LISC’s 40-year history as a community development organization has taught us that people thrive when their communities are supplied with a set of interconnected physical, social, and economic assets. Our approach is comprehensive, embracing affordable housing development and workforce training, initiatives for better health, safer public spaces, and much more. Last year alone LISC invested $1.8 billion in hundreds of historically underserved communities across the United States.
Working closely with 2,500 local partner organizations—nonprofits with deep roots in their distinctive communities—LISC brings resources and technical assistance to city neighborhoods and rural counties that too often have been isolated from American opportunities. Working in partnership with mission-aligned for profit and nonprofit entities, we bridge the gap to equip community groups with the resources that allow them to do their best work. Our initiatives focus first and foremost on equity and inclusion, which we know are the basis for a prospering, resilient nation.
Our efforts are enhanced through federal commitments—both in the form of policy development that helps set the agenda for revitalizing disinvested communities, and funding that puts that agenda in motion. Federal commitments are the linchpin of LISC’s public-private partnership investment model, helping us attract billions of dollars of private capital each year to places it wouldn’t otherwise go.
We care deeply about the fine points of federal programs and appropriations; we’ve seen the difference they make. Here we advance LISC’s policy priorities for federal action. They cover seven areas of community development across 17 separate federal agencies, as summarized below. We are committed not just to pursuing action on the items highlighted in this document, but also on identifying additional opportunities for policy development and advocacy in the coming months and years.