MESSAGE FROM LEADERSHIP
///////// An annual report is a funny thing to write in community development. We celebrate what finished, what opened (or closed in the case of loans), but none of this work fits neatly in a year. Groundwork is laid over months, years, decades: Relationships are formed and nurtured. Community input is sought. Plans are written. Adjustments are made as the unforeseen happens. The work moves forward at the speed of trust. While we pause here to celebrate the high points of 2022, I first want to take a moment to celebrate the behind-the-scenes inputs.
Our LISC Phoenix team kicked a** last year. And that’s no accident. We’ve built a team that collectively has strong community understanding, systems thinking, compassion and a desire to keep learning. We’ve layered in the expertise of consultants and trainers that keep us on that path, most notably the racial equity and racial justice training our whole team has delved into over the last three years and applied in real time to our decision making. Our team may not set ourselves up for accolades, but the quiet work has folks from all sectors coming to us to make their vision a reality.
In affordable housing, the steady success of the Pre-development Loan Fund, a partnership with Arizona Community Foundation, and recent impact of the Home Matters Arizona Fund led the Arizona Housing Fund to approach us to manage the application process for their permanent supportive housing fund. Together we designed a streamlined application process that allows known grantees a shortcut to funding and newer grantees the chance to prequalify before their projects need funding. On top of that, the Arizona Department of Housing kicked in a one-time infusion of $2.25 million for the Home Matters Arizona Fund, PNC Bank came forward with a $5 million EQ2 investment for a pre-construction loan fund and UMB Bank stepped up with an additional $250,000 of support. Taken all together, these partnerships are creating a continuum of funding for all stages of affordable housing development.
The Arizona Community Reinvestment Collaborative, which we have been managing since 2018, launched a more equitable competitive grant process this year designed by our team to ease barriers for applicants, compensate finalists for their time, and spark relationships between applicants and prospective funders. This opportunity to experiment with grantmaking is just one way the Collaborative is helping its CRA-eligible members grow professionally.
You’ll see even more examples or our team’s deliberate work below in our anti-displacement strategy, our economic development programs, the growth of our Financial Opportunity Center network and our new child care initiative. The thought process our team brings to these new projects is built on our learnings in recent years, a desire to continuously do better, and a willingness to keep pushing the boundaries to align the responsibility we have to both our funders and to our communities.
I couldn’t be prouder of the work we’ve done.
Sincerely, Terry Benelli Executive Director, LISC Phoenix
OUR IMPACT STORIES
ANTI-DISPLACEMENT
Preserving Roots: Anti-displacement Strategy Centers Culture and Community
If you’re reading this, we probably don’t need to tell you that Arizona has a diversity that’s unique. Start with the Indigenous communities who have called these deserts and canyons home continuously for millennia and Mexican communities here before statehood, add Black families arriving during the great migration and refugees from around the world looking for peace, then fold in everyone who’s moved here as Phoenix urbanized and the suburbs sprawled because Arizona is a place of possibilities. But housing is no longer cheap, summer nights no longer cool down, and we’re no longer willing to accept gentrification as the inevitable outcome of growth. That’s why supporting anti-displacement strategies and uplifting community voices are integral to our affordable housing, economic development and healthy communities programs.
In 2022, we joined with InSite Consultants, Trans Queer Pueblo, Cihuapactli Collective and Social Spin to host a Politics of Place focused on food sovereignty. We supported capacity building and community outreach for Copa Health’s successful application for their first LIHTC project, so the residents of Tempe’s oldest Latino community were centered in the planning. We supported the extensive research and community engagement needed for Mass Liberation AZ’s South Phoenix Displacement Report that recommends solutions to the constant threat in their neighborhoods. That report has been sparking conversation and will continue to be an organizing tool in the year ahead.
FINANCIAL STABILITY
Growing the Network: Financial Opportunity Center Brings in New Partner Sites
Since launching our first Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) in 2017 we’ve welcomed several organizations into the network. Over time we’ve had to say goodbye when the FOC framework was no longer the right fit for their strategic goals. Throughout 2022, Arouet was our steady performer, bringing financial coaching, income supports and job services to women transitioning into their lives after Perryville Prison. But we knew it was time to expand the local network to reach new communities.
Our longtime business development organization grantee, RAIL CDC, jumped on the opportunity to bring FOC services in-house. With technical assistance from LISC staff funded by Santander Bank, RAIL launched the Creative Academy for artists in Distrito Latino. They continue to provide FOC services to small business owners and community members. At the same time, three organizations went through our FOC pilot experience to see if the program and timing were right for them. Live & Learn has joined the network for 2023 and another will join later this year.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Pooling Resources: Leveraging Public and Private Support Pays-off for Small Businesses
Our SBA Navigators program started with 2022 with a press conference featuring program champion Senator Mark Kelly and ended 2022 with a tour that brought the Senator’s staff, LISC LAC members and national program staff out to our commercial corridors to check in on the results of pouring $100 million into a hub and spoke model to serve small businesses in selected communities. Along the way, small businesses in the LISC corridors also benefited from creative placemaking support funded by State Farm, the U.S. Bank Access Fund, Wells Fargo Open for Business, and Verizon Small Business Digital Ready. The true heroes of this work are the business development organizations like RAIL CDC, the Asian Chamber, and Southwest Human Development who provide training and assistance to help businesses be ready to access funding opportunities that are right for them.
