An article in Bloomberg highlights MacKenzie Scott’s recent unrestricted grant-making to nonprofits, including a $65 million gift to LISC. Unrestricted gifts like this, in addition to Scott’s 2020 donation of $40 million, allow LISC to intensify and build upon its work with a more flexible and innovative approach. As our CEO Michael Pugh noted to Bloomberg, “the ability to have unrestricted giving like this frankly allows us to unlock and tap into the American Dream for everyday Americans across our country.”

The CDFI Fund announced New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) awards to 104 organizations today, including a $65 million allocation for LISC, the largest amount allocated to recipient groups. It brings LISC’s total NMTC awards to nearly $1.3 billion, which we have leveraged to fuel the development of retail, manufacturing, health care, childcare, and education facilities in under-resourced communities. LISC’s NMTC work is managed by its affiliate, Broadstreet Impact Services, a community investor and fund services firm focused social and economic impact across the country.

By Bill Taft, Senior Vice President for Economic Development

In a new commentary for Shelterforce, LISC’s Bill Taft talks about the enormous value of small, community-focused development organizations to the people and places they serve—urging funders and investors to prioritize their well-being as part of larger strategies for place-based impact.

An article in Black Enterprise highlights Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund, through which LISC received $36M to provide grants, loans and expertise to small businesses serving low-income communities and communities of color during the pandemic—including Washington D.C. tailor Julius Lofton. Those investments have leveraged a massive $2.1 billion in impact for business owners, and local economies, nationwide, according to a new study.

In a Q+A with ImpactAlpha, Michael T. Pugh delves into the ways community development finance must operate in the wake of new affirmative action legislation, and what the big-ticket items on LISC’s 2024 investment list are, including small business support and green jobs and homes.

In an article in CNBC, Steve Hall, LISC’s vice president of economic development lending, analyzes the challenges small business owners face amid inflation and wage hikes coming in 2024. Balancing bottom lines with attracting talent and paying living wages in a volatile economic landscape makes for "a very precarious situation that small businesses find themselves in,” Hall said.