You have an OZ, now what?

  1. Learn what an OZ is and how they work.
  2. Establish a community leader who can take charge of the OZ and interact with investors and engage the community.
  3. Create an OZ strategy.
  4. Build a list of potential projects.
  5. Find a financial expert who can identify the most investable projects and determine the projects’ return on investment. Keep the investors’ interests in mind.
  6. Develop a project prospectus for the most viable projects.
  7. Find ways to market your projects and connect with potential funders. Submit your projects to the NM OZ Project Portal.
  8. Don’t stop at the private level; look at ways to leverage federal, state and county level funding programs from agencies like EDA, USDA, HUD etc. Connect with FUNDIT-Community or contact the NMEDD Finance Development Team.
  9. Consider steps to incentivize development through your OZ which are compatible with your community’s development goals.
  10. Streamline permitting/zoning process ready to welcome investment. 

The Governance Project has two great tool kits to help walk you through the steps of developing your OZ project:

The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council has put together a fantastic list of over 160 Federal programs where targeting, preference, or additional support could be granted to OZs.

Promote Your Project:

Prospectus templates are a great way to showcase your opportunity zone or opportunity zone projects to investors. There are many different ways to create and present them; however, you can find good examples HERE or HERE.

Connect with Financing Opportunities:

Technical Assistance:

Numerous organizations are available to work with communities on developing their OZ projects and zones.

NM Organizations

National Organizations

Resource Connections:

  • NMEDD hosts two NM OZ Forums per year. The upcoming NM OZ Forum is August 27, Albuquerque at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. The event is free. Register HERE.
  • NMEDD hosts quarterly webinar discussions for communities/interested parties to join in conversation, ask questions, get updates, and report on news/projects around the state.
  • You can receive project summaries, discussion topics and news around OZs by signing up to the NMEDD OZ Email List HERE.

Submit OZ Projects:

  • Submitting your OZ project is simple. Click the button!
NM OZ Project Portal
  • Portal projects are vetted and then sent out to a list of funding of entities and business resources + the NM OZ Interagency Task Force, FUNDIT-Community.
  • Some OZ projects are selected to be “featured” on the NM OZ Online Hub.
  • All are listed in NM OZ Project Pipeline. You can also search for projects by OZ track, using the NM OZ Map HERE.

External Resources:

Access information about OZs-