, pulling together a real kind of community of learning so that we can push information out. You know, so one of the great things in terms of that the administration is doing in terms of the Opportunity Zone website and then the investments that HUD made with enterprise community partners in terms of the creation of that toolkit is phenomenal. Right. And that stuff that you can pull down now is there as we produce that stuff, it won't just be a Rockefeller endeavor is this is going to be public information that we will put on on the government website push out the learning etc. Because we do want to demystify it. I don't in any way want to short change the reality that I do think is reality that there has to be point people. Right. And whether whatever context whether that's someone at the state level, some of the things we seen in Alabama where there's a lot of work happening at the state level that is helping in the role and kind of county level etc. But we want to play a role in the investments and grant making that we're doing in those in those 13 cities that will allow for learning to get pushed out throughout the country. Great. Well, I'm noticing we have only a couple minutes left and I was wondering if I could ask panelists to say call to action to the audience. So this is a highly impact oriented group. You know, some of you have deep connections to communities. And so if you could issue a call to action to the SoCAP community around specifically opportunity zones, what would it be? And just kind of let's go maybe start with Jim and go down the line. Well, I think it's a unique opportunity. When I looked at the opportunity as own legislation, I saw it as a moonshot to engage, you know, impact investing to more traditionally oriented investors. But I think the real secret to success is going to be in collaboration, collaboration of the communities and the stakeholders that are there, those that live there, the local governments, the nonprofits, as well as the investment community in helping to innovate and be able to address the issues that are there. So I think we come from all walks of life. Everyone here, I think you should look at how you might be able to contribute towards that collaboration. And that would be my call to action with this group. So for me, it would be for everyone to just be as bold and as big a thinker as you can and really push yourself to think of more creative ways to leverage this legislation. And you know, if you come to us, no matter how crazy the idea, if we feel as though it's, you know, sort of in line with the policy objectives, we're going to do our best or go to another trusted advisor, but somebody that's going to do their best to get you where you want to go within the confines of the regulations. But but don't sit back and watch and then complain next year that you don't like the way that that this looks because right now is when the market is being formed. That's funny, I was going to say your combination of the same thing, you know, one that the intentionality is really important. And I mentioned that because I've been in so many communities that's concerned with displacement and things like that. And it's some fear attached to what they don't understand with the tool. But the intentionality of it, the communities that have said, I'm going to take this tool and leverage it to empower my community. We've seen results orient from that versus the latter. We've seen people stand still and no activity. And it's literally a marketplace. And so that builds into the other piece of collaboration. Figure out, you know, what it is that you're trying to transform, you know, develop a strategy and then get into that ecosystem, that partnership, because it exists around you, rather you know it or not. I've always said it's the federal state, local government, then it's the private sector. And the private sector includes foundations, investors, big companies, nonprofits, as well as faith based institutions. And then that all impacts the fifth partner, which is the individual who needs access to capital to start a business or the individual that wants to get on the ladder of opportunity with a job or workforce. And so with that collaboration, I think we can create that social impact. But it's going to be different in every locality. And it really starts with being very intentional in figuring out how you can leverage a tool. So well, I only have 10 seconds. So I'm gonna say this, invest in that fifth partner. Yeah, invest in that fifth partner, take all of your dollars and your resources. It was the local state federal decisions, policies that that disinvested made decisions to to break down those 8700 districts. And it was the private sector that made conscious decisions to not invest. And so now let's flip it. Let's be as intentional and investing in that fifth partner in those individuals, given them the capacity and the resources that they need and true partnerships, not just engagement, don't just ask their opinion or their thoughts, but a partnership recognize their power, recognize the investment that they made in the same power that they had in those communities and invest in them in a serious and substantial way. Great, great way to end. Thank you so much to the panelists. Thank you.