For 35 years, IFF has championed nonprofits and the communities they serve. While the mission has remained the same, the footprint in which we operate and the support we provide has evolved over time. Today, IFF serves nonprofits and communities across nine Midwestern states and northern Kentucky, with more than half of our lending taking place outside of Illinois.
Part of the success in expanding the footprint is attributed to investing in local teams embedded in communities to keep IFF tethered to the unique elements of that market. Leading this work are IFF’s four executive directors, with the first-ever for the Indiana Region appointed in 2023.
Continued growth and an increased presence in the community are essential steps toward providing more capital to more changemakers, more problem-solving for system-level challenges, and more investment impact across the Midwest. And as we continue to expand our service offering to grow the pipeline of community-driven, investable projects throughout the Midwest, the executive directors and the local teams are key to this success.
In the map below, click on the IFF pins to hear from each executive director about the unique elements of their market and the other pins for a look at some of the projects and changemakers IFF supported in 2023. To learn more about a few priority themes and sectors across the region, click the buttons below.
Quality affordable housing is an essential component of strong, thriving communities, and in 2023 IFF worked to narrow the gap between the demand for such homes and the existing supply in the Midwest — with a special focus on catalyzing system-level change.
One notable example was continued advocacy for reforms to the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System to make it easier for member CDFIs to access capital that can be deployed to support affordable housing projects. IFF is the largest CDFI sponsor of Affordable Housing Program (AHP) applications within the FHLB System and has helped mission-driven developers in the Midwest access more than $33.5 million in AHP funding for affordable housing projects since 2011. In addition to a source of grants through AHP, FHLB is an important source of capital for CDFIs. However, FHLB’s sometimes opaque and inconsistent collateral requirements make it challenging for CDFIs to access FHLB liquidity for our communities.
As the chair of the CDFI-FHLB Working Group — a coalition of 35 non-depository FHLB-member CDFIs — IFF CEO Joe Neri is a vocal advocate for policy and practice changes needed in the FHLB System to remove barriers hindering CDFIs’ ability to do more to increase the supply of affordable housing across the country. Many of these recommendations were outlined in a report released in November by the Federal Housing Finance Agency that comprehensively reviewed the FHLB System to ensure that it’s positioned for maximum impact moving forward. IFF will continue to push for changes to the status quo that can meaningfully increase CDFIs’ ability to address affordable housing shortages in Midwest communities.
Another example of IFF’s work to increase quality affordable housing in 2023 was the establishment of a partnership with Kent and Ottawa counties in Michigan for a revolving loan fund dedicated to providing flexible, lower-cost debt capital to developers for the creation and preservation of affordable housing in Allegan, Kent, and Ottawa counties. Using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, Kent and Ottawa counties seeded the fund with $27.5 million that IFF is matching with $64 million in private capital. As the administrator for the loan fund, IFF will leverage local relationships and partnerships to deploy the capital, ensuring that there’s a dedicated source of financing for affordable housing projects in Allegan, Kent, and Ottawa counties for the foreseeable future. In partnership with Rotary Charities, IFF is working to replicate the program in the Traverse City area, where IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team also supported a consortium of school districts in 2023 seeking to collaboratively address the lack of quality affordable housing for teachers and staff.
IFF’s facilities-forward approach to child care aims to ensure that the design and quality of early childhood education (ECE) spaces cultivates academic success and reflects the dignity that all children and families deserve, regardless of neighborhood or economic status. In 2023, IFF supported ECE in communities across the Midwest through research, programming, development, and more.
Through Caring for MI Future: Facilities Improvement Fund, IFF awarded $59 million in grants on behalf of the State of Michigan to create, expand, and improve child care facilities. The funds helped more than 1,100 programs complete more than 3,500 projects to open or expand their capacity, creating more than 10,600 new child care seats. In Detroit, IFF continued its commitment to Hope Starts Here by leading Imperative IV focused on guaranteeing space and inspiring learning environments, one of the six initiatives identified as imperative to making Detroit a city that puts young children first. Additionally, IFF worked alongside the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Kresge Foundation to facilitate and re-ground all the partner organizations in Hope Starts Here’s mission. And construction began on the McClellan and Boston Square ECE centers in Detroit and Grand Rapids, respectively. Beyond developing the centers, IFF will act as interim owner until the providers are positioned to take over ownership of the facilities.
Through Quality Facilities for All (QFA) and Learning Spaces, IFF also continued to provide technical assistance and funding to help early education providers in Illinois and Michigan renovate and upgrade their facilities. The programs specifically focus on indoor air quality, temperature, ventilation, noise, lighting, classroom furnishing, and outdoor play areas. IFF prioritizes these areas for their contribution to high-quality learning spaces that positively impact young children’s learning, development, and well-being. In 2023, the first cohort of QFA wrapped up its renovation work across 14 ECE programs in neighborhoods on Chicago’s South and West Sides, while Learning Spaces and Brightmoor Quality Initiative – the latter specifically focusing on outdoor learning spaces in Northwest Detroit – engaged with 14 providers in neighborhoods across Detroit and Grand Rapids.
