The South Louisiana Economic Council Capital Development Program (CDP) is designed to address the need to provide capital to the emerging or expanding businesses of the Bayou Region.   Capital is key to the ability of these companies to grow to a point where they will add new jobs and contribute to the tax base of the region.

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Capital may not always be available for a variety of reasons that may include:

• Shifts in local lenders' loan portfolio criteria that precludes the inclusion of certain types of loans, i.e., restaurants, maritime, intellectual property development, funding for intangible assets, and industrial loans which exceed either internal or external loan limits
• Expanding businesses with loan requests largely dependent upon projected revenues and expenses as opposed to actual historical results.
• Inexperience in the borrower's ability to structure a loan request, to suit a particular lender's portfolio preferences and with the aim to maximize the rate approvals
• Many lenders orientation to consumer loans and other fee based services as opposed to commercial loans, which is the lifeblood of economic expansion
• Confusion among borrowers as to the role of government-backed loan enhancement programs through local, state and federal sources, and how they are packaged and structured in a funding request
• Some lenders' restrictions on existing business whereby terms, rates and conditions of their existing loans are restrictive to expansion and impede the company's earning which are necessary to facilitate and encourage expansion and corresponding job growth, and whereby re-financing is beneficial to the business and economic growth. 

The Capital Development Program is designed to increase the odds for obtaining successful funding for growing companies although it is not a source for funds nor does it back or underwrite requests for funds.In addition, the CDP provides community education and advice on capital formation including the sponsorship of an annual Venture Capital Forum to bring together investors and companies seeking capital.Other CDP services include:

• Polling of local lenders to determine their preferred lending criteria and loan portfolio makeup.

• Packaging of funding requests to include all credit information and additional supporting information on an as needed basis

• Leveraging possible government backed guarantees in packaging the request for funds to strengthen the probability of funding.

• Evaluating credit and making a determination of recommended or not recommended for funding.

• Presenting recommended requests to lenders based on their expressed loan-type preference.

• Finding funding sources outside the Bayou Region if regional lenders can not fulfill the loan request.

• Presenting funding request to non-bank sources of funds as appropriate.

The net effect is that companies that could potentially grow a stronger jobs and tax base are precluded from doing so due to a lack of access to capital.
download the CDP credit application now