This article analyzes a demonstration program mounted by a major bank to understand whether access to information and communications technologies, combined with financial literacy training and training on how to use the Internet, can help low-and moderate-income individuals in inner-city neighborhoods be more effective financial actors. While quantitative analysis turns up few significant program effects, qualitative work implies that implementation issues likely compromised the effectiveness of the program. There was evidence of a potential link between information and communications technologies and financial literacy. Overall, urban low-and moderate-income individuals are interested in becoming technologically and financially literate and an intensive intervention may enable these goals.

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The microenterprise strategy marries elements of economic development and social welfare strategies and agendas. This article uses case studies of three inner-city microenterprise programs to demonstrate that the results of this blending are over-whelmingly positive. At the same time, working in the interstices of the economic development and social welfare fields is complex, and the results that programs produce do not fit easily into traditional outcome categories. The programs studied do more to help those who exist at the margins of the mainstream economy than those who are completely cut off from the economic mainstream. They help change the mind-set of people by giving them the hope they need to take charge of their own lives. By helping people begin to think strategically about creating better futures for themselves and providing them with the tools necessary to make that happen, these programs shift the focus of policy from maintenance to investment.

Community development corporations (CDCs) attempt to build capacity-that is, the ability to carry out their functions more effectively-in a variety of ways. In previous research, the authors defined five categories of capacity (resource, organizational, networking, programmatic, and political). In this article, they take on the difficult task of measuring the amorphous concept of capacity building. They look specifically at the relationship between community development partnerships, local intermediaries funded in part by the Ford Foundation to support community development, and CDCs' capacity-building efforts. Their survey of 219 CDCs allows them to provide a detailed estimation of capacity of CDCs in twenty cities.