Modeled after Learning Spaces, IFF has been working with PRE4CLE in Ohio since 2020 to help design and implement Cleveland Early Learning Spaces, a program which aims to improve and renovate more than 150 early learning centers and homes in the city of Cleveland.
IFF continues exploring and co-creating leading practice in aligning facilities and programmatic quality in the early childhood ecosystem in partnership with colleagues in the National Children’s Facilities Network (NCFN). Building on the success of CDFI’s administering ARPA funds for ECE facilities improvements, NCFN is exploring partnerships with economic development partners, government, and private corporations to effectively leverage continued federal investment through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) and the CHIPS Act. IFF continues to lead comprehensive ECE efforts in the Midwest and brings the learning forward in the national exchange with our NCFN partners.
IFF’s non-appraisal-based, flexible financing tools have always been a good fit for energy efficiency upgrades and decarbonization. And in 2011, IFF launched a formal program to finance energy and water use efficiency retrofits at nonprofit facilities in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Since then, IFF has continued to provide financing for green projects – everything from geothermal fields to building envelope repair – through its standard loan program. Notably, in 2023, IFF borrower RecycleForce opened a new headquarters in Indianapolis that is both doubling the volume of electronic waste the nonprofit can process and the number of citizens returning from incarceration hired for its workforce development program. While continuing to support impactful green projects like RecycleForce’s, IFF has also increased its focus on supporting nonprofits in understanding and executing energy efficiency projects – like through the Energy Assistance & Solar Savings Initiative (EASSI) in South Bend, IN, and the Solar, Energy Efficiency, & Lighting (SEEL) Program in Bloomington, IN.
Launched in 2022, EASSI is a collaboration between the City of South Bend’s Office of Sustainability, IFF, and CDFI Friendly South Bend that provides access to subsidized energy assessments, city-sponsored grants, and flexible loans to complete energy efficiency and solar projects at facilities located in South Bend, IN. To date, 27 organizations have participated in EASSI, with many achieving significant cost savings on energy bills as a result of their participation. In 2023, for example, with the addition of solar panels, The Clubhouse of St. Joseph County saw savings of more than $500 a month, while the Tutt Branch of the Joseph County Public Library reduced utility use by 30%. EASSI is now expanding to provide energy assessments and grant funding to local businesses, not just nonprofits. Doing so will help speed up progress on the City of South Bend’s Climate Action Plan, which is designed to guide the city toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Learn more about EASSI and the participating organizations.
Sustainability and environmental justice are fully aligned with IFF’s equity vision and thus, we continue to share best practices on how nonprofits can increase the sustainability of their facilities to become more climate friendly and are engaging in national efforts like the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). IFF is actively involved in the GGRF efforts by participating in national coalitions, coordinating closely with nonprofits and sector partners to prepare for deployment, further tailoring loan products and services to best respond to need, and engaging with the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, a geospatial tool to help identify communities as the potential beneficiaries.
Missouri
With staff based in both St. Louis and Kansas City, IFF offers our full suite of services — lending, development, real estate consulting, and research and evaluation — across the state of Missouri and in the Kansas City metro area.
Missouri, by the numbers:
18 loans totaling $24 million
60 school seats
710 housing units
1.37 million square feet of real estate developed
9 real estate consulting projects executed
Photo: IFF Executive Director Stephen Westbrooks with Maxine Clark at a 2023 event. Photo by Michael Thomas.
Michigan
With offices in Grand Rapids and Detroit, more than 20 staff provide IFF’s full suite of services — lending, development, real estate consulting, and research and evaluation — throughout the state.
By the numbers:
23 loans totaling $35.3 million
40 child care slots
200 school seats
200 new patient visits
405 housing units
619,126 square feet of real estate developed
21 real estate consulting projects executed
Photo: Executive Director Chris Uhl at a 2023 groundbreaking. Photo courtesy of Samaritas.
Ohio
In 2023, IFF opened its second office in Ohio – in Cleveland. With staff working out of Columbus and Cleveland, IFF continues to deepen its presence across the state through lending, real estate consulting, and partnerships with organizations like Greater Cincinnati Development Fund, Gund Foundation, and Columbus Foundation.
By the numbers:
8 loans totaling $14.9 million
20 housing units
91,772 square feet of real estate developed
2 real estate consulting projects executed
Photo: IFF's Cleveland staff with partners.
Indiana
IFF offers both lending and real estate consulting services in Indiana, with our Chicago staff serving Northwest Indiana and our Indianapolis office serving the remainder of the state and Kentucky.
By the numbers:
9 loans totaling $13.1 million
23 school seats
11,200 new patient visits
346 housing units
401,541 square feet of real estate developed
16 real estate consulting projects executed
Photo: Members of IFF's Indiana team at a 2023 event. Photo by Mike Washington.
Chicago
IFF is headquartered in Chicago with 95 staff offering our full suite of services — lending, development, real estate consulting, and research and evaluation.
