“Early-stage capital shapes everything that comes after,” explains Shelly Cleary, President of Level Field Facilities Fund. “For too long, schools have had limited options in these early stages of development, often forcing them to make choices and decisions that can constrain them for decades.”
That understanding sits at the core of LFFF’s mission. The fund was created to provide flexible, early-stage facilities financing for charter schools that are scaling, growing enrollment, or navigating their first major real estate project. These schools often have strong academic models and deep community support, but limited access to patient capital when they need it most.
The need is significant and national in scope. Charter schools serve more than 3.7 million students across the United States, yet facilities remain one of the sector’s most persistent challenges. Unlike traditional public schools, charters typically receive little or no public funding for buildings, forcing schools to divert operating dollars away from classrooms to fund building needs or delay growth altogether. This funding gap disproportionately affects small and emerging schools serving low-income communities.
LFFF’s work builds on lessons learned through its initial pilot fund, which deployed more than $19 million in critical project loans to high-quality charter schools. Those early investments supported projects that ultimately leveraged more than $110 million in total debt, demonstrating both strong demand for early-stage facilities capital and the catalytic role it can play in unlocking larger, long-term financing.
Building on that proof of concept, LFFF has now launched a $50 million national fund designed to scale this approach and bring greater coordination and consistency to a fragmented part of the charter school facilities market.
As LFFF prepared to expand its platform through this second national fund, it sought partners who shared both the mission and the discipline required to build a durable financing model. That search led to Reinvestment Fund.
With more than 40 years of experience deploying capital in underserved communities, Reinvestment Fund understands that schools, like housing or health care facilities, are essential community infrastructure. Its investment in LFFF reflects a shared belief that mission-aligned capital can address real market gaps while maintaining strong credit standards.
The partnership between Reinvestment Fund and LFFF builds on years of collaboration and trust. Reinvestment Fund’s role went beyond capital investment. Drawing on decades of structuring and scaling mission-driven financing platforms, RF helped shape the fund’s architecture to ensure it could attract additional investors while maintaining strong credit discipline. Supporting sponsor-led vehicles like LFFF reflects RF’s broader strategy: strengthening the ecosystem of community-focused lenders so that more capital can reach communities at scale.
LFFF’s work is closely connected to Level Field Partners, which, like Level Field Facilities Fund, was co-founded by Alex Shawe and David Endom. The two organizations were created to address different but complementary needs in the charter school facilities ecosystem. Level Field Partners provides real estate development, financing, and strategic advisory services to charter school operators nationwide, while LFFF operates as an independent nonprofit lender focused on deploying early-stage capital. Together, they bring aligned leadership and complementary expertise that help schools navigate complex facilities decisions with rigor and care.
As market conditions have grown more challenging, rising construction costs, higher interest rates, and increasingly competitive real estate environments have made early-stage capital even more critical. LFFF’s second national fund was designed to respond to that moment, building on a decade of collaboration and scaling what worked in an initial pilot fund and bringing greater coordination and consistency to a fragmented part of the charter school facilities market.
The fund provides financing for predevelopment, acquisition, construction, and leasehold improvements to school buildings. In practice, that means schools can cover architectural and planning costs, secure a site before prices rise further, or bridge a project to permanent financing without draining operating reserves. Just as importantly, LFFF works closely with borrowers to right-size debt from the beginning, helping schools avoid structures that divert resources away from classrooms over time.
“For us, the goal for every deal is always to get to yes,” says Endom, co-founder of Level Field Partners and Level Field Facilities Fund. “But it has to be a responsible yes, one that holds up when the next lender comes in and when the school is operating five or ten years down the line.”
Shawe emphasizes how early decisions shape long-term outcomes. “The hardest capital to access is that first money in,” he says. “When schools get the right capital at the right moment, it doesn’t just help them open or expand. It sets them up for stability years into the future.”
That balance between mission and discipline is central to how LFFF operates and to why Reinvestment Fund saw alignment in the partnership. Both organizations view the function of credit evaluation not as gatekeepers, but as problem-solvers who understand the full life cycle of a project. Underwriting looks beyond a single loan to consider how a school will refinance, stabilize, and grow.
This approach also helps schools avoid misaligned alternatives that can appear attractive in the absence of early-stage capital. Without mission-aligned lenders, schools are sometimes pushed toward financing structures that limit flexibility and increase long-term costs. LFFF’s role as first money in helps keep projects on a path that prioritizes affordability, stability, and student outcomes.
The national fund is capitalized by a group of partners that reflects this shared commitment, including JPMorgan Chase, Enterprise Community Partners, Nonprofit Finance Fund, Reinvestment Fund, and the Walton Family Foundation. Each partner plays a distinct role, but all are aligned around the same goal of expanding access to facilities financing for schools that have historically been overlooked.
Beyond capital, LFFF emphasizes partnership with borrowers. Schools work closely with the fund throughout the financing process, receiving guidance on what is realistic, the trade-offs involved, and how today’s decisions affect tomorrow’s options. Success is measured not just by repayment, but by borrower experience, academic stability, and long-term viability.
As the national fund begins deploying capital, it offers a replicable model for how early-stage facilities financing can better serve schools and the broader market. For Reinvestment Fund and Level Field Facilities Fund, the partnership reflects a shared long-term vision: one where access to capital strengthens communities by allowing schools to focus their resources where they matter most.