When Might Opening a Joint Bank Account Make Sense?

Did you recently get married, move in with a new roommate, see a child off to college or start managing a relative's finances? The change in relationship dynamics could prompt you to consider tying part of your financial lives together by opening a joint bank account. With a shared checking or savings account you'll both have complete access and responsibility for the money.

You might enjoy the conveniences a joint account offers, or you could see it as a symbolic step in your relationship with a significant other or new spouse. But before you open a bank account with someone else, consider the potential benefits and drawbacks of the arrangement.

First, here's a quick introduction to joint accounts. Individual bank accounts and joint accounts are similar in many ways. You can open a joint account with an online-only bank or at a local bank branch. However, with a joint account both co-owners can deposit or withdraw money as if it was an individual account. The account holders can also write checks, make online payments or transfers and use the account's debit cards (if it offers them) to make purchases or withdrawals.

Like many individual accounts, joint accounts may be FDIC- or NCUA-insured, for online and retail banks and credit unions respectively. The insurance, which will refund you in case the bank or credit union fails, is on a per-depositor, per-bank basis. Meaning your first $250,000 will be covered at each bank, and a two-person account will have up to $500,000 worth of government insurance.

While any two (or more) people can open a joint account, it might not always be the right arrangement for you. But let's start with a few situations where you might want to use a joint bank account.

You might want a joint account if you share financial responsibilities with someone else. Sharing a joint account could be a good option if you're married or living with a significant other. Some couples create a joint account where they deposit a portion of their paychecks and use the money to pay for rent, insurance, loans, groceries and other household expenses. Having equal access to the account can make it easier to manage your collective spending and identify savings opportunities.

You might also consider opening a joint account if you have shared savings goals, such as a wedding, vacation or down payment. It could be easier to meet minimum balance requirements with your combined savings, you'll both be able to track your progress online and some accounts offer higher interest rates the more money you have in the account.

Joint accounts also generally have rights of survivorship. If one account holder dies, the other will still have access to the account and rights to the funds. On the one hand, this could be a positive feature as it's sometimes hard for a surviving spouse to access separate accounts. On the other, the arrangement could supersede the desires expressed in a will and the surviving co-owner could claim the money against the wishes of the deceased, heirs or other family members.

A shared account could also help you care for a family member. Are you responsible for managing the finances of a family member, such as a college student, parent or grandparent? A joint bank account could help you care for relatives, whether they live nearby or in another state. With co-owner access, it'll be easy to deposit or transfer funds online and at a bank branch, pay the person's bills from the account and keep an eye on the account's activity and balance.

But beware, joint accounts give everyone full ownership of the money. No matter who makes the deposit, once money is in a joint account, each member "owns" it and can legally spend it however he or she wants. In other words, you might not have any recourse if your new roommate raids a joint account and spends the rent money on a weekend getaway.

There are some safe guards you could put in place, but those have limitations. For example, you could require both people's signatures to write a check or make a withdrawal from the bank. However, you might only be able to deposit checks into the account if they're made out to both co-owners. Also, if the account has debit cards, one person could still make withdrawals without the other's approval.

A joint account holder's debt could also spell trouble for everyone on the account. Because every joint account holder has equal rights to the money, creditors can go after the money in a joint account if they sue one of the account holders. This puts your money at risk if the other person gets sued, falls behind on bills or doesn't pay taxes.

You could also unintentionally put someone else's money at risk. If your mother adds you as a joint-account holder on her account, the money could be in jeopardy if you get sued or divorced. Some people suggest managing elder relatives' finances with a convenience account or getting power of attorney as a potentially safer alternative to a joint account.

Communication and trust are vital to managing a joint account. An open dialogue is important to successfully running a joint account. Lack of communication between joint account holders could lead to overdrawn accounts or low balances, and the corresponding fees. It can also lead to disputes if the owners have different agreements on how the money should be spent.

Some couples make an informal agreement before opening an account together. Although it won't have legal backing, you could create a rule that you have to ask the other person before spending $150 or more. Using a mobile app to check a joint account's balance before making a purchase could also help you avoid mistakes.