By the numbers:
70 loans totaling $104.1 million
165 child care slots
225 school seats
53,203 new patient visits
725 housing units
1.79 million square feet of real estate developed
42 real estate consulting projects executed
Photo: IFF Executive Director Vickie Lakes-Battle, Chief Equity and Diversity Officer Nakea West, and CEO Joe Neri with partners at a 2023 event.
HUGE Improv Theater
Following 18 months of pandemic, Minneapolis-based nonprofit HUGE Improv Theater rebounded with the purchase of a new facility that will ensure that the community of artists it’s fostered over the past 15 years have a welcoming place to hone their craft for years to come. With the help of three IFF loans totaling $3.05 million, HUGE Improv Theater acquired a larger building that will allow it to expand its classes and performance schedule, generate more revenue, and strengthen its long-term financial outlook by building equity in its facility. Read more about the project here.
Photo: HUGE Improv Theater's new location. Photo courtesy of HUGE Improv Theater.
All-In-Grocers
All-In-Grocers fully opened its doors in October, making it the first full-service grocery store on Waterloo’s east side in 54 years. The symbolic fresh start for the community became reality through the perseverance of co-owners Rodney Anderson and Lance Dunn and with support that included a $1.5 million loan from IFF. Located in a neighborhood considered a “food desert” by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the store provides residents with access to fresh, affordable foods; offers employment opportunities for up to 60 members of the community, including citizens returning from incarceration and individuals with disabilities; and is bringing a slew of additional resources to the neighborhood. NBC Nightly News featured the store in an impactful interview that can be found here.
Photo: A customer checking out at All-in-Grocers. Photo courtesy of All-in-Grocers.
Garden Homes
Throughout 2023, an IFF loan helped Milwaukee nonprofit 30th Street Industrial Corridor Corporation renovate affordable housing units in the city’s historic Garden Homes housing cooperative. Opened in the 1920s, Garden Homes was the country’s first municipally sponsored housing cooperative. Initially restricted to white homeowners, the Garden Homes eventually became home to a thriving Black community. Declining manufacturing led to decades of disinvestment in the neighborhood, but with a $5.5 million loan from IFF, 30th Street Industrial Corridor Corporation was able to renovate 24 units, providing affordable housing for residents earning 30-60 percent of the Area Median Income. The renovations were completed in January 2024. Read more about the project here.
Photo: Completed homes renovated by 30th Street Industrial Corridor. Photo by Pat A. Robinson, courtesy of 30th Street Industrial Corridor.
The Landmark
In February, IFF closed a $1 million construction loan that, in part, enabled Gorman & Company to rehabilitate a historic former hotel in Wausau, WI, into a mixed-use facility that includes affordable housing units. Now called The Landmark, the former hotel features 94 one- and two-bedroom apartments affordable to renters earning between 30 and 60 percent of the Area Median Income. The building’s first and second floors house a variety of local businesses which contribute to the vitality of the city’s downtown, and the rehab of the facility ensured these businesses have quality spaces in which to operate. See inside the renovated facility here.
Photo: The exterior of The Landmark. Photo courtesy of Gorman & Company.
André Apartments and Red Caboose
Between March 2022 and May 2023, IFF closed four loans totaling $7.76 million to nonprofit child care center, Red Caboose, and nonprofit developer, Movin’ Out, who together built a mixed-use early childhood education (ECE) center and affordable and accessible housing space. The ground floor of the 70,000-square-foot facility in Madison, WI, houses a 21,000-square-foot ECE facility for Red Caboose. The rest of the building is devoted to The André Apartments, which comprises 38 apartments, 32 of which are for families earning 30-60 percent of the Area Median Income and nine of which are accessible units.
IFF’s CEO Joe Neri attended The André Apartments’ opening ceremony on October 5. As a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB), IFF sponsored Movin’ Out’s application for an Affordable Housing Program grant from FHLB Chicago, which closed the last gap in funding to enable the completion of this project. Watch FHLB Chicago’s video about the project here.
Photo: The exterior of The André Apartments.
Serenity Inns
In December 2023, IFF closed a $2.3 million loan to Serenity Inns, enabling the substance use disorder treatment nonprofit to begin the construction of a new, 7,000-square-foot facility in Midtown Milwaukee.
“Most of the time the ‘nice’ facilities for people in need of treatment for substance use disorder are in the suburbs,” says CEO Kenneth Ginlack. “But where you’re born and where you live shouldn’t determine whether you have access to the type of high-quality, holistic treatment needed to overcome substance use disorder; everyone deserves that.”
Image: An architect's rendering of Serenity Inns' new residential treatment facility.
The SoulFisher Ministries
Between April and August 2023, IFF closed three loans for The SoulFisher Ministries (SoulFisher) totaling close to $3 million, enabling the nonprofit to acquire and renovate a new facility, and to renovate its existing headquarters in Normandy, MO. SoulFisher’s mission is to respond to the needs of youth with incarcerated parents and to promote restorative justice for those currently or formerly incarcerated. The renovation of its existing 6,351-square-foot headquarters will allow the nonprofit to expand its program offerings, providing a home for a newly planned residential re-entry center. In addition to providing supportive housing, other services provided by the organization include life skills and goal setting training, case management coordination, relationship restoration, and restorative justice opportunities. IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team is serving as the owner’s representative for both renovation projects.
