Delta Diamond Ag stores and handles grains, a critical service for helping farmers bring their crops successfully to market. With a $500,000 loan from LISC’s Black Economic Development Fund, this rare African-American-owned facility is poised to change agriculture in the Delta. In recognition of Black History Month, we’re sharing this conversation with CEO Leigh Allen about how the company can serve area growers and the larger community, the importance of African-American representation in the agricultural supply chain, and his own deep affection for Delta farming.

In recognition of Black History Month, we’d like you to meet four organizations that, through support from LISC and the Black Economic Development Fund, are creating housing, employment and other economic opportunities in the neighborhoods that need them the most.

In a wide-ranging Q+A with Philanthropy News Digest, LISC President Denise Scott describes how the organization has pivoted and refined its strategies to support communities in the face of market shifts, climate disasters, a pandemic and countless systemic barriers to equity. What we need, says Scott, is “creative financing guided by collaboration with local people who are working toward lasting solutions—if we are going to really advance equity in this challenging time.”

Just three years since the founding of LISC’s Charlotte, NC office, the Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund is making promising inroads in the city’s affordable housing gap and inspiring other municipalities to follow its unique approach to public-private investment.

LISC's Black Economic Development Fund has reached a milestone, committing $122 million in investments to African American developers, entrepreneurs and lenders. The money is fueling growth for African American-owned banks, businesses and anchor institutions, and leveraging further economic activity in the communities of color where loan recipients are building and expanding. Meet some of the developers, projects and communities turning this capital into economic and racial equity.

LISC’s Black Economic Development Fund (BEDF) has committed nearly half it’s $250 million in capital, with the remainder of the fund expected to be invested by the end of the year. “This fund is a powerful model for social investing…” said LISC’s George Ashton.

An article in Shelterforce by former LISCer Nisha Mistry looks at the ways CDFIs are working to dismantle longstanding discriminatory roadblocks that have kept BIPOC developers from capital and other opportunity. The piece, which quotes LISC COO Annie Donovan and LISC Strategic Investments director George Ashton, is part of a must-read Shelterforce series on systemic solutions to the racial wealth gap.

Non-Profit Quarterly delves into LISC’s Black Economic Development Fund and the ways it aims to “reinforce vital economic infrastructure in Black communities” as part of the organization's work to help close racial wealth and opportunity gaps. LISC's Annie Donovan and George Ashton explain the impetus for and structure of the Fund and the impact it is designed to have over the short and long term.

Shelterforce takes a deep dive into how LISC's Project 10X and the initiatives under that umbrella, like our Black Economic Development Fund, are directing capital and other support to help catalyze wealth creation for people of color. This demands new levels of focus and intention, as with our work to ramp up assistance for BIPOC housing developers, says LISC COO Annie Donovan in the article.

LISC has announced the first five investments from the Black Economic Development Fund as part of Project 10X, its $1 billion strategy to address racial gaps in health, wealth and opportunity.