Federal Reserve Banks' Small Business Credit Survey Distribution Partner Consortium Guidelines

Thank you for agreeing to work with the Federal Reserve Banks on their annual Small Business Credit Survey. The Federal Reserve Banks of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Louis, and San Francisco (the "Reserve Banks," "us," "we") conduct an annual Small Business Credit Survey (the "Survey"). The Survey provides policymakers, business representatives, and service providers with timely information about business financing and credit conditions. To administer the Survey, the Reserve Banks partner with organizations ("Distribution Partners") across the nation to reach potential survey participants.

Qualifying Distribution Partners are nonprofit 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(6) organizations and state or local government entities. Non-eligible organizations include for-profit lending entities and organizations that are currently regulated by the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC"), or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") or may be regulated by federal regulatory agencies in the future.

Distribution Partners may choose to maximize outreach engagement by working with other partners as a shared network or “consortium."

Guidelines for consortium participation are listed below.

1. Requests for Distribution Partners to form a consortium are at the discretion of the Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS) team.
2. Once a consortium has been approved, an organization cannot withdraw from the consortium until after the Small Business Credit Survey has closed for that year.
3. If a consortium partner produces a sufficiently high number of responses (50 or more), we may provide that partner with analytics based on those responses:
   1. If the consortium collectively achieves 50+ responses but no member qualifies for a partner report (contributing 50+ responses on their own), the consortium will receive a partner report.
   2. If one or more consortium members achieve 50+ responses and qualifies for a partner report, the remaining members must contribute a combined minimum of 20 responses to produce a consortium report.
4. Any analytics provided must be kept internal to your organization and those named in the consortium.
5. Published consortium reports will include all consortium member organizations and should not be edited.

If you have questions about partnership with the Fed Small Business team, please contact SYSFedSmallBusiness@clev.frb.org.