Rewarding Innovation with Financial and Technical Assistance

These non-monetary awards will allow micro-enterprise development organizations to compete for public recognition just as large American corporations now compete for the Malcolm Baldridge Award. And in rewarding the best in the country, the awards program will disseminate information to others about best practices, helping to advance micro-enterprise development more generally. Awards will be presented for the first time this fall.

On a broader front, let me say that these initiatives, from investing in human capital to improving access to capital, are enormously in the interest of all Americans, looked at from a purely hardheaded and business-like perspective. Simply put, I think this nation will fall far short of its full economic potential for all Americans unless our cities and distressed rural areas are healthy. And our social fabric will become weaker instead of stronger, again, for all of us, unless we tackle these problems successfully.

With strong public support for CDFI, the Community Reinvestment Act, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, and our new micro-enterprise programs, we now have a chance to make locally driven, public-private partnerships reach communities across the land. We can help rebuild neighborhoods, create jobs, and restore hope in neighborhoods long left behind.

To accomplish this, all of us must meet our respective challenges. Our challenge, the government's challenge, is to act as catalyst with investments in people, seed capital and a helping start. Your challenge, and what this sixth annual AEO conference is all about, is continually to improve and grow. The challenge to individuals is to take advantage of educational opportunities and commit to hard work. The challenge to communities is to organize themselves for change. And the challenge to the business sector is to see its long term self-interest in bringing everyone into the economic mainstream.

It will take all of us rising to those challenges to succeed. But I believe that is the only way the United States can reach its full potential in the years and decades to come. We don't have a monopoly on good ideas in the United States. This works overseas, and if adapted to our own economy, it can work in America to help people in distressed communities better their lives and join the American economic mainstream.