IFF's 2022 Annual Report: Together We Build a Stronger Midwest

To all our Investors, Partners, and Friends,

Every day, IFF champions nonprofits to shape more equitable and vibrant communities. We believe nonprofits are the engine of social change and they deserve inspiring, high-quality spaces that amplify the impact of their work and serve as beacons of hope to their communities.

To achieve this, in 2022, IFF continued to provide essential supports to nonprofit changemakers through its community-centered lending, development, and real estate consulting, while also expanding and deepening our presence throughout the Midwest. Our research, data, and sector expertise – coupled with our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion – strengthened our ability to leverage our tools, broaden our partnerships, and further scale our impact. Highlights from the year include:

Closing on $123.2 million in loans to more than 80 nonprofits and leveraging an additional $495.6 million in public and private investment;
Completing the first phase of a new, $40 million, state-of-the-art middle school in North Chicago, IL, that realized the visions of students, teachers, and community members alike;
Consulting on 77 nonprofit facilities projects, including managing the construction of over 102,000 square feet of real estate; and
Partnering with the State of Michigan to launch the $50 million Caring for MI Future: Facilities Improvement Fund to support new and expanding early child care facilities.

This past year also afforded IFF the opportunity to reflect on our previous strategic plan and define a new vision for the future, recognizing how well our 2018-2022 strategic plan positioned us to help nonprofits and their communities respond to and recover from the pandemic – and, ultimately, rebuild more equitably for the long term.

Unlike traditional five-year strategic plans of the past, our current plan focuses on shorter term goals for the next three years. This approach reflects both the ambition and relevancy of our prior plan, as well as our aim to build upon key goals left unfinished due to the pandemic.

Our new plan continues IFF’s all-in commitment to advance social impact through our full suite of tools. We’ve identified five interconnected strategic pillars that sustain the spirit of our previous plan yet focus us on a bold, fresh set of priorities for the near term: building the staff and culture we need to better serve and be more accountable to our communities; making more loans to more nonprofits; fine tuning the model for our real estate consulting, making it even more impactful; delivering on the promise of IFF’s Social Impact Accelerator; and fully engaging with our investors and funders – all of you – to increase our collective impact across the Midwest.

While we are just getting started, in 2022 we made big strides in advancing this vision by providing:

More capital for more changemakers. Every loan we make to a nonprofit has ripple effects across its broader community. In 2022, we approved a record $157.4 million in loans; reached deeper into Chicago’s neighborhoods; opened an office in Grand Rapids to serve Western Michigan; and expanded our reach in Indiana. And in 2023, we will add a new office in Cleveland, OH, as well.
More problem-solving for system-level challenges. Providing more capital and putting our tools in the service of more changemakers grounds us in the communities we serve and opens the door to build the partnerships we need to deepen our impact. In 2022, we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Home First, IFF’s in-house development group that prioritizes affordable, accessible, and community-integrated housing for people with disabilities. Since its launch, Home First has completed nine projects at distinct sites across Illinois.
More investment impact across the Midwest. From working locally with individual and groups of nonprofits in communities, to whole sectors across a state, our local presence makes us an effective intermediary for impact capital and implementing local and regional solutions. In 2022, we deepened our partnerships with health care systems, corporations, and state and local government.

It’s an exciting time at IFF. With your support and partnership, we are continuing to build and grow our platform of finance, real estate, and development tools to invest in and support nonprofits and the communities they serve. Thanks to each and every one of you for helping us to bring our ambitious vision to life.

Together, we are building a stronger Midwest.