Bottom line: While joint bank accounts let two or more people share access to an account, the convenience of the arrangement can sometimes be outweighed by the risks it poses to the co-owners. Generally, it's not wise to open a joint account with someone who you don't completely trust. Even when you do trust him or her, having a clear understanding of the intention behind the account and how the money will be used are important to avoiding arguments and mismanagement of your joint funds.

Nathaniel Sillin directs Visa's financial education programs. To follow Practical Money Skills on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PracticalMoney

This article is intended to provide general information and should not be considered legal, tax or financial advice. It's always a good idea to consult a legal, tax or financial advisor for specific information on how certain laws apply to you and about your individual financial situation.

Can Radical Transparency Fix Global Supply Chains And Slow Climate Change?

This story is cross-posted on Ecosystem Marketplace.

Kevin Rabinovitch stands straight and speaks in clear, clipped tones - more like a naval officer than a corporate quant - as, on the screen behind him, a daunting mass of threads and whorls illustrates the global flows of Brazilian soybeans from thousands of individual municipalities across Brazil, through specific exporters and importers, to countries around the world.

"We buy a lot of soy from Brazil," he says. "But we also buy things that eat soy in Brazil before we buy them," he continues, referring to the chickens and cows that end up in pet food manufactured by food giant Mars Inc, where he's Global Director of Sustainability.

Known for its ubiquitous Mars and Milky Way candy bars, privately-held Mars, Inc also makes Whiskas cat food, Wrigley's chewing gum, and dozens of other products that require tens of thousands of tons of cattle, soy, and palm oil - all of which are packaged in products derived from pulp & paper.

These are the "big four" commodities responsible for most of the world's deforestation, and they achieved that status because thousands of companies buy them from hundreds of thousands of farmers around the world, and many of those farmers chop forests to make way for plantations.

But a relative handful of companies have been acting more like environmental groups than for-profit entities, largely because unsustainable agriculture means unsustainable business. Mars, for example, recently teamed up with Danone to launch the Livelihoods Funds, which invest in sustainable small-scale farms around the world, and it's one of 56  companies to endorse the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), which aims, among other things, to purge deforestation "from the production of agricultural commodities such as palm oil, soy, paper, and beef products by no later than 2020."

Even before endorsing the NYDF, Mars had established concrete goals for improving the way it gathers raw materials, and it set tight deadlines for achieving them. Now it's reporting solid progress on two of them: the Forest Trends Supply Change project shows Mars reporting it is 91% of the way towards achieving its palm oil goal and 89% of the way towards achieving its packaging goal.

But the company hasn't yet publicly reported progress on its soy or cattle pledges, both of which have 2017 due dates, and Rabinovitch says the task is proving more difficult than he and most corporate sustainability directors imagined.

"Privately amongst ourselves - and even publicly in forums - there's a lot of head-scratching that goes on," he says. "We know we want to end deforestation, but it's not obvious how we're going to do it, and it's critically important to have the data community step up and say, 'Here are tools that can help you.'"

That massive blob on the wall behind him could be one of those tools (see "How it Works", below).

Further Coverage on Bionic Planet

Scroll down to continue reading, or hear more on the latest episode of of Bionic Planet, which is available on iTunes, TuneIn, Stitcher, and elsewhere. The latest episode features extended interviews with the team that developed Trase, as well as a walk-through of the platform.

Trasing the Globe

It's called "Trase", which stands for "TRAnsparence for Sustainable Economies", and was developed jointly over the past two years by the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), and the European Forest Institute (EFI).

It's designed to help companies and watchdogs track the impact that the purchases in one part of the world are having on the ground in other parts, and it works by tracking soybeans from every Brazilian municipality that produces them - more than 2,000 in total - through brokers, exporters, and importers, and then providing an overlay to compare the supply chain with environmental conditions in the municipality of origin.

"Traders tell us that they need to be able to filter the threats and opportunities quickly to be able to prioritize those places - and the other actors associated with those places - where they need to be acting first, and with the highest priority," says Toby Gardner, an SEI Research Fellow who demonstrated the portal at year-end climate talks in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The demonstration came just days before Climate Focus presented an assessment report consolidating data from 12 transparency initiatives, including Supply Change and GCP's Forest 500, as well as interviews with corporate sustainability officers, finding a disturbing lack of transparency around progress among NYDF companies.

