Capital Impact Partners, or simply Capital Impact, is a congressionally chartered, District of Columbia nonprofit and certified community development financial institution that provides credit and financial services to underserved markets and populations in the United States. S&P Global issued Capital Impact its first rating in 2017.
Capital Impact was created in 1982 as the nonprofit arm of the National Cooperative Bank as part of the National Consumer Cooperative Bank Act. Capital Impact became independently certified as its own financial institution by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund in 2011. The company's president and CEO is Ellis Carr, the chief lending officer is Diane Borradaile, the chief financial officer is Natalie Gunn, and Amy Sue Leavens is the chief legal counsel. From 1994 until 2016, Terry Simonette served as president and CEO of Capital Impact until Ellis Carr was named as his replacement.
The company is among the largest community development financial institutions in the country. As of 2015, they invested over $2 billion into senior care, affordable housing, health care, education and public nutrition projects in distressed and low-income communities across the country. These investments include the creation of over 9,000 units of affordable assisted living; more than 35,000 units of affordable housing; 3 million square feet of health center space providing more than 1 million patient visits annually; $500 million for developing charter schools creating more than 200,000 seats for children; and healthy food retail in over 60 locations. Capital Impact has created around 31,000 new jobs for low-income individuals. In 2015, Capital Impact became a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta. Capital Impact has been recognized for its social impact, financial ratings and policies by Aeris, a company that rates community development financial institutions, each year since Aeris was established in 2007. In October 2016, Capital Impact received two allocations from the Treasury Department's Community Development Financial Institution Fund, including a $2 million financial assistance award.
Projects
Capital Impact provides financing to individuals, organizations and companies in order to build new businesses or expand existing facilities that increase access to services for populations made up primarily of low to moderate income residents.
Cooperative development
With its origins in the 1978 National Consumer Cooperative Bank Act, Capital Impact continues with the economic advancement of cooperatives as one of its initiatives. They partner with the National Cooperative Grocers Association to provide underwriting and loan administration services to food co-ops across the country. In 2015, Capital Impact awarded $40,000 to the Democracy at Work Institute and the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives through its first Co-op Innovation Award. Since its founding, Capital Impact has deployed $278 million in capital across 208 cooperatives.
Affordable housing
Capital Impact Partners launched the Cornerstone Partnership, which helps shared-equity housing programs grow and share best practices. They also invested in the cooperative business ROC USA. The organization helps owners of manufactured homes work to together to purchase their land.
In 2011, Capital Impact received a $2 million grant from the Social Innovation Fund, a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Capital Impact used the grant to replicate shared equity homeownership programs that enable new homebuyers to partner with a government or nonprofit agency acting as a co-investor, providing the homebuyer with public funds to reduce costs. In return, homebuyers agree to share their equity appreciation to preserve affordability and return funds to the initial public investment. In October 2015, a piece in the Dallas Observer featured Capital Impact's "Inclusionary Calculator" to help cities address affordable housing zoning issues. In 2016, Capital Impact was awarded $4.8 million from the Community Development Financial Institution Fund's Capital Magnet Fund, which is given to aid low-income families and economically distressed communities.
As part of its projects in Detroit, Michigan, Capital Impact financed Diamond Place, an apartment complex in Grand Rapids, which contained approximately 100 units for income-restricted residents.
In March 2017, Capital Impact released a study focused on low-income residents and included advice for policy makers and developers to avoid displacement and relocation of residents in revitalized cities.