Photo: Renovations underway at The SoulFisher Ministries' headquarters. Photo courtesy of The SoulFisher Ministries.
Supermart El Torito
In March, IFF closed a loan of approximately $288,000 for Supermart El Torito (El Torito), a Mexican grocery story in Kansas City, KS. The loan refinanced a prior loan IFF provided to the corporation, which operates two full-service grocery stores – in Kansas City and Topeka – that provide access to fresh and authentic Mexican food groceries in their respective communities. Each location is also home to Mexican bakeries, butcher shops, and restaurants.
El Torito’s first location in Kansas City opened in 2006. IFF’s prior loan enabled El Torito to expand to its second location in Topeka, and refinancing the loan that had reached maturity will provide El Torito with additional financial flexibility moving forward.
Photo: Supermart El Torito's location in Topeka. Photo courtesy of Supermart El Torito.
KIPP KC Legacy High School
With real estate support from IFF, KIPP KC, part of a national network of tuition-free, open-enrollment public charter schools with a track record of providing high-quality education in underserved communities, completed construction last summer of a new facility that will serve as the permanent home of the public charter school system’s Legacy High School. During development and construction of the new 37,154-square-foot facility, IFF served as owner’s representative.
“Opening the new Legacy High School is about KIPP KC honoring its word and following through on a promise to our student body that we’d create a space for them that’s all their own,” says Michael Cobbins, the school’s athletic director and one of KIPP KC’s longest tenured employees. “We take pride in the fact that, with this new campus, we’re going to be able to offer our kids more ways to get involved with activities that add to their experience and their families more opportunities to come to the school to support their children in whatever they’re involved in.”
Photo: KIPP KC staff inside the new Legacy High School. Photo courtesy of KIPP KC.
Swope Health PACE KC Adult Wellness Center
In October, Swope Health opened a new facility in Kansas City’s Mount Cleveland neighborhood, the Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) KC Adult Wellness Center, designed to provide comprehensive health care for patients aged 55 and older. IFF served as owner’s representative, guiding the organization through the capital project.
“We greatly benefited from having dedicated owner’s representation on this project, because the organization hasn’t undertaken a construction project of this scale since the Swope Health headquarters was developed in the mid-1990s,” says Heath Rath, executive director of PACE KC. “I’m a gerontologist by trade, not a construction manager, so having IFF’s expertise at our fingertips and knowing the team was keeping our best interests in mind at all times was invaluable.”
Photo: The exterior of the PACE KC Adult Wellness Center. Photo by Bob Greenspan Photography.
Teachers Like Me
In March, IFF closed a $250,000 loan for Teachers Like Me, providing the nonprofit capital to purchase and make minor renovations to a single-family residence in the Blue Hills neighborhood of Kansas City, MO. The 1,650-square-foot home is designed to provide affordable housing to income-qualified teachers and students. Formed in 2020, Teachers Like Me is dedicated to recruiting, developing, and retaining quality Black teachers in public education systems in the Kansas City area.
Teachers Like Me is also a member of the Kansas City cohort of IFF’s Stronger Nonprofits Initiative (SNI), which wrapped up in August.
“For Teachers Like Me, we’re really about kids first,” shared President and Founder, Trinity Davis, during a panel at SNI’s Five Year Celebration in March 2023. “When I graduated from college and I was a Black teacher, I didn’t realize that I was the only one out of 300 in that room. And my question was, ‘Why am I the only one here?’”
On her experience with SNI, Trinity reflected: “Previously, I was a college professor, I have a PhD, I was an assistant superintendent — that didn’t teach me anything about money,” she said. “The financial help [in SNI] was huge.”
Photo: Teachers Like Me founder and president, Dr. Trinity Davis, with others outside the nonprofit's first home. Photo courtesy of Teachers Like Me.
Feasibility Studies
Feasibility studies serve as an invaluable precursor to facilities projects, providing nonprofits with a clear and complete assessment of the viability of a proposed project before devoting limited time and resources to a plan that needs to be modified to achieve the organization’s goals. IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team supported 14 nonprofits in Indiana in 2023 with feasibility studies, including United Northeast Community Development Corporation (UNEC), which engaged the team to explore the reuse of a former Indianapolis Public Schools building that has been vacant for more than 40 years and is contributing to neighborhood blight. IFF was tasked with gathering community input about reuse possibilities for the 47,600-square-foot facility, performing a facility assessment to determine its condition, and providing four potential scenarios for the future of the site – all of which is now being used by UNEC to influence the private owner of the property to take action on its redevelopment.
Photo: The former school building in Indianapolis for which IFF's Real Estate Solutions team completed a feasibility study.