Tedious Research; Simple Interface

Trase lets users view both a supply-chain map and a geographical map, and the data driving it was cobbled together over two years using bills of lading, customs declarations, and other documents generated in the harvesting and transport of soybeans. Many were purchased from trade intelligence companies.

"Tellingly, this is data that already existed, but it was not tapped by the sustainability community," says Gardner. "We were looked upon with bemused astonishment when we approached trade intelligence companies to use these, and I wonder how many other useful sources are out there just waiting to be tapped."

They plan to expand the portal to include other Latin American countries, then to facilities that crush soybeans into meal and oil, as well to feedlots that turn soybeans into chickens and beef, and finally to the other big four commodities. Internally, they assign confidence ratings to many of the "threads" in the supply-chain map, which is constantly being improved through site-specific research.

"If a company declares that they have a production farm in a given municipality, that's something we can take into account," says Clément Suavet, who lead development of the platform. "As we gain more information, we can add certainty incrementally, and we would like to make this available on the site as well."

Yin and Yang

The platform is designed to blend with others that show different parts of the supply-chain puzzle. Trase, for example, ends at the port of import, which means it doesn't yet show end retailers and manufacturers. Supply Change, on the other hand, begins with end retailers and manufacturers, as well as brokers.

"Each of our platforms are tackling different parts of the puzzle, and there are many others coming at it from other angles as well - from supply chains transparency and data collection tools such as CDP Forests Program to the sustainable commodity certification agencies such as RTRS and RSPO," says Stephen Donofrio, Supply Change's Senior Advisor. "As Supply Change relies solely on self-reported commitment declarations and progress updates, then in a sense, Trase compliments this in that it could provide a ground-truthing, or spot check, against what companies are saying in their own documentation."

Rabinovitch says that, as more entities shine more transparency on supply chains, good companies will be more willing to show their cards, leading to virtuous cycle of more and more disclosure.

"The default mindset of corporate entities is, 'If I share data, something bad could happen; someone could figure out something about my business,'" he says. "But as soon as a number is out there, a customer or supplier says, 'I'm assuming that number applies to you, because Trase says it's the deforestation number of companies in your country,' so good actors now have a motivation to say, 'Whoa, hang on. Disaggregate us from that lot. These are our numbers,'"

Thomas Sembres works with the UN REDD Facility and EFI. He contributed to the platform's development and sees such tools providing support to cash-strapped regulators, and cites the European Union's long development of the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, which is designed to identify sustainable sources of timber coming into the EU.

"If this type of platform had existed when we were negotiating FLEGT, we would have been able to identify much more sharply the key actors from the private sector, as well as the key jurisdictions that have a stake in the trade between countries, and incentivize progress along the way," he says, adding that good actors are already becoming dramatically more transparent.

"We're seeing transparency becoming a competitive advantage," he says. "We've struggled for so many years to try to convince the private sector to release more data on supply chains, but we've never had a complete picture."

And that complete picture is critical, because transparency can be a double-edged sword, according to Rosa Maria Vidal, Executive Director of the Governors' Climate and Forests Fund.

Use and Abuse: To Flee or to Fix?

Vidal says she's a big believer in transparency, but she cautions that it can backfire if disclosure scares companies away from problematic municipalities instead of encouraging them to engage productively.

"We're working to build new partnerships across 35 subnational jurisdictions responsible for 30% of the world's deforestation," she says. "These are jurisdictions that have promised to reduce deforestation 80% by 2020 by bringing benefits to communities, but they haven't seen any finance yet."

If the emerging transparency efforts shine a light on companies that are sourcing material from high-deforestation areas, she says, they should encourage those companies to actively improve conditions rather than pull up and move elsewhere.

"If we don't facilitate this dialogue - if we just say, 'It's a risky jurisdiction' - it will mean more deforestation because of fewer jobs and opportunity," she says - and Gardner agrees.