Regardless of where a child receives care, it is critical that the space be safe, inclusive, and support learning.”
CHILD CARE
Research & Development: Child Care Business Programs Take Shape
We don’t take the decision to enter into new sectors lightly. In 2022 we took on a needed extension of our support for small businesses by doing a deep dive on the needs of families and child care providers in Arizona to understand where LISC Phoenix could be the best fit. The results of a year of data review, focus groups and analysis funded by Vanguard Healthy Start for Kids was Child Care and Early Learning in Arizona: A Landscape Analysis of Challenges and Opportunities, which we released in September.
As that research was coming together, the Arizona Department of Economic Security came to us for our track record of developing grant and technical assistance programs that keep equity at the forefront. The results of the $30 million Child Care Infrastructure Grant program we designed for ADES won’t show up in our numbers until next year, but months of careful planning in 2022 led to the launch of a grant that nearly half of eligible child care facility operators in the state applied for in less than two weeks, with more than 10 percent of applications being completed in Spanish and nearly 60 percent being BIPOC owned.
BY THE NUMBERS 2022
$81 M
leveraged
affordable homes & apartments
$3.2 M
invested
OUR FUNDERS
2022 Private Sector Support
Alliance Bank of Arizona
American Express
Arizona Bank & Trust
Arizona Community Foundation
AZCH - CCP
Bank of America
Bank of America Charitable Foundation
Bankers Trust
Banner Health
Bell Bank
BMO
Brophy College Preparatory
Capital One
CIT Bank, N.A.
Comerica Bank
Dudley Ventures
Enterprise Bank & Trust
Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco
FineMark National Bank & Trust
First Bank
First Bank Holding Company
Foothills Bank
Gorman & Company
Health Choice
Joseph M. Horiye
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
JPMorgan Chase Foundation
Lenovo
Lincoln Financial Foundation
Mercy Care
Molina Complete Care of Arizona
The NARBHA Institute
National Bank of Arizona
New York Community Bank, a division of Flagstar Bank, N.A.
Northern Trust
Melinda Nypen
PNC Bank
PNC Foundation
Santander Bank. N.A.
State Farm
Sunbelt Holdings
Tradition Capital Bank
TrustBank
U.S. Bank
U.S. Bank Foundation
UMB Bank
UMB Financial Corporation
United HealthCare
Valley Metro
Vanguard Strong Start for Kids Program™
Vitalyst Health Foundation
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo Foundation
Thank you to all the partners who make this work possible.”
2022 Public Sector Support
Arizona Department of Economic Security
Arizona Department of Housing
City of Mesa
City of Phoenix
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
U.S. Small Business Administration
OUR LOCAL ADVISORY COUNCIL 2022
Lisa Price, Chair of the LAC Wells Fargo
Marcos Garay, Vice Chair of the LAC National Bank of Arizona
Barbara Boone Alliance Bank
Teniqua Broughton State of Black Arizona
Saré Burke JPMorgan Chase
Katie Campana Wells Fargo
Angela Chavira TrustBank
David Dunlevy FineMark National Bank & Trust
Jennifer Fletcher MidFirst Bank
Jon Ford Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Marcos Garay National Bank of Arizona
Augie Gastelum Patchwork Community Inclusion
Imad Hatoum First Bank
Adam Herrera Bank of America
Thomas Hosier Stearns Bank
Maria Laughner City of Tempe
Luis Marquez BMO Harris Bank
Jeff McVay City of Mesa, Managers office
Gina Montes City of Phoenix
Mitchel Moore ACCEL
Roosevelt Moore State Farm
Jill Morrissey FineMark National Bank & Trust
Garrett Murdock U.S. Bank
Melinda Nypen JPMorgan Chase
Arturo Pérez U.S. Bank
Ramiro Pompa BOK Financial
Lisa Price Wells Fargo
Horace Raymond Arizona Cardinals
Nicole Reese Foothills Bank
Adrian Ruiz Valley Metro
Joan Serviss Arizona Housing Coalition
Alex Shaffer Arizona Financial Credit Union
Lourdes Sierra PNC Bank
Alan Smith Community Mortgage Banker
Mark Stapp Arizona State University
Serena Unrein Arizona Partnership for Healthy Communities
Michael "Steve" Warrick Amtrust, New York Community Bank
David Weinglass APS
Diana "Dede" Yazzie-Devine Native American Connections
Learn more at lisc.org/phoenix