About Us
IFF is a mission-driven lender, developer, and consultant that helps communities thrive. Across the Midwest, we work at the nexus of facilities and finance to help nonprofits and other service providers to create safe, inspiring spaces that enable them to achieve their missions and support their communities.
We help clients from every sector, including human service agencies, schools, child care providers, community health centers, housing developers, and grocery stores. We are committed to long-term partnerships with these community-based organizations because we believe they help ensure every person, regardless of their income or zip code, has the opportunity to reach their full potential and to live in a vibrant, equitable community.
Our staff of more than 140 professionals works from our Chicago headquarters, and we also serve the Midwest from seven regional offices in Columbus, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. We are lenders, real estate consultants, real estate developers, community organizers, financial analysts, data analysts, construction managers, storytellers, researchers, and — most importantly — partners to nonprofits.
IFF is a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) certified by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. We are the largest nonprofit CDFI in the Midwest and one of only a few nationally to hold the top-ranked Aeris four-star rating for impact management and AAA rating for financial strength and performance. From 1988 to 2021, we have made more than $1.3 billion in loans, leveraging $4 billion in community investments.
Mission Statement
IFF strengthens nonprofits and the communities they serve by providing leadership, capital, and real estate solutions.
- Leadership reflects our research, policy, sector work, and convening role
- Capital includes a range of financial products: loans, New Markets Tax Credits, equity, and Pay for Success
- Real Estate Solutions includes a range of consultant services, development, and ownership
Vision Statement
Partnering to create thriving communities is at the heart of everything we do. We leverage knowledge, capital, and resources to advance equitable and transformational outcomes in under-resourced communities, guided by our commitment to be an inclusive, anti-racist and anti-oppressive institution that honors communities as asset-rich and as experts in their own stories.
Core Values
Prioritize EQUITY: IFF seeks to be an anti-racist and anti-oppressive institution that is accountable to our staff and to communities of color and other oppressed groups. We strive to be a learning organization, and we recognize that successfully integrating equity into our organization and our work is an iterative process that requires intentionality, investment, and humility.
Respect PARTNERSHIPS: IFF listens carefully, engages honestly, cares deeply, and works hard to understand nonprofits and communities. Through these authentic acts, we establish trusted partnerships; with our partners, we are committed to transparency and leveraging our shared knowledge, capital, and resources – recognizing and honoring the communities we serve as asset-rich and as experts of their own stories.
SOLVE for Tensions: Mission and money. Planning and action. Structure and flexibility. Stability and innovation. Instincts and data. We problem-solve alongside all our partners as they strive to find the balance that is right for them – as we do for ourselves.
STEWARD with Heart: IFF understands that long-term visions require long-term partners. That is why we are steadfast in maintaining a fiscally strong institution that supports all our partners, not just for the life of a loan or project, but until all communities thrive.
IFF is an equal opportunity provider and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. To file a complaint of discrimination, write to Department of the Treasury, Office of Civil Rights and Diversity, 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20220 or call 202 622 1160.