Asked to help find investors for an OZ fund. Doing what, exactly?

Someone I met through a local builders group is raising a small opportunity zone fund and asked if I'd help "make introductions" to people who might have capital gains. He mentioned a fee if anyone invests.

Work has been thin on the service side of my business, so a paid role sounds appealing on its face. But two things bother me. First, being paid for bringing investors into a private fund sounds like it might be a licensed activity, and I don't have any license. Second, I don't understand the product well enough to describe it accurately to anyone. My whole understanding is that people with gains put money into these funds, the fund builds in designated zones, and there are tax benefits including something big at the ten-year mark.

What's on my desk right now is a one-page agreement he emailed me, 1% of capital raised through my introductions, and a request for a list of names by the end of the month. I haven't sent anything and I haven't signed.

What I'd like to understand: what does a legitimate version of this role look like, if there is one? And separately, if I wanted to learn the actual product well enough to talk about it competently, where does that start? He keeps saying the permanence from the 2025 law makes it an easy conversation, and I can tell that's a sales line even if it's also true.

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1stephen_ok9CO2CPRO6

Stop at the first thing you flagged. Getting paid a percentage of capital raised for introducing investors to a private securities offering is exactly the activity that broker-dealer registration rules are aimed at, and whether a particular arrangement crosses the line is a securities law question you need a securities attorney for before you sign anything or send a single name. That's not a formality, people have had real problems here, and the sponsor may also have a problem if the offering later gets scrutinized.

On the second question, the learning path is separate from the paid path and you can start it today. Read a full PPM and LLC agreement for one of these funds cover to cover, then read a second one and mark every place they differ. Fee stack, capital call mechanics, term and extensions, transfer restrictions, who eats cost overruns. That's where the actual product lives.

And yes, the permanence point is both a sales line and a real change. The program's old expiration discouraged the long-hold commitments the incentive rewards, so making it permanent matters. It says nothing about whether his particular deal works. The current tract map runs out at the end of 2026 with new designations effective January 1, 2027, which any competent sponsor should be able to explain in terms of what it does to their own pipeline. Ask him that question. His answer will tell you a lot about whether you want your name attached.

Asked to help find investors for an OZ fund. Doing what, exactly?

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