Fonseca Theatre
Fonseca Theatre Company (Fonseca Theatre) was founded in 2018 to amplify the voices and celebrate the underrepresented communities of Indianapolis through the prism of purposeful theatre and civic engagement. The organization exclusively produces works by, for, and about communities of color, thus increasing employment and educational opportunities for people of color, the LGBTQ community, and people with disabilities. With an IFF loan of approximately $156,000, Fonseca Theatre was able to pay off a loan from another lender, resolve a roof drainage issue, complete electrical work, and repair the HVAC system in the nonprofit’s theater building, enabling the expansion of its community and education programs and increasing its revenue.
Photo: A performance at Fonseca Theatre Company. Photo courtesy of Fonseca Theatre Company.
NXG Youth Motorsports
Launched in 2006 with a goal to help young people of color in Indianapolis cultivate STEAM and life skills while exposing them to career paths in the motorsports industry, NXG Youth Motorsports (NXG) has enrolled almost 3,000 youth in its experiential learning programming. In September, NXG exercised an option to purchase a 2.2-acre property from the City of Indianapolis that will serve as the nonprofit’s first permanent facility. NXG relied on a financial feasibility study and other predevelopment support from IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team in Indiana to guide its plans for the campus before acquiring the property.
The $20 million campus will be purpose-built to support NXG’s programming and will both drastically increase the number of young people enrolled in its programs and expand its programming into new areas designed to engage, inspire, and educate Indianapolis youth from under-resourced communities about the options available to them in racing or other STEAM-related fields. Director of Real Estate Solutions – Indiana, Donna Sink, shares more.
“I didn’t start NXG wanting to be a real estate developer; my interest was in helping kids. It was unbelievable how much the team at IFF taught me about what it takes to pull off a project like the one we’re planning, and there’s no way we could have taken this on without that support. It was really instrumental in helping us get to the point where what we imagined for the property seemed like something we could actually accomplish.” – Rod Reid, NXG co-founder, president, and executive director
Photo: NXG Youth Motorsports program participants at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Photo courtesy of NXG Youth Motorsports.
YMCA of Muncie
YMCA of Muncie began construction in July on a new, 69,000-square-foot facility that will consolidate the organization’s operations from two outdated facilities into one state-of-the-art building on the campus of Muncie Central High School. IFF provided a $4 million New Markets Tax Credit allocation for the project, which will enhance the YMCA’s ability to offer health care, wellness, and workforce development programming – all local priorities – while continuing to provide high-quality space for recreation in the community.
The new facility will help accomplish this goal by providing high-quality space to community partners like Open Door Health Services, a Federally Qualified Health Center; Teen Works, a youth services nonprofit focused on workforce development; Indiana University Health; and Ball State University’s Healthy Lifestyle Center. Additionally, a three-way workforce development partnership between Muncie Area Career Center, Muncie Community Schools (MCS), and the YMCA will assist members of the community in completing requirements for high school diplomas, taking English as a second language classes, and attaining professional certifications.
Photo: The ceremonial groundbreaking for YMCA of Muncie's new facility. Photo courtesy of YMCA of Muncie.
PRE4CLE
IFF has been working with PRE4CLE since 2020 to help design and implement Cleveland Early Learning Spaces, a program which aims to improve and renovate more than 150 early learning centers and homes in the city of Cleveland. Modeled after Learning Spaces, the first cohort of five providers wrapped up in 2023, with construction projects ranging from classrooms, roofing, playgrounds, and more. To date, more than 600 children have been positively impacted by the program and the second cohort of six providers launched in fall 2023. IFF continues to support the program with the now locally based Cleveland real estate team providing owner’s representative services and managing the construction projects, including identifying contractors and determining project scopes.
Photo: One of the child care facilities renovated through PRE4CLE's Cleveland Early Learning Spaces initiative.
Homefull Healthy Living Campus
IFF believes that early childhood education, affordable housing, nutritious food, quality health care, and sustainable employment opportunities are the pillars of thriving communities. And on the west side of Dayton, OH, nonprofit Homefull is currently developing a healthy living campus that will incorporate all of these things and more.
IFF provided a $7.5 million bridge loan toward the development of the $50 million healthy living campus, which once completed will result in a 49,000-square-foot facility that includes: a full-service grocery store; a wholesale food hub; a community health center and pharmacy; and a high-quality space for social service organizations that will also house Homefull’s offices and several of its core programs designed to combat homelessness by addressing its root causes.
Image: An architect's rendering of Homefull's healthy living campus. Image courtesy of Homefull.
Homeport Maple Meadows
In Columbus, nonprofit Homeport celebrated the completion of its Maple Meadows affordable housing project, which offers a mix of 56 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments, as well as community spaces. The development includes universal design features and energy efficient standards. IFF provided two loans for the project that closed in 2021, totaling $2.1 million. IFF Senior Lender Omar ElhagMusa worked with Homeport to provide this critical capital, and he also has a personal relationship with the nonprofit. Here’s what he had to share.
Photo: Homeport's Maple Meadows housing development. Photo courtesy of Homeport.
