Now that we have crossed the threshold into the land of "intermediate small bank", we are establishing a CRA committee to help administer our CRA program. The makeup of the committee includes our compliance officer, our chief credit officer (for lending-related issues), our treasurer (for investment-related issues), our branch administrator (for service-related issues), and our marketing director (for support on both investment and service related issues, as well as marketing efforts to support CRA lending efforts).

I'm looking for some good resource to be able to give to these folks to help bring them up to speed on the objectives of CRA, as well as some specific definitions and evaluation criteria, such as the definition of "community development" and the definition of "qualified investment". Does anyone know of a good source for this, or am I stuck trying to write all this up myself?

the Federal Reserve of Dallas has arguably the best CRA resource in a small brouchure format - just google and download

I use the Dallas site as well. San Fransisco's site also has tons of community development stuff.
This is a little dated but still gets the point across: http://www.frbsf.org/community/webresources/2001_QI_Final.pdf

I can provide you several helpful documents. First, I have written a synopsis of what community development means under CRA including some of the pitfalls. Second, I wrote an article that was published in Community Banker Magazine, Convert Your CRA Cost Center Into a CRA Profit Center" that explains how CRA performance evaluations should be developed and why they can actually help your bank become more profitable as well as achieve higher CRA PE's. If you want copies, just pm me with your e-mail address and I will send these pdf documents to you.

Thanks for the help. The Dallas Fed brochure was exactly what I was looking for as an initial introduction for the committee. Thanks Pale. Rizzo, your document will be helpful as well when we start discussing what is and what is not a "qualified investment". I'll definitely keep it on tap. And Len, I've sent you a PM. Thanks for the offer of additional materials that can help.

It sounds like you are off to a good start. When we took the leap 4 years ago to what we thought would be "big bank", but then ended up being "intermediate small", we formed a CRA committee with a make up similar to yours, but added 2 board members. We started meeting every other month to educate the members on what CRA was and now we meet quarterly to discuss actual results vs. targeted goals in each of the various areas. We all agree it's one of the most hard working committee within the bank and the examiners are happy to see the communication within the different lines in the bank.