Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)

From 2020 to 2024, LISC received over $100 million in donations from billionaire philanthropist  MacKenzie Scott. ²

Mission

LISC and its local partners engage in community projects that advance left-of-center policy outcomes. ³ LISC emphasizes its goal of “promoting racial, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity” in its target communities and in the organization itself, touting the fact that half of its staff are members of minority groups and two-thirds are women. ⁴

History

In 1979, a group of Ford Foundation officials developed the idea for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) while touring community development projects in Baltimore, Maryland. The next year, the Ford Foundation kick-started LISC’s community development efforts in anticipation of the Reagan administration’s anticipated cuts to social welfare programs with an initial investment of $4.75 million into LISC. ⁵ The Ford Foundation was one of eight original LISC funders, which also included the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Levi Strauss & Co. These funders helped LISC start out with an initial capital pool of $10 million. ⁶

LISC started by encouraging banks, insurance companies, and other businesses to invest in commercial ventures proposed by community advocacy groups. By 1981, LISC operated in 18 cities. By the mid-1980s, LISC had given more than $40 million in grants or loans to local communities. In the late 1980s, LISC used Reagan-era tax credits to allow donations between companies and local nonprofits. ^{7 8 9}

Programs

Housing

LISC funds low-income housing projects, especially in communities allegedly undergoing “gentrification,” where real estate prices are rising. ¹⁰

Community Leadership

LISC advertises its success at amplifying “the voices of progressive leaders” and runs a variety of training programs for left-of-center activists and heads of local partner organizations. ¹¹

The group is a founder of the Power Forward Communities, a coalition of nonprofits advocating for policy to improve local communities including decarbonizing and a focus on clean energy usage in low-income and disadvantaged communities. Other founders include Enterprise Community Partners, Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity International, and United Way Worldwide. ¹²

Education

LISC funds charter schools, early childhood care facilities, and other programs in low-income areas. ¹³

Race-based Investments

LISC maintains the Black Economic Development Fund in addition to its main programs, which target geographical areas rather than demographic groups. The Fund provides grants to development initiatives in primarily African-American communities. In the fall of 2020, the organization expanded its race-specific investing programs and introduced the Fearless Fund, which provides venture capital specifically to minority female-owned businesses. ¹⁴

Senior vice president for resource development Beth Marcus admits that LISC prioritizes female and minority applicants when reviewing applications for grants. The organization also claims that traditional tools for verifying an applicant’s background and eligibility are “marked by institutional racism,” and has program officers conduct second reviews of applications that initially get flagged due to poor ratings. ¹⁵

In November 2024, LISC announced that its Entrepreneurs of Color Fund, which makes loans to racial-minority entrepreneurs, reached its goal of $500 million in loans two years ahead of schedule, and therefore launched a new goal of $1 billion in loans. As of December 2024, the Fund has 9,500 outstanding loans in ten major metro areas. ¹⁶

Impact

In 2019, LISC issued $1.8 billion in grants, loans, and equity, which generated development projects worth $4.7 billion in total. The organization has offices and additional presences in hundreds of rural communities across the country. ¹⁷

LISC has an outstanding loan portfolio of $475 million, while Immito, a LISC affiliate company launched in 2018, plans to lend more than $100 million per year. LISC has a total of $14.9 billion invested in equity. The National Equity Fund, an affiliate of LISC, has invested $12.4 billion in housing. LISC affiliate New Markets Support Company has invested $1 billion for economic development programs, and the Community Development Trust, another affiliate, has invested $1.2 billion to preserve the long-term affordability of low-income housing. ¹⁸¹⁹

Since its founding in 1979, LISC has invested more than $22 billion into various initiatives and built more than 400,000 affordable housing units. ²⁰

Project 10X

In November 2020, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) launched Project 10X, a philanthropic initiative that claimed to advocate for reducing racial economic inequality over a ten-year period. LISC began Project 10X with $20 million in funding, including $10 million contributed by billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, with the goal of raising $1 billion in total. ²¹

