The federal government’s bailout of the banking system appears to have succeeded in its primary goal—preventing the collapse of the financial system. But the key mechanism of the bailout has been to pump virtually free money into the banks, and the banks have every incentive to hoard that cash and make only the safest of loans. So the credit environment for small businesses remains quite poor, with bank loans, lines of credit, and even credit-card loans all very hard to come by.

But for some companies, there are some not-so-obvious options. Just around the corner from my office, for example, a new six-story headquarters for a local law firm is under construction, thanks to an obscure federal program known as New Market Tax Credits. The $15 million project is the first ever in Montana to get a boost from that program, but it won’t be the last.

New Market Tax Credits are a Treasury Department program, initially established in 2000, to funnel money to community economic development entities for the benefit of low-income areas. (Downtown Missoula would not strike most people as poverty-stricken, but then again, most of Montana is low-income by federal definitions.) This year, some $5 billion is allocated to the program, including $1.5 billion of stimulus money.

The mechanism is a complicated tax credit for qualifying investments, which flow via allocations to community-development corporations and must create jobs and otherwise benefit the low-income community. I won’t try to explain the details here; the details, in fact, are so complex that specialty law firms and accounting firms have to be hired to make it happen (even when the client is itself a law firm). But for the right kind of project—north of $5 million to make all the administrative costs worthwhile, and involving a building or other concrete capital expenditure—it can bridge the financing gap.

Another new financing alternative, albeit for far smaller amounts, is Web-based peer-to-peer lending. Online sites such as Prosper.com and LendingClub.com aim to match individuals with potential lenders in exchange for a fee and loan-servicing charges.

Prosper features an auction model to enable both sides to get the best deal, and handles all loan administration and the like. I’ve never tried it, and it only works for fairly credit-worthy individuals, but a lot of people see this model as a huge growth area. Prosper, for one, is backed by a group of blue-chip VCs, which should give participants some comfort that it’s all on the up-and-up.