Dennis Matthews’ life is unrecognizable since he enrolled in the IDA program. In 1999, Dennis was $10,000 in debt, had lost his job and had taken a new job with a 45% salary reduction. “I was in so much trouble,” he says. “The cost of living was so high.”

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CFED and the National Fund for Enterprise Development (NFED), CFED's Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) support corporation, provide underwriting and technical support to statewide affiliate nonprofits which take as their goal consolidating and linking entrepreneur and micro business development services into coordinated statewide systems. Where statewide systems have become established, they become a permanent infrastructure that can serve entrepreneurs and start-up businesses statewide. The institutional form of these statewide functions and systems varies from state to state; NFED refers to them collectively as Statewide Microenterprise Intermediaries (SMIs).

Since 2006, NFED's main activity has been to explore the use of the tax code to serve micro and small businesses through the Self-Employment Tax Initiative (SETI).  Developing the full potential of local entrepreneurs and their start-up businesses is emerging as an important federal and state policy, and we invite you to explore SETI's activities at the above link.