Reinvestment Fund Fall Newsletter 2026
Expanding Food Access Across the Country
Access to fresh food is about more than what’s on the shelf. It’s about jobs, stronger neighborhoods, and food systems built to last. That conviction shapes Reinvestment Fund’s approach to our work, bringing together lending, grants, and technical assistance. Nationally, we administer America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) on behalf of USDA Rural Development. In Philadelphia and beyond, we partner on neighborhood-level programs.
In Madison, Wisconsin, we invested in Maurer’s Urban Market, a full-service grocery store that anchors a city-owned building with 140 income-restricted homes on the South Side. When the City of Madison committed $3.8 million and sought an operator, second-generation grocer Kristie Maurer stepped up. A loan from the HFFI Food Access and Retail Expansion Fund (FARE Fund) provided the flexible capital needed for the project to grow. The nearly 23,500-square-foot store accepts SNAP, WIC, and Healthy Benefits cards and offers flexible employment to nearby residents.
“Kristie brought her family’s grocery experience, and the City brought a real commitment to this building. Our part was making the financing fit the project, so the South Side could have a locally owned, full-service grocery store,” said Brendan Buttimer, Senior Director, Equitable Food Systems.
Maurer’s is part of a larger national effort. In its 2024-25 cycle, the FARE Fund awarded $16.5 million to 62 food retail and supply chain projects across 39 states, from cooperative grocery markets to food hubs serving Tribal communities. Over the next five years, the FARE Fund will deploy a total of $60 million to strengthen local food economies nationwide.
“When a grocery store opens, it does more than stock shelves. It creates and preserves quality jobs, it gives families a reliable place to shop, and it helps a community thrive,” said Anne Misak, Managing Director, Equitable Food Systems. “Multiply that impact across a region, and you start to strengthen the entire local food economy.”
A resilient local food system relies on the types of innovation that flourish in community-driven solutions. The Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative, now open for another round of funding, invests directly in grassroots projects that strengthen Philadelphia’s food assets and further food justice. Since 2019, in partnership with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the initiative has provided nearly $3 million in grants to localized projects that support residents’ right to grow, sell, and eat healthy food.
Capital That Follows Community: New Markets Tax Credits at Work
Residents and local leaders know what their neighborhoods need to thrive and are working to make it real. Reinvestment Fund’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) financing is designed to follow their lead. NMTCs are a federal program that draws private investment into qualifying communities through tax incentives for investors, and we prioritize community anchors and projects shaped by meaningful input from residents. Since 2004, we have received $788.4 million in NMTC allocations, supporting close to $1.8 billion in total investments.
In the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, families have trusted Clara’s Little Lambs Preschool Academy for 40 years, and 397 children are on its waitlist. Many come from military families stationed in the area, often far from grandparents or other childcare supports. With our $10.5 million federal NMTC allocation and a $3.5 million loan, Clara’s is building its fourth center, designed around Executive Director Sonjia Joseph’s vision. “A strong early childhood center in a community really becomes the anchor,” Joseph said.
In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, an eviction notice threatened The Wright Center for Community Health’s longtime health center. President and CEO Dr. Linda Thomas-Hemak rallied patients and partners to find a new home in the city’s North End, on a bus route that puts care within reach without a car. With our $8.5 million in NMTC financing, The Wright Center completed a renovation shaped by feedback from patients, staff, and community partners. Today the Health City Hub brings primary, dental, and behavioral health care under one roof and trains the next generation of local providers. “The Wright Center thrives in the pronoun ‘we,’” Thomas-Hemak said, “and we are intentional about never taking on a community’s serious problems alone.”
In both New Orleans and Wilkes-Barre, local voices led, and our NMTC financing followed, creating places where children learn, neighbors can count on care, and families belong.
News & Resources
- Welcome to new Reinvestment Fund team members David Harpster, Dannielle Sesay, and Kayla Washington.
- Our Sustainable Development Fund is accepting applications for the Capital Access & Readiness Program, offering 0% loans and grants to help smaller nonprofits, community-serving organizations, and qualifying small businesses in PECO’s electric service territory cover the studies, designs, and plans that clean energy projects require.
- What happens when families receive unrestricted monthly cash? Our Policy Solutions team evaluated a Philadelphia pilot in the Guaranteed Resources Optimize Wellbeing (GROW) study, finding modest but significant gains in financial well-being, food security, and how parents invested in their children.
- Home-based child care is the most common form of care for infants and toddlers in the U.S., yet capital markets have largely passed it by. Natalie Renew, founding director of Home Grown, makes the case for why home-based providers deserve a place in the capital markets.
- In Atlanta, Reinvestment Fund joined the Promise All Atlanta Children Thrive (PAACT) coalition to complete 23 capital improvement projects totaling roughly $1.83 million, preserving an estimated 2,415 child care seats. Our Rising Futures Expansion Fund now extends the same approach from repair to growth.
- New Census data show Philadelphia’s poverty rate rose to 20.4% in 2025. Speaking with The Philadelphia Inquirer, our Emily Dowdall, President of Policy Solutions, notes that the rate is only one measure of the financial pressure residents face, and that cuts to federal food, health care, and housing assistance make the city’s broader affordability challenge just as urgent.
- A PAACT renovation grant gave infants, one-year-olds, and two-year-olds at Atlanta Technical College’s Early Learning Center separate, quieter classrooms. Director Brian Bowers sees early learning centers like his as infrastructure a community can’t do without, alongside the grocery store and the drugstore.
- Philadelphia has added 20,000 high-quality child care seats since 2013, nearly doubling the share of licensed seats rated high-quality. Two new companion reports from Reinvestment Fund’s Policy Solutions team look at how a decade of coordinated data, investment, and collaboration got the city there — and what other regions can take from it.
- Christina Szczepanski, CFA, Reinvestment Fund’s President of Lending and Investments, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the City of Atlanta Urban Development Corporation (AUD). Nominated by Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, she will serve a two-year term on the board of AUD, an affiliate of Atlanta Housing formed in 2023. AUD develops mixed-income housing on publicly owned land, with an emphasis on long-term affordability and public control of assets.
- Reinvestment Fund and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health have opened the 2026 funding round of the Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative, with $240,500 in grants for community-led projects that expand healthy food options across the city. Nonprofits, businesses, cooperatives, and collectives can apply for up to $50,000 each by December 4.
- Khaliff Davis, CFA, Reinvestment Fund’s Managing Director of Lending & Investing, has joined the new Elevate Social Impact Advisory Board. Formed by Allivate Impact Capital and Ellavoz Impact Capital for their Opportunity Zone joint venture, the board will independently review proposed investments to help ensure they deliver measurable benefits for the communities they’re meant to serve.
- Bloomberg Philanthropies is bringing three city-tested housing solutions — San Diego’s faster permitting, Austin’s accessory dwelling unit expansion, and Atlanta’s Housing Strike Force — to up to 30 more city halls across the country. Implementation partner Accelerator for America co-launched the National Housing Crisis Task Force, whose members include our President and CEO Frank Fernandez.
We Have Moved
Reinvestment Fund’s headquarters has moved. Since September 1, we have been at:
One Commerce Square
2005 Market Street, Suite 3000
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Our phone numbers, email addresses, and main contacts stay the same. Learn more about our locations at our Contact Us page.
Work With Us
- Please visit our Careers at Reinvestment Fund page for the most up-to-date listing of open positions.