Palo Verde Valley Community Improvement Fund: A Case Study

777 Words2 Pages

From giving out grants to lending out loans, the Palo Verde Valley Community Improvement Fund has been there to help during the community’s time of need.
Supplying 10 grants to nonprofit organizations in Blythe alone, the CIF has distributed six grants to the schools, two grants to the city and two to Palo Verde College.
One grant in particular, Interim CEO Van Savell remembers, is helping a local student raise enough money to put sunscreens over the pool at the high school. “We gave $18,000 in addition to what a young girl by the name Ariana Tribby raised,” Savell said. “I believe she was later a Miss Blythe and to me, she was just a first-class kid. It was pretty neat that someone was willing to do that on her own.
Of course she couldn’t …show more content…

Now we’ve some who had struggles and we’ve helped them through those struggles, but we have not closed on anybody, and everybody is paying. So when you listen to all that, it sorta sounds like, the economy is doing something.”
The process for filing the application:
To get approve for a loan, one must complete a 27-page application. Once the application comes to CIF and if the board thinks it meets the requirements, then they have a loan grant committee take a look at it and they decide if it’s worth pursuing.
That committee is made up of 6 board members and 2 community members who are not on the board.
They later send it back to CIF, which then gets pass to a loan underwriter who isn’t a part of the community and they go through the application.
“We gotta know you can pay it back,” Savell said, and that requires collateral. “Often that requires a deed of trust.. They check credit scores, everything. The loan underwriter determines if they’re capable of paying back the loan, and is the cash flow …show more content…

It then goes to the full board, which makes all decisions on grants/loans who still has the power to accept the loan even if it was recommended that it be denied.
“Our job is to make this community successful, economically,” Savell said. “Our job is literally... Someone comes to us, they may have problems and so we work with them, write or help do whatever they need to do. Our interest isn’t to decline or to sit back and be the big dog and scare anybody off.
Our interest is helping make this community successful, and it’s been lots of fun. It really has.”
Retiring in the coming months, Savell said he has seen a lot of changes in Blythe since he’s been here, and although there are some areas that still needs a little help, Blythe is economically doing well. As of right now, the Community Improvement Fund is advertising in the Times for a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) since the retirement of former CEO, Butch Hall in November.
The right candidate must be a current resident within the Palo Verde Irrigation District service area.
For more information about this position, please contact Savell via email: van@cif-blythe.com or by phone at (760)

More about Palo Verde Valley Community Improvement Fund: A Case Study

Open Document