From 2020 through November 2024, the project has received funding from several left-of-center advocacy groups and for-profit corporations. These include $850,000 from Cummins Advocating for Racial Equity, $2 million from the MetLife Foundation, $2 million from Walmart, $2 million from the Colorado Health Foundation, $2.45 million from the Anthem Foundation, $5.5 million from the Amazon Housing Equity Fund, $42.5 million from JPMorgan Chase, $20 million from Wells Fargo, and an undisclosed sum from Kaiser Permanente. ²²

Project 10X’s initially goals included providing support to African-American communities and small business ownership, supporting Black-owned financial institutions, and investing in “community health, digital access, education, arts, and justice.” ²¹ As of December 2024, Project 10X claimed to advocate towards promoting health-related policies in African-American communities and reducing crime while “addressing systemic racism in the criminal legal system.” ²³

Project 10X’s economic grants primarily run through the Black Economic Development Fund, which in 2024 reached $250 million in investments. By 2023, the Fund claimed to have created or preserved 8,541 homes, developed 5,700 affordable homes, deposited $17 million in five Black-owned banks, and invested over $166 million in Black-owned real estate companies. ^{24 25}

Controversy

In August 2024, financial support from the federal government was cut off to the Indianapolis, Indiana branch of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation after the branch failed to abide by auditing requirements. LISC’s local branch was funding food and business relief efforts through federal COVID-19 programs. ²⁶

Leadership

Michael Pugh

Michael Pugh has worked as the president and chief executive officer of the Local Initiatives Support Coalition since October 2023, and also works as an adjunct professor at St. Johns University. Pugh previously held several executive positions with Carver Bank Corp, Capital One, and Citizens Financial Group. ²⁷

Lisa Glover

Lisa Glover served as president and CEO of LISC from February 2021 to October 2023 and previously worked at LISC since 2007. Prior to LISC, Glover worked at U.S. Bank. ²⁸

Maurice A. Jones

Maurice A. Jones worked as president and CEO of LISC from 2016 to December 2021. Jones previously worked as Deputy Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under President Barack Obama. ²⁹ Under the Obama administration, HUD implemented a rule that withheld HUD financing from local, primarily suburban jurisdictions unless the jurisdictions graded themselves on their alleged racial and economic disparities and presented plans to address them, which sometimes included accepting the development of low-income housing projects. ³⁰

Financials

According to its 2023 990 form, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) reported a revenue of $373,059,143, expenses of $372,765,330, and total assets of $1,515,989,183. ³¹

Funding

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) generates most of its revenue from contributions. A smaller but significant portion of the organization’s revenue comes from profits from its financial services. In 2022, program services accounted for over 40% of LISC’s revenue, compared to just under 30% in 2017. In 2020, LISC raised over $290 million and spent over $283 million, compared to $155 million and $146 million respectively in 2017. ³²

In 2024, MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, donated $65 million to LISC, making it the largest grant in the organization’s history. In 2020, Scott donated $40 million to LISC. ²

In April 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency awarded a $2 billion grant to Power Forward Communities, a coalition of community environmental organizations that includes LISC, the Enterprise Community Partners, Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity International, and United Way Worldwide. ³³

Aside from the Ford Foundation and Scott, top nonprofit and for-profit financial contributors to LISC include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, and Pew Charitable Trusts. ³⁴ In August 2020, wholesale retailer Costco committed $25 million specifically to the LISC Black Economic Development Fund. Streaming service Netflix and payment processor Square also made commitments to the Fund. ³⁵ LISC president Maurice A. Jones referred to race-based investments by Square and other corporations as “economic justice” and “a racial reckoning.” ³⁶

LISC has received grants from several left-of-center organizations and government agencies including the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Small Business Administration. From 2006 through 2024, LISC received $628 million in federal funding. ³⁷