"It's unrealistic for all companies to just pick up and move to where there are no problems, and if they tried, no one would ever meet their commitments," he says. "But companies often don't even know their impacts, and this makes it possible for them to know where they need to invest."

How it Works

The address is www.trase.earth, and the portal offers introductory tutorials at the bottom of the page.  Or you can click on "explore the tool" and see where your mouse takes you:

The first layer shows all known soybean flows from Brazilian municipalities, through trading companies and exporters in Brazil to importers working in other countries.

You can color code to highlight supply chains by various criteria - in this case, the type of biome from which the soybeans come:

The Amazon may be Brazil's most famous biome, but the country has six of them, and some are more fragile than the forest.

Or you can filter it to one or several countries - in this case, China:

China is the leading importer of soybeans.

Filter to one trader - Bunge - and you get this:

Bunge is the largest soybean trader operating in Brazil.

You can then reduce it to one importer - Guangxi - and you get this:

Now you can trace all the flows through Bunge and Guangxi into China.

Finally, you can expand the municipality bar to see where Bunge gets the beans that it sells to Guangxi. In this case, hundreds of strings appeared, but we highlighted just four. The municipalities you select will show up on the map, and you can begin layering in factors like deforestation rates, reported rates of forced labor, and water scarcity.

Bunge buys from hundreds of municipalities in Brazil, but here we have highlighted four of them. Note their appearance on the map. You can also layer in various risk factors, such as rate of deforestation or reported cases of slave labor.

For now, TRACE includes 320,000 unique pathways, and that will increase exponentially as the portal grows to include other countries and commodities.

Old School Is New School

We live in the age of the “Next Big Thing.”

The latest and greatest smartphones are released every twelve months, rendering the last model about as useful as a paperweight (if you believe the marketing hype).  An entire industry has been built around Silicon Valley’s cult of disruption, a belief that we should always be replacing our old way of thinking and doing with new and exciting ideas.

It seems like nothing is safe from our love affair with newness.  In the coming years, cars will relieve us of the burden of sitting behind the wheel and smart refrigerators will relieve us of the worry of remembering to pick up milk.

Don’t get me wrong – I love technology. In fact, one of the most gratifying parts of my job is working with software and technology companies and the growth of their businesses. It’s hard not to be excited by the endless ways that innovation will change our lives for the better in the years to come. 

But while many of my friends and colleagues spend their free time reading about the future of robotics and artificial intelligence and thinking about how the Internet of Things will change our daily lives, I far more often find myself thumbing through decades-old issues of Forbes, Businessweek or Fortune, soaking up as much insight as I can from great dealmakers now relegated to the history books.

One mainstay on my nightstand is a battered old copy of Business Adventures by John Brooks that I bought from an actual bookstore (not online!) when I was in high school.  The book was originally published in 1969, but the insights remain astonishingly relevant today.  The passage I probably re-read the most is about the Ford Edsel fiasco, which is the ultimate cautionary tale about the importance of paying close attention to your market and being ready to respond when your customers’ preferences and demands change. It’s no surprise to many that the business leaders I admire, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, are fans of Brooks and his timeless wisdom.

One of the core lessons the greatest investors and business leaders share is an obsession with the fundamentals. In hot markets like today, in which unicorns and pre-revenue billion dollar valuations grab all the headlines, it’s easy to lose sight of the basics.​

But sizzling markets and the lure of quick profits is nothing new. When I started investing in real estate in 2007 while still a college student, the market was saturated with speculators.  The previous few years had seen unprecedented capital growth in the residential and commercial markets, and suddenly everyone was a developer or a flipper.  Finding properties that were undervalued and had strong fundamentals was extremely difficult at the time, because the competition was snapping up everything they could find and counting on never-ending price appreciation. 

Going against the grain, I began building my company by obsessing over the fundamentals – intrinsic value, recurring cash flow, and a long-term investment horizon. When the real estate market collapsed in 2008, I managed not to panic or flee, and once again went against the grain, becoming one of the most active buyers of real estate in Austin…then Texas…and eventually, the nation. Following Buffett’s advice, I was fearful when others were greedy – and then positioned to be greedy when others were fearful.

