Our Impact

Affordable Housing

Vibrant, thriving communities require quality affordable housing options, and IFF continued last year to ensure that developers have access to the flexible financing needed to expand the supply of affordable housing across the Midwest.

Rendering of Vita’s senior housing development in Westfield, IN

In Indiana, IFF provided four predevelopment loans totaling $4 million to Vita Investment Holdings to catalyze the development of more than 600 units of dedicated senior housing in Westfield, Lafayette, and New Haven. More than 75 percent of the units will be affordable to older adults earning up to 80 percent of the area median income (AMI), and the developments will include independent living options, assisted living units, and memory care apartments to ensure that residents can age in place as their needs evolve.

IFF is one of the few lenders in the Midwest that offers dedicated predevelopment loans for affordable housing, helping developers advance their projects from concept to reality with fewer out-of-pockets costs for property acquisitions, architectural fees, and environmental testing, among other examples. By reducing their upfront costs, developers like Vita are able to pursue multiple projects simultaneously and more quickly address pressing local needs for more affordable housing options.

The groundbreaking for 548 Development’s Humboldt Park Passive Living project in Chicago, IL

In Chicago, 548 Development’s Humboldt Park Passive Living project further demonstrates the importance of predevelopment financing. In 2022, IFF provided a $1.5 million loan for the project, which is the brainchild of 548 Enterprise Founder and CEO A.J. Patton. Despite a proven capacity to raise equity for housing projects, Patton had struggled to find a lender willing to provide the upfront capital he needed to bring the mixed-use project to fruition.

With IFF’s early support, 548 Development was able to assemble the funding and financing needed to make the development a reality and last May broke ground on the $48 million project. With 48 apartments affordable to residents earning up to 60 percent of the AMI, 12 market rate apartments, and 9,000 square feet of commercial and community space, the facility will be the largest building in the City of Chicago to incorporate Passive House Design standards that drastically reduce utility costs for residents and minimize the facility’s environmental impact.

While early-stage capital is a critical catalyst for housing projects, IFF’s flexible financing options are designed to support developers through the entire lifecycle of a project. Cornerstone Village in Milwaukee, WI, exemplifies what this looks like, with IFF providing a $3 million construction loan to Cardinal Capital Management in partnership with the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority. To bridge a gap in the capital stack for the $19.1 million project, IFF also sponsored a grant application through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s Affordable Housing Program, helping to unlock an additional $900,000 to support the development.

Construction began in earnest on the 71-unit project in January 2025 and, once completed this year, Cornerstone Village will provide one- and two-bedroom apartments for seniors and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities earning 60 percent or less of the AMI in a building that incorporates an array of universal design features.

Early Childhood Education

Affordable, high-quality early childhood education (ECE) is also a crucial component of strong communities, establishing a foundation for healthy growth and development among young learners and supporting local workforces by enabling parents to maintain their careers; confident in the fact that their children are well cared for. That’s one of the reasons that ECE has been at the forefront of IFF’s work since our inception and, in 2025, we doubled down on that longstanding commitment in a variety of ways.

Through a “grassroots to grass tops” approach to ECE, our work in the sector is designed to support individual providers while also shaping broader strategies that create stronger, more sustainable ECE ecosystems benefiting the entire region. Throughout the Midwest, working parents earning the area median income are paying between 15 and 40 percent of their annual income on child care. This is an untenable situation that places significant burdens on families. By playing a leading role in the Investing in America Child Care Partnership, IFF is working alongside public and private partners to bring together employers, child care stakeholders, funders, and families to co-create child care solutions that address this pressing challenge and help build thriving communities in IFF’s Midwest footprint and beyond.

Boston Square Early Learning Center. Photo credit: AJ Brown Imaging

At the same time, IFF continues to partner directly with neighborhood centers, large organizations, and home-based providers to expand access to high-quality, affordable ECE in the communities we serve. The Boston Square Early Learning Center (BSQ-ELC) in Grand Rapids, which opened last summer, exemplifies what this work looks like in practice. A 9,000-square-foot facility developed by IFF and operated by the Refugee Education Center, the center addresses a significant shortage of quality child care in southeast Grand Rapids—where IFF has supported community-led revitalization with a diverse set of tools. BSQ-ELC provides 72 seats for children from infancy to age 5, with the program co-located in a community hub that includes a health center, afterschool programming, co-working space, and community classrooms.

