Message from CEO & Chair
Dear Friends,
At Reinvestment Fund, we invest in neighborhoods that are on the front lines of our greatest social challenges—poor health, food and housing insecurity, segregation, unemployment, the opioid crisis, and more. As daunting as these may be, we have been inspired this past year by those who are taking on such challenges, and it has been our privilege to invest in their work.
We made over $200 million in loans last year—our second highest year on record—which have supported educational opportunities for nearly 5,000 students and young children, provided over 800 homes, and enabled more than 640,000 patient visits for medical or behavioral health needs and addiction treatment. What’s more, these projects supported more than 3,300 permanent jobs.
As the past year has demonstrated, addressing these challenges and achieving such outcomes starts with ideas:
That we can do more if we work together. That private investors—not just philanthropy and the public sector—should be investing in low-income communities. That we can only solve the problems we understand.
With these ideas as inspiration, our job is to translate them into action:
We are building collaborative platforms that bring CDFIs, philanthropy, private capital, and project developers together in ways that combine our unique resources and expertise.
We’re bringing private investors to the table. From our $50 million general obligation bond offering to new funds with investors like MetLife and QBE Insurance Group, we’re creating a path for private capital to support equity and community development.
We’re using research and data to map, quantify, and articulate the specific challenges facing the communities we serve. We are clearly defining the extent to which low-income families lack access to childcare and supermarkets; who runs the greatest risk of being evicted; and which distressed real estate markets are prime for investment.
And we are seeing the impact:
More resources are available in places that have suffered decades of disinvestment from the private sector, and these resources—effectively targeted—can reach the people and places of greatest need in the manner that achieves the greatest good.
This means better access to healthy food, affordable housing, and childcare. It means more quality schools in low-income neighborhoods, more thriving local economies and small businesses, and less blight and vacancy.
It means higher educational attainment, job opportunities, better treatment for addiction, access to medical and behavioral health care, greater housing stability, and more equitable access to the amenities and resources that all people deserve and need to thrive.
We are grateful for our 865 investors—including the more than 600 individuals—who make this work possible year after year, and we thank our talented staff for turning these ideas into impacts in communities across the country every day.