News

Award caps $30,000 in employee-led charitable contributions in 2020

Reinvestment Fund today announced two nonprofits as the winners of its annual Community Champion Award: 215 People’s Alliance and Tenant Union Representative Network (TURN). Based in Philadelphia, both organizations have been very active in COVID response and are particularly aligned with Reinvestment Fund’s own efforts around food justice and reforms to reduce evictions.

“At a time when the coronavirus pandemic has upended lives in so many ways, 215 People’s Alliance and Tenant Union Representative Network have been extraordinary in their efforts to support families and communities,” said Amanda High, Reinvestment Fund’s Chief of Strategic Initiatives. “We are delighted to honor these organizations with this award and to shine a light on their outstanding work.”

Reinvestment Fund is among the 150 newly selected winners of Real Leaders 2021 “Top Impact Companies” from around the world. The Impact Awards is a global ranking of companies whose products or services address social or environmental challenges.

“We are honored to be among some of today’s leaders in making a positive difference,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “Our long-term focus on ensuring that people in all communities have the opportunities they strive for has been a huge part of achieving this award”.

The 2021 award winners include game-changers such as: Tesla, Beyond Meat, Patagonia and 147 other well-respected impact brands of all sizes and from a variety of industries. Winners are selected through a rigorous process that considers how companies are solving business problems in socially constructive ways.

Our nation witnessed terror as a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to disrupt the validation of the 2020 presidential election on January 6th. Our beautiful Capitol building and the democratic process did not instill awe or respect as it should. Instead we saw the crowd bring vandalism, Confederate flags, weapons and violence. The act was shameful and unpatriotic.

We urge lawmakers and law enforcement authorities to hold accountable those who participated in and incited this violence.

The events also underscored what is hard to ignore. First, that ground was ceded to this illegal and violent mob over and over. Contrast that with the unarmed peaceful BLM protests this summer that were met with near constant police and military violence. Second, we saw ample video evidence that some of the security forces were welcoming of and embracing the mob, restrained in the use of force. White privilege, bigotry and institutional racism were on full display.

Reinvestment Fund announced that it has received a major gift from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott. Reinvestment Fund is among 384 organizations who received a total of $4.2 billion today as part of Ms. Scott’s giving to organizations working to alleviate suffering for those hardest hit by the pandemic. The award is the largest individual gift in the organization’s 35+ year history and will help advance the organization’s work to build strong, healthy and equitable communities nationwide.

“We are immensely grateful for and humbled by this extraordinary gift from Ms. Scott,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “It is a recognition of not just our work, but that organizations like us who are at the forefront of expanding economic prosperity for all Americans, have effective plans that are idled or unscaled by a shortage of unrestricted funding such as this. Ms. Scott has shown a trust and confidence in community development practitioners that is rare in today’s more prescriptive and restricted philanthropy.”

Philadelphia, December 15, 2020— Reinvestment Fund announced the launch of Building Healthier, More Equitable Communities (BHEC) today, a health and community development focused initiative that will work with cross-sector collaborative teams in four cities in New Jersey to advance equity and wellbeing in targeted neighborhoods. BHEC will support partnerships in Asbury Park, Camden, Newark, and Paterson.

BHEC aims to address the social determinants of health through changes to the built environment and the community investment system in selected New Jersey cities, while acknowledging the unique challenges stemming from the current health and economic crisis.

Reinvestment Fund today announced $3 million in financial assistance awards to 20 projects through the 2020 round of America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative’s (HFFI) Targeted Small Grants Program. Funding for the HFFI grants program is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. The program supports projects that are designed to improve access to fresh, healthy food through food retail.

Awardees were selected through a competitive process that was open to eligible fresh food retail projects and food enterprises seeking financial assistance to overcome the higher costs and initial barriers to operating in underserved areas. There were 245 applications submitted to the program, which came from 46 states, the District and US territories, and had a total request of over $40 million in financing.

Reinvestment Fund announced today that its ‘A+’ issuer credit rating has been affirmed by S&P Global Ratings. Reinvestment Fund is a social enterprise lending organization and among a handful of such institutions that has been rated by S&P Global Ratings. S&P Global Ratings also affirmed its ‘A+’ long-term rating on Reinvestment Fund’s series 2017 and 2018 taxable impact investment bonds.

“This affirmation of Reinvestment Fund’s ability to do well and do good is particularly encouraging at a time when so much feels uncertain,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “The rating is also a reflection of the tremendous confidence—shared by our investors, our partners and most of all, our staff—in our ability to deliver on our mission of equitable growth.”

This rating is a powerful recognition of Reinvestment Fund’s demonstrated ability to meet its financial commitments through the strategic investment of capital in underserved communities.

We at Reinvestment Fund mourn the death of the indomitable Justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who made it her life’s work to dismantle and eradicate the practice of systematic discrimination against women, Black and brown people, and LGBTQ people. Her passing threatens many hard-won civil liberties, for which we all must persevere to fully secure. The ‘Notorious RBG’ stood her ground. Like her, we must not weaken in our resolve to achieve racial, gender, and economic justice for all Americans. Read our full statement.

With elections just weeks away, we are also carefully monitoring the policy landscape and its impacts on communities and the pursuit of equity for all. In many Black communities, a legacy of systemic racism persists, making it too hard for people to own a home, start a business, and build long-term wealth. Moreover, the current pandemic has shown all too clearly the life and death consequences of this historical disparity, with Black and Latinx communities suffering the biggest share of COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as wage reductions and job losses.

Reinvestment Fund has been awarded the prestigious 2020 Knowledge Challenge grant by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The award is one of 13 announced last week and will support work in partnership with the Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) of Saint Paul, Minnesota and researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.

“We are grateful to the Kauffman Foundation for this award and are honored to be in the company of our fellow awardees who represent some of the best entrepreneurship researchers in the nation,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “Together with our partners NDC and the University of Pennsylvania, we look forward to better understanding the connections between thriving local entrepreneurship and social well-being.”

Reinvestment Fund today announced the inaugural Nowak Fellow, Marci Monaco-Vavrik, a recent Temple University graduate. The Nowak Fellowship is one of three new initiatives Reinvestment Fund launched in memory of its founding Executive Director, Jeremy Nowak. The Nowak Fellowship, housed at Reinvestment Fund, was established to support a pre-graduate school fellow considering a future career aligned with community economic development.

“Jeremy had a deep appreciation for combining the richness and rigor of academia with an orientation of tangible accomplishment,” shared Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “With this fellowship in his memory, we are delighted to be able to give a student the opportunity to gain some real-life experience in their chosen field as part of their professional growth.”

The fulltime Fellow will work within Reinvestment Fund’s Policy Solutions team and work closely with staff to explore the many areas where policymakers, practitioners and investors intersect and inform one another. During this time, the Fellow gains a set of skills, insights, experiences and accomplishments that will provide greater clarity and certainty on how she will take her next step in professional life.