Fewer than 2% of plumbers are women, but Anna Hall, the president of P&H Divine Plumbing in Chicago, is a barrier-breaking entrepreneur in the field. The first female plumber to work for the city’s Department of Water Management, Hall started her company to employ more people who looked like her and serve communities other contractors often avoided. Now, with an investment from LISC Fund Management’s Diverse Supplier Grant Initiative, sponsored by JPMorgan Chase, Hall is realizing her vision for growing Divine Plumbing. Meet her and learn more in the video below!

The second iteration of the Charlotte Housing Opportunity Investment Fund (CHOIF II) will boost new construction and restore existing developments to help narrow city’s wide affordable housing gap. With a $5 million investment from First Citizens Bank, in addition to investments from existing partners, this new phase will build on the more than 1,500 units created through the $53 million investment in Charlotte communities during CHOIF I, which launched in 2019.

A new impact investment fund is designed to help CDFIs ramp up local lending to minority business owners. The fund will purchase participations in previously originated loans to minority-owned enterprises from designated CDFI partners to free up capital for additional lending to entrepreneurs of color.

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.

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.