This old school approach doesn’t just apply to investing, it applies to almost every aspect of building and running a company. In business and investing, cautionary tales are everywhere – from the one-hit wonder Wall Street fund manager who delivers one knockout year and then flames out, to the Silicon Valley rising star who builds a killer app and is never heard from again.  Those of us who have achieved success at a young age should be terrified by these examples.  I’m driven every morning to build a company that creates jobs, wealth and economic opportunity not just for years, but for generations.  I can’t imagine how to do that except for being a student of history.

I’ve never liked the old saying that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.  To me, history is a goldmine of proven ideas just waiting to be uncovered.  It may just be that the “Next Big Thing” happened long ago. 

Nate Paul is President, CEO & Founder of World Class Capital Group, a leading national commercial real estate investment group. 

5 Ways To Check References To Avoid Toxic Employees

Have you ever attempted to check references before hiring, and run into a brick wall with the former employer giving you only name, title, and date of employment? If so, that’s understandable because they fear lawsuits. On the other hand, the former employer may give a glowing reference. And only later you find out that the accolades don’t ring true.

You discover that your newly hired employee is toxic to coworkers. His or her social skills are non-existent; being a “team player” is a foreign concept. This new employee has become a drain on productivity and puts a damper on morale.

It’s far easier—and cheaper––to prevent the problem by non-selecting this applicant in the hiring stage.

To root out this kind of toxic employee at the early stage, I suggest this approach to reference-checking:

Approaches to Reference-Checking

Step 1: Ask the applicant for references among several past supervisors, coworkers, and “other friends.” (The idea behind asking for several is the applicant will find it time-consuming to inform and brief all thoroughly on what to say and what NOT to say in a conversation with you. You, of course, may not check with all, but a list of 3-4 in each category will likely serve your purpose of a candid conversation later.)

Step 2: Call one or two people from each of these categories (supervisors, coworkers, friends) to ask the reference-check questions below.

Step 3: Ask each of the references called in step 2 to give you another name to call to ask the same questions. (You’ll need to modify the questions slightly by explaining, “I was talking with Joe Smoe in regard to hiring Alberta Ditto, and Joe referred me to you, saying you might have a little more insight about Alberta since you two worked closely together. What would you say are …”)

Here are some key questions that tend to help you get an honest assessment of interpersonal skills and emotional stability:

Questions for a Supervisor

• “What would you say are Geri’s top three strengths?” (Does the boss mention any attitude or interpersonal strengths?)
• “We don’t find many perfect employees out there. So we expect that Geri will need some coaching. In what areas would you say she could benefit from coaching?” (Does the boss mention interpersonal issues that you think are not correctable?)
• “Would you say Geri was highly popular with coworkers? Well liked? Or worked better alone? Just how would you describe their coworker relationships?” (If the boss uses the “loner” label, consider this a warning sign.)

Questions for a Coworker

• Geri has given your name, saying you worked together at XYZ. Exactly, how did your jobs relate? (Does this person’s story sync with what Geri has told you? Does this person seem eager or reluctant to talk?)
• Tell me about some of the key strengths Geri brings to a job.
• What did you appreciate most in working with Geri—her skills, her attitude, her personality? (Listen carefully to what this reference says—and doesn’t say. Probe with follow-up questions.)
• Would you please give me the name and number of someone else there who worked closely with Geri? (Call this second person and ask the same questions if you still have doubts about Geri.)

Questions for a Friend

• Geri has applied for a job with our company and has given your name as a reference. Would you tell me how you two met? (Answers to this question and the following will simply reveal more about your applicant because people tend to choose for friends those who are like them, who share common interests, activities, and values.)
• How long have you known Geri?
• In what kinds of situations or activities have you seen Geri?
• What do you love about Geri?
• Does Geri ever do anything that annoys you? Do you two still stay in contact? Why not?
• Is there anything you wouldn’t trust her to handle for you as a friend?

(Of course, you will want to do other types of reference checks with supervisors to verify skills, with universities to verify academic credentials, with credit bureaus to verify financial integrity, and so forth.)

