However, 10 years of frozen funding have now significantly eroded our ability to continue to effectively support those rural entrepreneurs and communities. There exists a gap of close to $100,000 between the resources required to provide our services and the funding that's provided by the federal government in many of the regions of the country.
CF organizations have adapted as best as they can by adopting new efficiencies and processes, but increased deficiencies can only hold off the impact of inflation for so long. Without additional resources, it's a matter of time until service delivery to rural Canadians suffers and the management of our more than $1.2 billion in federal assets is placed at risk. It isn't just the delivery of our existing services that are at risk, but also the underutilized capacity that's within our network to support other federal priorities.
CF organizations are strongly engaged in serving indigenous and women entrepreneurs, new Canadians, and entrepreneurs with disabilities. We have an extensive reach in rural Canada. We believe that our 267 CF organizations represent the federal government's second largest point of service network in rural Canada, second only to the post office. With appropriate resources, we could further advance the government's commitment to support indigenous entrepreneurship and could help ensure that rural Canadians enjoy the same access as their urban counterparts to initiatives like the women entrepreneurship strategy, the innovation superclusters initiative, and Connect to Innovate, just to name a few.
We're asking for three recommendations within our brief.
The first is that the government further leverage the Community Futures network of 267 locally directed organizations across rural Canada to support its overarching goal of ensuring a competitive Canadian economy.
The second is that the government provide additional annual resources of $42.35 million for five years to increase the ability of Community Futures organizations to support federal priorities and deliver the program services.
The third is that the government support the modernization of the terms and conditions of the CF program to better serve the needs of rural entrepreneurs and communities.
The program updates that we are requesting will allow our services to keep pace with modern entrepreneurial needs. Our requested additional investment of $42.35 million over the next five years will not only restore the service delivery capacity within the CF network, but we believe it will allow us to increase our lending, serve over 6,000 new clients, and create more than 4,000 new jobs while undertaking 1,600 new projects that will allow our CFOs to participate in a meaningful way in local community economic development.
In conclusion, the Community Futures program is a proven delivery network that has generated significant impacts and, if appropriately resourced, has the potential to generate many more while providing the federal government with a much-needed delivery mechanism to achieve their priorities in rural Canada. We are confident that the changes and supports that we're requesting will provide increased opportunities for all Canadians living in rural Canada to participate in the government's push to ensure Canada's competitiveness, and we hope that you agree.
Thanks for your time.