National Scale. Local Impact. NeighborWorks Capital’s Strategic Growth Fund Provides Successful Model
The Strategic Growth Fund was established in 2015 by NeighborWorks Capital with funding from The Kresge Foundation. The Fund provided flexible capital to seven NeighborWorks organizations so they could respond to community needs and sustainably grow their capacity. We are happy to share that each loan in the program has successfully delivered results and re-paid in full. The Fund was co-capitalized with $5MM from The Kresge Foundation and $3.25MM from NeighborWorks Capital to provide growth capital to NeighborWorks organizations. The fund provided loans of $500K-$1.5MM at below-market rates and long-term maturities to Affordable Homes of South Texas, Inc., Atlanta Neighborhood Development Partnership, Homewise Inc., The Housing Partnership, Inc., Mountain Housing Opportunities, NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley, and Way Finders.
The loans supported a wide variety of critical activities and resulted in over 700 for-sale and rental homes in distressed areas being purchased, built, and/or improved. The organizations targeted their efforts toward addressing long-term racial inequities, expanding homeownership opportunities, and system improvements. The Strategic Growth Fund model served as a catalyst for NeighborWorks Capital to significantly increase our organizationally focused lending activity. Since the funds from this program were deployed, we have funded an additional $10MM for organizational capital and enterprise growth. We want to thank our partners at The Kresge Foundation for making this opportunity possible. With their support, we’ve been able to help address a critical gap in the marketplace by providing flexible, affordable, long-term enterprise-level financing so that NeighborWorks organizations can respond to community needs and sustainably grow their own capacity. This is another example of NeighborWorks Capital’s commitment to true community-driven progress that’s centered around equity.