No doubt about it: This approach to reference-checking takes time. But then so does hiring, on-boarding, and training a toxic employee who later has to be replaced.

Workers Across U.S. 'Fight For $15' In Strikes For Wage Hikes

In 2012, Alvin Major was earning the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour when he went on strike at his KFC restaurant in New York City. Four years later, he’s earning $10.50 per hour, a 45 percent increase. But Major isn’t done striking.

“I’m feeling proud for the work we’ve done,” said the 51-year-old Guyana native. “But our fight has to keep going on. We won’t stop until we’ve won what we deserve.”

Major’s bigger paycheck is evidence of the victories notched by the “Fight for $15,” a union-backed worker campaign that turns 4 years old this week. But for Major, it’s also a sign of the work that remains. With four children, including two in state college, he still needs food stamps, and he has nothing left in his bank account at the end of the month.

“I’ve got to be making choices: putting food on table, paying the bills and paying rent,” he said.

On Tuesday, Major was joined by workers from around the country in the latest Fight for $15 strike. Protests hit dozens of cities to mark the anniversary, and images of workers and their allies being arrested for civil disobedience popped up on Twitter throughout the day. Dozens were arrested blocking traffic in Detroit, Manhattan and Chicago.

The Fight for $15 campaign began in 2012 with fast-food employees like Major but now includes day-care workers, airport baggage handlers and even some Uber drivers. The high-profile protests have helped drive minimum wage increases in cities and states around the country, including an aggressive one in New York that has boosted Major’s pay.

But four years on, the endgame for the Fight for $15 is still no clearer. The campaign aims to win workers not only $15 per hour but also union representation. The fast-food industry remains union-free. The Service Employees International Union, which has poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaign, has not attempted to unionize individual restaurants. It would much rather unionize fast-food workers en masse, which would require regulatory changes, or pressure industry giants like McDonald’s into implementing its own major wage increases.

The campaign shouldn’t expect any help from Washington under a Donald Trump administration. The National Labor Relations Board, which has refereed the workers’ disputes during the Fight for $15, will become a Republican majority much likelier to side with businesses. Regulators probably won’t be as receptive to workers’ arguments that the major fast-food chains are “joint employers” alongside franchisees. And the likelihood of a federal minimum wage hike has become even dimmer with Republicans controlling both the legislative and executive branches.

President Barack Obama has been a public supporter of the Fight for $15, as has Hillary Clinton, who was likely to continue Obama’s policies on the labor front had she defeated Trump in the presidential race. 

Hundreds of arrests in hundreds of cities so far today. We won't back down. We won't back up. Tune-In: https://t.co/Qw35GM1Th8 #FightFor15 pic.twitter.com/oymNSpvkBz

— Fight For 15 (@fightfor15) November 29, 2016

But Mary Kay Henry, the president of SEIU and a Clinton supporter, said Tuesday that the Fight for $15 would continue regardless of who holds the reins on Capitol Hill or at the White House.

“The movement has never relied on any type of politicians,” Henry said. “We think that working people have been at war for decades. The destruction of unions has been going on for 40 years. But when people join together, good things can happen.”

With fewer friends in Washington, Henry said fights on the local and state levels will become even more important. The last four years have seen a wave of new laws pushing local wage floors as high as $15 an hour, with voters keen on approving minimum wage referendums and paid leave proposals. A majority of states now have higher minimum wages than the federal level, which has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009.

The National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group that has supported the Fight for $15, released a report Friday estimating that 19 million workers are covered by minimum wage increases that have been enacted since the campaign began. The biggest beneficiaries, NELP said, have been workers in jurisdictions that passed $15-an-hour ordinances: California, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and SeaTac, Wash.

Many business groups and local chambers of commerce have opposed the minimum wage proposals only to be bowled over by their popularity. The industry-backed Employment Policies Institute, a vocal opponent of the Fight for $15, released a series of videos ahead of Tuesday’s protests blaming minimum wage hikes for closures of small businesses. The institute called them “cautionary tales.”

