IFF Expands to Missouri, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin

IFF’s market research in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin revealed facility challenges for nonprofits, such as a growing need for primary health centers and early childhood care and education programs.

Since beginning regional growth, IFF has approved or closed 19 loans in outside Illinois totaling $11 million. IFF’s standard loan is a 15-year mortgage up to $1 million for real estate acquisition, construction or renovation. Loans are available as small as $10,000 for facility repairs, to purchase equipment and furnishings, and to undertake maintenance. IFF will finance up to 95 percent of total project costs.

To learn more about IFF’s Loan Program, discuss financing or request IFF literature to distribute, call IFF toll-free at (866) 629-0060.

A Shorter Name. A Larger Region.
The organization is now operating in all five states under the name IFF, and is no longer the Illinois Facilities Fund. Please make this change to your company’s database, web site or any other materials that feature IFF. Questions? Contact Robin Toewe, Communications Manager, at (312) 596-5141.

Early Impact of IFF Lending in Expansion States--Two Success Stories

Key community leaders in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin have helped IFF gain visibility with local nonprofits. Among the many IFF champions are John Kiley at the United Way of the Quad Cities in Davenport, Iowa, Kathryn Dunn of The Helen Bader Foundation and Jane Moore of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation in Milwaukee, Rex Reed at YouthBridge in St. Louis, and Lynn Kyle at Lampion Center in Evansville, Indiana.

With the support of so many individuals spreading the word on IFF’s behalf, loan volume is quickly growing as nonprofits discover IFF’s below-market rate loan program for facility and equipment projects. Two borrowers—Strive Media Institute in Milwaukee and Justine Petersen Housing and Reinvestment Corporation in St. Louis—reflect the types of projects for which IFF’s belowmarket rate loan program is designed.

Milwaukee After School Program Adds High School
Strive Media Institute provides after-school programs for youth through a three-tiered educational experience that combines education, film and video production and open-market commerce. The agency plans to construct SMI College Preparatory High School, designed to educate youth in print journalism, film and video production, marketing and technology. IFF provided a 15-year loan for $895,000 to acquire a site to construct the school and to refinance existing debt.

St. Louis Agency to Own its Space After Years of Leasing
Justine Petersen assists low-income families in purchasing homes by providing buyer education, loan counseling, and maintenance reserve account management. The agency is an SBA Micro-Loan Intermediary and a full service real estate agency. Justine Petersen acquired and renovated a two-story building to house its operations, replacing property it had been leasing. The new facility, a more visible and accessible location, will include the agency’s office along with a child care facility, federal credit union and office/retail space for agency-assisted micro-enterprises. IFF provided a 15-year loan for $462,500.

Executive Director Robert Boyle says, “We had given up on this project, until meeting IFF. Justine Petersen is a strong but complex organization, and our financials alone can’t tell our story. IFF staff took the time to understand our programs, strengths and commitment to the community, and approved a loan with rates and terms that were pretty unbeatable.”

Among many features of IFF’s loan program is that agencies contribute only five percent equity toward total project costs. For Justine Petersen, this meant only $37,500 cash along with a grant and seller financing. For Strive, IFF structured financing that required an even smaller cash contribution.

As your agency considers its next capital project, IFF is ready to assist with loans from $10,000 to $1 million for facility acquisition, construction, renovations and repairs, to purchase equipment or vehicles, or to undertake maintenance. Contact IFF toll-free at (866) 629-0060 to speak with a loan officer serving your region.

$10MM Grant Expands Charter School Bonds to Five States

Two years after launching its Charter Schools Capital Program (CSCP) with an innovative model for charter schools to benefit from tax-exempt, long-term bond financing, IFF has received notification from the U.S. Department of Education of a $10 million award to continue its program. This grant from the Department’s Credit Enhancement for Charter School Facilities Grants Program is the second awarded to IFF in two years. It will enable IFF to expand on the $48.6 million in bond financing closed since the program started, and allow IFF to sponsor bond financing for charter schools in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin in addition to Illinois.

Bonds issued to charter schools in 2006 and 2007 have created seven new campuses and improved two more, serving more than 5,000 students in Chicago. The credit enhancement pledge enabled each school to achieve an “A” rating, resulting in savings of more than $1 million over the life of the bonds.

IFF expects the $10 million credit enhancement grant to significantly expand quality public school options for families in the Midwest by leveraging more than $146 million in additional bond financing for 15 schools.

CSCP provides charter schools with a continuum of services to manage capital projects. The program includes IFF below-market loans for facility and equipment projects up to $1 million, bond financing for projects over $1 million and real estate consulting to assist schools to develop and execute capital strategies to meet growth goals.

To learn more about IFF’s Charter Schools Capital Program, contact Jill Levine, Director of School Services, at (312) 596-5108.

Study Reveals Challenges to Providing and Accessing Services in Latino Communities

Conducted by IFF and Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights, Opportunities and Challenges: A Community Perspective on Nonprofit Services for Latinos and Community Need documents the operating realities of nonprofit corporations in growing Latino communities.

From 1990 to 2005, the Latino population in the area nearly doubled to 1.65 million. Other studies have explored issues of economics, education, jobs and immigration status within Latino communities.

Opportunities and Challenges is the first study in the Chicago metropolitan area to examine the impact of the growth in the region’s Latino population on nonprofit service providers and the need for services in Latino communities. 