COCIC/The Edna
IFF provided a $2.85 million loan to the Central Ohio Community Improvement Corporation (COCIC) to support the restoration of The Edna, located in the King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood of Columbus. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, The Edna has deep ties to the neighborhood’s past as a vibrant hub for the Black community. Currently being renovated, The Edna will soon reopen to provide 8,694 square feet of high-quality space for COCIC and other community-based organizations focused on serving the Black community, while also helping to increase property values and the quality of infrastructure in the neighborhood. IFF’s deep understanding of the unique, community-strengthening potential of the project was critical to COCIC’s willingness to taking on debt to complete the project. Learn more about the project here.
“The Edna is an icon, and I believe raising it from the ashes provides an aspirational view of what this community can once again become,” says Curtiss L. Williams, Sr., president/CEO of COCIC.
Photo: The Edna building prior to renovations. Photo — “The Edna” — by Jud McCranie, is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Grand Traverse County Housing for Educators Consortium
Frustrated by a shortage of affordable housing in the region that’s made it difficult to attract and retain qualified teachers and staff, a consortium of public and private school districts in northern Michigan have teamed up to address the challenge head on. That work began in earnest in 2023 when Grand Traverse Area Catholic Schools, Traverse City Area Public Schools, Northwest Education Services, and Interlochen Center for the Arts began working with IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team, which was engaged using funding from the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation to analyze housing needs among school personnel.
From there, the IFF team helped the consortium determine the number of housing units needed to meet members’ needs, provided guidance on funding and financing options to develop these units, and identified a site on which the housing could be developed. An RFP was then issued by IFF to select a developer equipped to continue working with the consortium to move the project forward. The consortium is currently working with the developer to refine its plan for the project and to raise the capital needed to begin construction on the new housing units.
Neighborhood Service Organization’s Detroit Healthy Housing Center
Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO) cut the ribbon on the brand-new Detroit Healthy Housing Center in February 2023 in the McDougall Hunt neighborhood on the east side of Detroit. A past participant of the Stronger Nonprofits Initiative, IFF approved a $6 million loan in 2022 to help the center realize its mission: pairing emergency shelter with health care and support services to help end chronic housing insecurity in the region. With the assurance that the loan was available to the organization if needed, NSO continued fundraising for the project and was ultimately successful in securing the funding needed to complete it without leveraging IFF’s loan.
The new center provides low-barrier emergency shelter to 56 adults; a 17-bed medical respite clinic; a primary care, behavioral health, and dental service clinic open to the public; and other on-site wraparound services to unhoused people transitioning to permanent housing. These services support and work in conjunction with NSO’s Clay Apartments, a two-story, 42-unit complex offering permanent supportive housing, which includes supportive services to address the economic, health, and social barriers to stability.
NSO is a Detroit-based integrated health and human service agency that provides behavioral health and primary care services, in addition to wraparound services that address barriers to housing, health, and well-being for more than 12,000 people a year.
Photo: The ribbon cutting for the Detroit Healthy Housing Center. Photo by Stinson Photography, courtesy of Neighborhood Service Organization.
Boston Square Community Hub
In April, Amplify GR celebrated a “sky breaking” to mark the start of construction on the Boston Square Community Hub, which will transform and elevate the old Revolution Church into a two-story, 40,000-square-foot building, in the Boston Square neighborhood in Grand Rapids.
At the heart of the $25 million project is a high-quality, state-of-the-art early childhood center being developed by IFF. The center will serve at least 80 children between five weeks and five years old.
In addition to creating 40-50 full-time jobs in the community, the hub will offer safe, vibrant spaces for community events as well as partnerships such as a health care clinic and wellness center. The hub will also serve as an anchor point for other projects to transform the neighborhood, such as the plans currently underway to build two four-story apartment buildings nearby.
Photo: The ceremonial "skybreaking" for the Boston Square Community Hub. Photo by Peter Levavi, courtesy of Amplify GR.
Chicago’s Cultural Treasures
Chicago’s Cultural Treasures (ChiTreasures), a four-year initiative that IFF launched alongside six Chicago funders in 2021 for arts and culture organizations serving and led by people of color, continued in 2023 providing grantees technical assistance and capacity building in areas such as fundraising, board development, marketing, communications, and facilities planning, along with quarterly meet-ups for the grantees to build community with each other. This past year, a quarter of the grantees also launched facility projects. Combining efforts from IFF’s Social Impact Accelerator, Real Estate Solutions, and Capital Solutions teams, ChiTreasures demonstrates the impact of One IFF when the entire organization works in coordination to support Chicago’s BIPOC-led nonprofits. As program facilitator, IFF supports grantees through general operating grants, capacity building, real estate support, and technical assistance opportunities.
The initiative will continue to support grantees’ capacity building and facility projects until its sunsetting at the end of 2024. Following that, IFF is committed to sharing learnings from this unique initiative in order to build on ChiTreasures’ successes and challenges and create a clear vision for continued support of Chicago’s BIPOC-led arts and culture organizations.
“Although there are a lot of organizations like us in different genres that provide such rich cultural content for the communities, when it comes to getting funding, we’re low on the totem pole,” said grantee Coco Elysses, chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, during an interview on the Morning Show with Rufus Williams on WVON 1690AM. “So the Chicago’s Cultural Treasures grant was a wonderful, wonderful blessing to come at the time to our organization.”
