In 2018, Accelerator for America engaged New Localism Advisors to create a replicable product—an Investment Prospectus—to enable cities, counties and states to communicate their competitive advantages, trigger local partnerships and identify sound projects that are ready for public, private and civic capital. Our aim was to help communities and investors get smarter and more precise about the broad range of investment possibilities that exist in Opportunity Zones and, literally, help make and shape markets where there were none. The Nowak Lab has supported this effort as an extension of the work of Director Bruce Katz. 

To aid cities interested in developing a prospectus, we have created this Opportunity Zone Investment Prospectus Guide to speed the process by which a broad group of cities adopt this market tool and build Investment Prospectuses that are customized to local assets and advantages and scalable across cities by asset classes and product types. Our ambitions are large: to grow the number of cities with Investment Prospectuses from our original five cities to fifty communities by March 2019 and unveil them at an Investors Summit at Stanford University.

To date, mayors in five cities—Joe Schember in Erie, Greg Fischer in Louisville, David Holt in Oklahoma City, Pete Buttigieg in South Bend and Michael Tubbs in Stockton—have led multi-sector efforts to design and release the first versions of an Investment Prospectus. The five cities have deliberately followed a common template and routinized format in order to enhance the potential for replicability across multiple cities. Dozens more are using the template to produce their own prospectus. 

Learn more at Accelerator for America.