Our Impact
The Local Capital Pool allows donors to use their philanthropic dollars to make loans and equity investments that expand small business and affordable housing, allowing funds to be re-invested in the community.
Providing grants to nonprofits is not the only way we offer support. Impact investing—lending donor dollars for a particular project—is a growing aspect of philanthropy, and one that opens new doors for our community.
Lending funds allows us to ‘recycle’ charitable capital, so that these dollars can fuel future endeavors.
We invest in nonprofit organizations and for-profit social enterprises that measurably improve access to affordable housing, and equitably expand economic opportunity for marginalized residents of Northeast Florida.
Through the Local Capital Pool, we look to address and surmount the existing gaps and inadequacies faced by under-served communities when they try to obtain financing. Measurable local impact is our primary emphasis when we make loans and equity investments.
“For 60 years, The Community Foundation has partnered with people who want to give back to their community. Impact investing is an exciting way to give forward, helping address our affordable housing crisis through access to capital.”
– Isaiah M. Oliver, president of The Community Foundation
Impact investing dollars are already hard at work. By the end of 2024, The Community Foundation has committed more than $5.6 million to expand affordable housing and small business in Northeast Florida.
Our first investment was a $1 million loan to LISC Jacksonville, to be re-loaned to local Community Development Corporations (CDC’s) to advance affordable housing through home ownership, filling a critical gap in the area as rents have risen 31 percent in one year. Metro North CDC was able to build a new home for homeownership through this financing, with more to come.
Metro North CDC was able to build a new home for home ownership through financing from LISC and the Local Capital Pool in 2023.