LISC Twin Cities Celebrates $1 Billion in Investments in the Twin Cities

As it celebrates its 35th Anniversary, LISC Twin Cities announced another major milestone: $1 billion dollars of investments. Over three and a half decades, LISC Twin Cities has channeled all of this capital into transformative organizations and projects, strengthened community development infrastructure and changed systems that create and perpetuate inequality of opportunity.

A Minneapolis Post columnist takes an in-depth look LISC Twin Cities’ Development of Color initiative, which has cultivated a cohort of visionary BIPOC developers committed to making a difference in their communities. The program helps equip them with the tools and resources needed to tackle barriers in their markets, including bridging gaps in accessing equity financing, “a key to broadening who works in real estate,” writes the author. “For these developers of color, there’s the equity gap, and then there’s the equity gap. This program is aimed at solving both of those problems.” The excerpt below was originally published on MinnPost: Twin Cities org gives tools, support to developers of color​​​​​​​ By Bill Lindeke

Not really a top ten, because we heard and told so many great stories this year—of challenges overcome and impact made—that it would be impossible to pick that few. But here is a selection of our favorites from 2022 (okay, ten) in words, pictures and social media characters. They help narrate some of what happened over the past 12 months, and we think they're too good to miss!

To support the resiliency and growth of Black-owned small businesses, LISC and Nielsen Foundation have teamed up to provide technical assistance and small grants that can help entrepreneurs surmount the ravages of COVID and historic racial inequities. Part of the funding is earmarked for business development organizations (BDOs) that work with Black businesses based in centers of Black American culture—the Crenshaw district in LA, Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, and Chicago’s South Shore.

In April 2021, LISC announced the launch of the Community Asset Transition (CAT) Fund. The CAT Fund was designed in partnership with Hennepin County, JPMorgan Chase, the Minneapolis Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the McKnight Foundation to rebuild after the civil unrest in response to the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.

Small business lending supports entrepreneurship, innovation and commercial vibrancy that lifts the quality of life in our communities. For organizations like LISC, it can also help transform the nature of property ownership, building wealth in underserved communities, especially communities of color.