Focus groups were held in four communities—Round Lake Beach (Lake County), Woodstock (McHenry County), Cicero, Berwyn, and Chicago’s Lower West Side (Cook County), and Aurora (DuPage and Kane Counties)—during the winter of 2007, with nonprofit leaders and Latino residents.

Opportunities and Challenges key findings

• Latinos and the nonprofit providers serving them are affected by the limitations and confusion regarding the policies governing eligibility and benefits for legal permanent residents and other immigrants. Legal permanent residents who are children of undocumented parents are especially vulnerable because their parents often don’t seek services for fear of having their own immigration status disclosed.
• Nonprofits need increased bilingual and bicultural capacity to respond to the rapidly emerging needs of the region’s Latino population, especially mental health professionals.
• Planning efforts to increase services must focus on expanding the continuum of services for Latino children from preschool through postsecondary education, addressing issues such as teen pregnancy and dropout rates. Recent reports have discussed the trends in Latino educational attainment and the fact that children emigrating to the U.S. when they are older than eight are less likely to complete high school, a GED, and go on to college (Ready and Brown-Gort, “The State of Latino Chicago: This is Home Now,” 26-27).
• New and expanded resources will be most effective if successful service delivery models are replicated and local planning efforts are coordinated across the region.
• Nonprofit providers cannot respond effectively with the current level of resources given the considerable demand for their programs.

IFF conducts independent applied and primary research for and about the nonprofit sector, helping leaders make informed decisions about programs and services, resources, and public policy. To learn more about the types of research IFF undertakes, contact Susan Cahn, Director of Research, at (312) 596-5130.

Get Your Copy of Opportunities and Challenges
To read the full report, call IFF toll-free at (866) 629-0060 and ask for a hard copy to be mailed or click here to download the report as a PDF file from IFF’s web site.

Working Groups are Building Community Child Care Capacity

Families and communities reap many benefits when children have access to high-quality early childhood care and education. Children enter kindergarten prepared and eager to learn, parents are able to accept and maintain employment and increased family incomes fuel local and regional economies. Despite increasing levels of State funding in recent years for preschool programs, communities across Illinois often experience barriers to achieving effective program coordination to meet the needs of families. IFF, through its Building Blocks program, funded by Grand Victoria Foundation, assists high-need communities in Illinois identify and address gaps and plan together for better systems.

IFF-facilitated working groups, a component of Building Blocks, enable communities to assess their needs and put plans in place to bridge the gap between the need for more full-day, full-year early childhood care and education services and the funding available to pay for it. Working groups in Round Lake and Zion in Lake County and Woodridge, West Chicago, Glendale Heights, Willowbrook and Addison in DuPage County responded to IFF’s request for proposals inviting targeted communities to apply for assistance in completing a detailed analysis of supply, demand and barriers to accessing quality early care and education.

The groups are self-organized, and often include nonprofit and for-profit child care and social service providers, school districts and local government along with other key community leaders. IFF tailors each working group’s planning process to the needs and circumstances of its community, with the goal to move all toward increased capacity. For example, IFF’s analysis revealed one challenge in Round Lake is a rapidly growing demand for the state Preschool for All program. As many as 870 high-need preschoolers in the Round Lake Area School District can be served by only two small area programs.

At the end of the process for each community, working groups will develop action plans to increase access. “Whether IFF helps each community address barriers to participation in subsidized child care programs, assists them to better coordinate Preschool for All, Head Start and child care with full-day programs for working families, or helps in other ways, the Building Blocks program is ultimately helping each community increase capacity,” said Heather Heaviland, senior project manager.

Plan Before Expanding: Estimate Cash Flow

With over 17 years of experience helping nonprofits finance, plan and complete facility projects, IFF has accumulated knowledge and understanding of how nonprofits operate and their real estate challenges. Where possible, IFF documents and publicly shares its knowledge for the benefit of nonprofits. This includes a library of technical assistance worksheets to help with every stage of planning and managing a real estate development project. Worksheet No. 2—Projecting New Operations and Monthly Cash Flow—assists agencies in the early stages of planning a real estate project.

When planning a real estate project, it is critical to estimate monthly revenues and expenses for the first year of operations to determine if the proposed site is affordable and makes sense for the organization. Because many projects are driven by growth, planning for the sources, amounts and timing of new revenues and expenses are essential to launching and operating a successful program.

This worksheet will help an agency estimate the impact a project will have on its current revenues and expenses. Managers should test the assumptions the agency is using. Then, consider timing of cash revenues and expenses throughout the year and complete the monthly cash flow statement template (available below). This planning tool will indicate if a proposed program’s revenues can cover expenses each month, and help determine whether an agency should move forward with a proposed project.

This worksheet and accompanying MS Excel template can be downloaded here:

• Worksheet [PDF 54kb]
• Template [MS Excel 57kb]

If your agency is considering hiring an outside consultant to assist with project feasibility, planning or development for new space, IFF also offers full-service real estate consulting in the Chicago metropolitan area. Real estate professionals can assess an agency’s financial capacity, determine what type and size of space is optimal, identify and evaluate potential sites, negotiate property lease or acquisition, and more.

For more information about IFF real Estate consulting, contact Gabriella DiFilippo, Vice President of Real Estate Services, by email or phone at (312) 596-5102.