Testimony to the Federal Reserve of San Francisco 

On the 

Application of NationsBank Corporation and BankAmerica Corporation to Merge 

Presented by 

Barbara J. Johnson, Executive Director 

Women’s Initiative for Self Employment 

450 Mission Street, Suite 402, San Francisco, CA 94105 

Ph: 415-247-9473 Fax: 415-247-9471 

July 9 1998 

Good Afternoon. 

I am Barbara Johnson. I am co-founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Initiative 

for Self Employment. Women’s Initiative (WI) is a non-profit agency founded in 1988. 

We provide microenterprise training and financing to low-income English and Spanish 

speaking women to start and expand their own businesses. Women come to WI because 

ourtraining and financing is sensitive to who they are, their needs, their lives and provide 

them with the training and support to start and grow a successful business. We serve an 

exclusively low-income female clientele. 70% of our clients are women of color; 25% of 

our clients receive their training, supports and services in Spanish. 

We have provided self-employment technical assistance, training and financing to more 

than 3,500 women. More than 800 small business start-ups and expansions have begun 

with our assistance. We have made more than 150 loans totaling more than $500,000, 

and leveraged in excess $850,000 of commercial lending to these businesses. We 

maintain a historical default rate of 5% in our loan fund. 

We have been able to achieve this level of competency and development in part because 

of long-term support from the BankAmerica Foundation. We have received generous and 

consistent in-kind, general operating and special event support from BankAmerica 

Foundation since the planning stage of Women’s Initiative. The total of this support is in 

excess of $620,000. Bar&America Foundation’s early and continued support has 

attracted other corporate and philanthropic support, which together has allowed WI to 

help women change their lives and the lives of their families and communities. I am 

concerned that this support will be lost. The need is there....indeed, the need is 

increasing. 

My comments today are not directed against this merger of BankAmerica and 

NationsBank. I am here to ask this panel to seriously consider imposing certain 

conditions before this merger is approved. WI feels strongly that this new merged bank 

must promise an equal or larger commitment of philanthropic support over the next ten 

years to California non-profits organizations which provide critical community, 

economic, and social development assistance to low-income and disenfranchised 

communities. WI also requests that the merged bank’s foundation maintain staffing and 
1 I 

grant making discretion in California, specifically San Francisco. Without this kind of 

assurance, BofA’s historic informed, aware, and sensitive community investment and 

corporate citizenship policies and actions are in danger of being eroded. I maintain that it 

is impossible to have your finger on the pulse of a state, let alone a specific urban or rural 

community, from the far reaches of the East Coast. California, its communities, its 

economies, and its challenges are like no where else on earth. They cannot be know from 

afar. 

Without an assurance of a continuing presence and a charitable funding commitment by 

the merged Bank over the next ten plus years which is equal or greater to what 

Bar&America Foundation has been providing, social service, community and economic 

development agencies across the state will lose extremely important support. 

Finally, the people and corporate citizens of California will lose an important corporate 

philanthropic role.model and leader within the California and national banking industry. 

We cannot afford to have a leader of the pack made lame by this merger. 

Thank you for this opportunity.