Major hasn’t lost his job due to the increases in New York. His current wage of $10.50 per hour is the mandated minimum for fast-food employees in New York City at the moment. That will eventually reach $15 at the end of 2018, under an agreement reached by state officials last year. He says he plans to continue protesting even after he’s won his $15 per hour, to earn job security and union recognition.

“I used to be scared when I first went on strike. Not anymore,” Major said. “We don’t have a union, but we’re acting like one.”

Special Report: Free Down Payment Money!

A bank is granting free money to help you with a down payment on a house! It sounds too good to be true, but it actually is true. Here are the details.

To remain in compliance with Federal community lending rules, Associated Bank has created a fund to help home buyers in selected census tracks in Illinois and Wisconsin, by giving them up to $20,850 in free money to put toward their mortgage down payment!

Yes, the details are important. The money is being distributed through their affiliated mortgage originators, but the bank would not give out a list of those lenders. I learned of this new deal from my long-time mortgage expert Daniel Chookaszian of Perl Mortgage, which is one of the lenders that has this money available starting immediately for those who qualify.

Just to make things easier, you can contact Chookaszian at 312-376-2215 to see if you qualify based on credit and location of the property.

Here's what you need to know:

•To qualify for this deal the property you are trying to purchase must fall within a specific census tract which has been determined to have a majority of minority homeowners, no matter what the property values.

•They will gift/grant you down-payment money up to 5% of the amount of the mortgage, with a maximum of $20,850. For example, if you qualify and are borrowing $400,000, you could get a grant of $20,000. The money does not have to be repaid - ever.

•The money is available for the purchase or refinance of a primary residence.

•There is no income limit for the purchaser.

•There is no limit on the purchase price of the house.

•You must have good credit (approx. 620 or higher) and appropriate income to qualify for a mortgage. (The higher the credit score, the lower the rate.)

•You may pay a slightly higher interest rate on the loan than with a traditional down payment loan.

•Mortgages may be made with only a 5% down payment -- all of which can come from the grant! Rates and PMI are, of course, higher for this option.

•If you do not have a 20% down payment (including the grant amount), you will be required to purchase PMI - private mortgage insurance that protects the lender, until you have 20% equity in the home.

•If you have saved 15% of the purchase price as a down payment, and get this gift of an additional 5% of the mortgage amount, and if it brings you up to 20% equity, you may avoid paying PMI on your purchase.

This grant money is available on a first come/first served basis. It has been estimated there is a pool of approximately $10 million available for these grants (although that could not be confirmed). Still, that could facilitate around $200 million in mortgages.

This column will be updated as soon as names of other participating lenders are revealed. Again, this program is only for homes located in specific census tracks in Illinois and Wisconsin.

How to Turn Your Passion Into a Startup

What does it take to be an entrepreneur? Starting a successful business requires more than a good idea: You also need financial backing, support, and a lot of tenacity. It's not an easy process: About half of Canadian small businesses fail by their fifth year in business.

via Salesforce

But you don't have to accept that fate for your own startup. This article will tell you all about the early stages of building a new business, including finding financial support and how to convince backers that your idea is a profitable one. With some guidance and passion, and a great plan, you should be able to build a business that you're passionate about--and that's profitable, too.

That tells you that running a business is no easy task. So even if you have an idea that you're passionate about and that you think could be successful, you need to work hard in order to make it happen. Even great business ideas have failed due to lack of resources, funding, and proper planning.

Don't fall into those common pitfalls. Make sure you have a plan for making your idea work before investing all your time and energy into building your business.

Develop your idea
Sure, you need much more than an idea in order for your business to be successful. But having a great business idea can make a big difference for your potential for success.

For an idea to be truly great, it needs to help people in some way. Otherwise, why would customers buy from you? So your product, service, or offering should have the potential to fill a need or provide some kind of value to consumers. If you've got a general idea for a business offering, do some research to get specific and build on that idea to continue going forward.

Turn it into a specific offering
Once you have your general idea, figure out what that means in terms of a product or service. Say your idea is to start a company that provides design services to businesses and website owners. From there, you need to create packages of services or produce the products that you can sell. You may determine a few different packages that customers can purchase based on whether they need full web design, logos, or some other branding work. Or you could create web design templates that people can purchase and install themselves.