In Kansas City, Start at Zero (SAZ) provided another compelling example of the value of our multifaceted approach in the ECE sector. Founded by two local mothers, the nonprofit has supported Kansas City families for more than a decade by promoting healthy early childhood development through home visits, developmental screenings, and group learning. With support from IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team that included feasibility planning, help with lease negotiations, and owner’s representation during facility renovations, SAZ opened a new Play Café in November. The new space has increased the organization’s physical presence in the community and provided it with a high-quality venue for its programming, which is crucial to accelerate children’s development, family stability, and community resilience.

Start at Zero’s new Play Café in Kansas City, MO. Photo by Pro Photos KC.

Elsewhere in Missouri, IFF continued last year to support the expansion of quality ECE options through a partnership with Kids Win Missouri (KWM) that is combining quantitative and qualitative research to better understand the ECE needs that exist in rural communities across the state. With three children in Missouri for every available ECE seat, limited supply in rural communities is driving long waitlists and high costs, increasing the financial strain on families and impacting local economies amid workforce instability caused by parents’ need to care for their children. In 2025, IFF and KWM built on past work to identify data-driven and replicable catalytic solutions designed to ensure that more children, families, and ECE providers have access to the quality care and environments they deserve. The 17 landscape and gap analyses IFF has completed are core to KWM’s Child Care and Early Education Community Planning project, which empowers parents, providers, employers, and policymakers to develop and implement plans to address their early education challenges.

Responding When It’s Needed Most

IFF was founded with the belief that all nonprofits and their communities deserve access to flexible financing and high-quality facilities in order to help their missions thrive. We remain committed to that, working with organizations across sectors to help them achieve their facility goals. But what happens when unexpected events derail an organization’s planning and necessitate unplanned, emergency support?

Praxis Fiber Workshop in Cleveland, OH

In 2025, IFF was called to go beyond business as usual to fully support our clients and their communities in the ways that mattered most to them. Sometimes this meant standing with a borrower when no other lenders would—like with St. Mary’s South Side Catholic High School in St. Louis and Praxis Fiber Workshop in Cleveland—and sometimes it meant completely rethinking what our support looks like for a community. In all cases, it is because of our long-standing commitment to being embedded in communities and to building relationships with local leaders and stakeholders, that we were able to do so.

Last May, a devastating tornado tore through North St. Louis, causing widespread damage in neighborhoods already deeply affected by decades of disinvestment. More than 5,000 homes were impacted along with critical community assets such as early childhood education (ECE) centers. While many ECE centers reopened quickly, ongoing facility damage remained, often without access to insurance coverage. These damages led to continued disruptions for children and staff, as well as licensing infractions.

With grant support from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, IFF and long-time partner Gateway Alliance, along with local stakeholders, stepped in to help identify and stabilize the most severely impacted ECE centers by prioritizing rapid site assessments, repair planning, and facility recovery. Within weeks, IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team stepped in to assist and, in collaboration with providers, assessed each scenario to provide tailored support. That support ranged from facility repair, assessing the feasibility of relocation, and improving ongoing resilience through lease and insurance dialogue. IFF is now implementing these plans and providing ongoing owner’s representative services so providers can remain focused on serving children and families.

Our trusted relationship with local leaders and our nearly 20-year commitment to working in St. Louis enabled us to step up and support the St. Louis community when it was needed most.

The launch of the Shelter Infrastructure Initiative in Chicago, IL

In Chicago, a multi-year relationship with the City of Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS) culminated last year when IFF was tapped to administer the Shelter Infrastructure Initiative, a $40 million grant program to upgrade and modernize shelter facilities in Chicago. The funding will facilitate high-impact capital improvements to seven shelters located on the city’s north, south, and west sides, creating healthier, safer, less congregate, and more accessible facilities equipped to serve a wide range of clients experiencing homelessness. More than 750 beds will be modernized and more than 350 new ones created, further demonstrating how facility investments directly improve human outcomes. Beyond serving as program administrator, IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team is guiding the planning process for the upgrades to ensure the build-outs are aligned with leading design and construction standards.

This transformational initiative builds upon years of previous work with the Cook County Bureau of Economic Development to allocate COVID-era recovery funds that provided shelter operators with a rare opportunity to access capital funding to upgrade their facilities. It also builds on the City of Chicago’s commitment to bolster the shelter system using Housing and Economic Development Bonds and the Illinois Office to Prevent and End Homelessness’ (OPEH) provision of facility support for Triage Centers through the Illinois Homelessness Education, Training, and Technical Assistance Center. Through all of these engagements, IFF has worked alongside shelter operators engaging in predevelopment activities and real estate and capital readiness planning to identify facility needs.

Whether navigating the aftermath of a natural disaster in St. Louis or the structural inequities of housing in Chicago, IFF’s value lies not only in our technical expertise and catalytic financing options, but also in our deep commitment to building relationships and seeing communities thrive for the long-term.