Photo: Staff and board members from Aguijón Theater Company at a Chicago's Cultural Treasures event.
Westside Health Authority and Austin Coming Together’s, Aspire Center
IFF provided a $3.3 million bridge loan and a financial feasibility study for Westside Health Authority and Austin Coming Together’s new building, The Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation, which broke ground in May. Located in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, The Aspire Center will breathe new life into a former public elementary school building that sat vacant for a decade after the City of Chicago closed the school in 2013.
The 76,500-square-foot Aspire Center will house a business and a career-development center providing high-tech manufacturing training for working age youth and adults. The center will also include a start-up business incubator, a Federally Qualified Health Center, a BMO bank branch, a community plaza, and a rooftop terrace event space, along with other neighborhood-building businesses. Read more about The Aspire Center here.
Image: An architect's rendering of The Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation. Image by Lamar Johnson Collaborative, courtesy of Westside Health Authority.
mHUB
In December, tech incubator mHUB celebrated its new headquarters, an innovation center in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. “They’re creating spaces for collaboration, for like-minded people to build communities of practice, to dare, to have the audacity to think next level,” said IFF’s Executive Director for the Chicago Metro Region, Vickie Lakes-Battle, at the ceremony. IFF provided mHUB a series of five loans between 2016 and 2019 totaling nearly $4.5 million, which the organization used in part to rehabilitate its then-leased facility. These loans helped provide mHUB stability at the time, enabling the organization to grow into a bigger, better facility. The new, 80,000-square-foot space will also serve as a manufacturing facility.
Photo: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker cuts the ribbon at mHUB's grand opening. Photo courtesy of mHUB.
Forty Acres Fresh Market
With a $7.5 million loan from IFF that bridged grant funding from the State of Illinois and City of Chicago, Westside Health Authority broke ground in November on the redevelopment of a 12,000-square-foot facility in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood that is expected to open in the third quarter of 2024 as a full-service grocery store. Operated by Liz Abunaw, who has run pop-up farmers markets and a grocery delivery service in the community since 2018, Forty Acres Fresh Market will be the first Black female-owned grocery store in the City of Chicago and will provide affordable, nutritious, and culturally relevant items in a neighborhood considered a “food desert.” IFF’s real estate team in Chicago provided pre-development support for the project and is now serving as the owner’s representative during renovations to the facility, which the grocery store will lease. Nearby in the Austin neighborhood, IFF financing is supporting the revitalization of a former school closed more than a decade ago that will reopen as The Aspire Center for Workforce Development, which is being co-developed by Westside Health Authority.
Image: An architect's rendering of Forty Acres Fresh Market. Rendering courtesy of Forty Acres Fresh Market.
Fixed-Site Shelter work (Housing Forward and Connections for the Homeless)
When the pandemic began in 2020, more than 75 percent of emergency shelters for unhoused individuals and families in suburban Cook County abruptly vanished because of the health risks associated with congregate settings, forcing nonprofit service providers to quickly pivot. With the hospitality industry reeling from the public health crisis, mostly vacant hotels became an ideal place to temporarily house and provide supportive services to clients who would otherwise have had few options for safe, stable shelter. This paradigm shift proved to be a highly effective way to provide unhoused clients with temporary shelter as a bridge to long-term housing, offering greater dignity to those seeking shelter and reducing the logistical challenges associated with operating rotating emergency shelters staffed largely by volunteers.
IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team played a significant role as a facilitator throughout the process, working directly with the county and with each nonprofit for more than a year to inform the plan for the funding and acquisitions, while also providing predevelopment support that included the creation of development and operating pro formas, supporting due diligence on the properties being acquired, conducting architect procurement to identify opportunities for trauma-informed design, and more. Hear more from Managing Director of Real Estate Solutions – Chicago, Kate Ansorge.
Photo: The Write Inn, one of the Chicago area hotels being converted to a permanent fixed-site shelter.
Latinos Progresando Little Village Community Center
For more than 25 years, Latinos Progresando has provided clients legal aid for immigration and essential social services, growing steadily to become an institution on Chicago’s Southwest Side. In August, the nonprofit celebrated the completion of a new headquarters and community center in the Marshall Square neighborhood that represents a significant step forward for the organization. An equitable transit-oriented development, the facility is also one of Chicago’s first fully electric community buildings.
To get there, Latinos Progresando persevered through an eight-year development process supported by Elevated Chicago, with IFF’s Real Estate Solutions team working closely with the nonprofit to overcome numerous obstacles associated with acquiring a long-vacant, city-owned facility that previous served as a local library branch. The 9,330-square-foot building was transformed into a state-of-the-art space the nonprofit now owns. And with extra space, Latinos Progresando has opened the facility to allow community partners, like Esperanza Health Centers and Lincoln Park Zoo, to offer their services.
Photo: Latinos Progresando's new headuarters and community center. Photo courtesy of Latinos Progresando.