There are plenty of ways you can format your offerings. You need to decide on exactly what you want that to look like for your own business before you continue building your business.

Get the right skills
If your idea is something you're passionate about, then it's likely something you already know something about. However, you may need to hone your skills before launching a business around them.

For example, consider taking a class or becoming an apprentice for an expert in your industry. If you feel confident you have the skills necessary for creating your products or services, then learn the support skills required to run a business. These skills, like bookkeeping and clerical work, are just as important for running a successful startup.

Determine your market
Now you need to decide exactly who you are likely to sell your products or services to. You may think your idea can help people, but if there aren't customers who are actually willing to pay for it, then you're not going to get very far.

That means you need to have a very clear picture of your target customer as you get started. Determine who is likely to buy your products or services so you can be better prepared to research your audience, build products around their needs, and market to them when the time is right.

Gather any startup funds
Not every business needs tons of startup cash to get off the ground. But you will likely need at least some funding for basic business expenses like permits, employees, and legal fees.

Since you'll need to invest in your business before you ever start selling any products or services, you need to find cash. You can fund the early stages of your business yourself, seek outside investors, ask friends, or use crowdfunding. Or you can lower your startup costs as much as possible so you don't need as much to get started. Then you can fund the growth of your business through the revenue you bring in over time.

Do your research
As mentioned previously, it's important to have an idea of who your target customers are. But once you've outlined the general characteristics of your target market--and created personas--the work isn't over. You need to find out what your target customers' preferences are in relation to your offerings.

To illustrate, if you're a web designer targeting young tech startup founders, find out what the members of that audience think about their current options when it comes to web design.

Are they satisfied with what's out there?
Is there something missing that they need someone to offer?
What would they be willing to pay for such a product or service?
Finding out those answers early on can help you shape your business into something that's likely to appeal to customers and, thus, one that is likely to be profitable.

Create a plan for profit
It's now time to come up with a business plan.

How are you going to make money?
How many products or services do you need to sell in order to turn a profit?
How are you going to make all those sales?
Your plan should include topics like marketing strategies, expenses, and sales data. It's important to have a good idea of what is necessary to reach your business goals before you even make your first sale. This type of plan may also be necessary in order for you to seek outside investors or supporters for your business.

Pitch your idea
If you do decide you need more funding to get your startup off the ground, then you'll need to take your business plan and present it to investors. Try to set up meetings with venture firms or secure funding from angel investors. There are also startup accelerators, events, and programs where you can build your ideas and present them to potential supporters or investors.

But you'll need to be able to show them exactly how your business is going to work and why it would be beneficial for them to invest. If they don't see the potential for your idea to succeed or don't see a benefit for themselves, they aren't likely to show support for your idea.

Create a marketing plan
It's time to decide how you're going to market your products and services to potential customers. There are many different routes you can take, from blogging and social media to online advertising, local events, and more.

Depending on the type of business you're starting, some methods are likely to be more effective than others. If your business is aimed at customers who need internet-based services, it probably wouldn't be worth the time and effort to launch a local marketing campaign. Online advertising and social media promotions will likely be beneficial.

Employ a few marketing methods to see what works best over time. Create a budget, research and write down a plan based on your business goals and objectives, and then keep an eye on what methods bring you the most paying customers.

Launch your offering
Once everything in place, it's time to launch. Ideally, you'll have built up some buzz by this point. And if you've secured funding from investors, you should be able to continue getting the word out about your startup while continuously working to improve your business. You'll also need to focus on things like customer service to make sure your business builds a strong reputation going forward.

Provide good service and create a quality offering that people actually know about through your marketing efforts. Follow these steps and you should be well on your way to building a successful startup that actually lasts.

This post originally appeared on the Salesforce Canada blog and is republished with permission.

Jonha Richman is an advocate of innovation, women in tech and ecommerce. She's also a marketing consultant for SaaS startups and a StartupWeekend mentor. She's also a contributor for Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Business Insider, among others. You may connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.