Foundation for Homan Square
Formed to oversee the redevelopment of the former Sears, Roebuck & Co. headquarters campus in the Homan Square neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, since 1995 the Foundation for Homan Square (FHS) has worked to build a vibrant and thriving community through asset-based development informed by extensive community engagement. In 2017, IFF formally partnered with FHS – bringing together technical real estate and construction expertise with deep rooted relationships in the community to further strengthen and stabilize the blocks surrounding the Homan Square campus. The strategic partnership continues to grow as FHS embarks on a new strategic plan – which focuses on four distinct but interconnected strategies to drive the organization’s mission forward.
Central to the plan is the continued development of high-quality infrastructure that contributes to a vibrant community in which Homan Square residents are empowered to explore, thrive, and transform their lives. Toward that end, FHS and IFF continued construction last year of 21 permanent supportive rental units for people with disabilities that will begin leasing this spring while moving forward with predevelopment work for the Homan-Harrison Gateway. The gateway project will activate a long-vacant parcel of land with locally owned commercial space and co-working offices for nonprofits in an inviting, transit-accessible location that serves as an entry point to Homan Square.
Elsewhere in the community, FHS and IFF embarked on a new initiative last year called Home Sweet Homan, which will develop 20 single-family homes on vacant lots to be sold at affordable prices to residents who live, work, or worship on the West Side to foster intergenerational wealth building opportunities. Home Sweet Homan is part of the Reclaiming Communities Campaign, which aims to build 1,000 affordable homes on vacant lots on the West and South Sides. Take a virtual tour of the Home Sweet Homan model home, which was placed on its lot in October after being built offsite using modular construction.
Photo: The model home developed for the Home Sweet Homan initiative.
Caring For MI Future
As an intermediary for the State of Michigan, IFF awarded $59 million to new and expanding child care providers through the Caring for MI Future: Facilities Improvement Fund grant program. Applications closed in June 2023, almost an entire year ahead of schedule, as requests had already surpassed the original $50 million. This prompted the state to reallocate an additional $9 million to the program. In partnership with the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP), IFF awarded funds to improve existing facilities, help open new child care programs, and increase access to quality care for families throughout the state. These funds not only made it possible for programs to expand or open, they also allowed many providers to enroll more children and avoid going out of business. Grant awardees created more than 10,600 child care slots. Hear more from Caring for MI Future Program Director, Jeff Henze.
“Our new boilers mean all our rooms will be comfortable even on cold windy days. It also means we don’t have to worry about them breaking down like the old ones causing us to close for days at a time, leaving families to have to fend for themselves,” said Susan Dick, director of Northern MI Christian Preschool, McBain.
By the numbers:
1,100+ programs
3,500+ projects
10,600+ new child care spots created
13,000+ email inquiries that IFF staff responded to
65 one-on-one consults with contractors
2,000 one-on-one consults with providers
45 weekly office hours for regional partners
194 technical assistance sessions hosted between IFF and regional partners with 3,500 attendees
Photo: A teacher and students at an early childhood education center renovated with IFF's support.
Deepening Our Impact in Ohio
Since 2014, IFF has supported nonprofits throughout Ohio, and in 2023 this commitment was furthered by opening a second office in the state – in Cleveland. With the addition of a Cleveland office, and in-market real estate consulting staff, IFF is able to expand our work and provide more loans and more real estate consulting services across the entire state. This includes expanding our philanthropic partnerships in order to be able to serve more nonprofits.
Over the years, IFF’s Ohio work has been generously supported by Ohio-based foundations like the Gund Foundation and Greater Cincinnati Foundation. In 2023, IFF expanded its partnerships and for the first time received a grant from Columbus Foundation. Like IFF, Columbus Foundation is deeply committed to supporting a nonprofit’s facility and understands how space empowers nonprofits to build capacity and meet the needs of their community. IFF was one of 30 nonprofits to receive a capital improvement grant. The grant will provide subsidies to Columbus-area nonprofits for real estate consulting services, specifically those in early-stage readiness planning for capital facilities projects.
Photo: A Cleveland sign with the city's skyline in the background.
First Executive Director in Indiana
At the beginning of 2023, IFF appointed Amandula Anderson to serve as the first executive director for the Indiana Region, which encompasses the State of Indiana and the Louisville metro area in Kentucky. The creation of the position coincided with a belated celebration of IFF’s tenth year working in Indiana, which was 2022, a decade in which IFF helped create 580 early childhood education slots, 12,886 student seats in quality schools, and 1,637 affordable homes. In this time, IFF also facilitated 10,000 patient visits to health care facilities across the state.
Serving previously as IFF’s managing director of Real Estate Solutions in Indiana, Amandula worked in 2023 to advance our strategic goal to deepen core business solutions in markets throughout the Midwest by continuing to expand IFF’s presence outside of the Indianapolis area. Doing so will ensure that nonprofits statewide have access to the flexible capital, real estate services, and capacity building programming needed to strengthen their organizations and the communities they serve.
Photo: A 2023 event in Indianapolis where Amandula Anderson's appointment as executive director for the Indiana Region was announced.
