National LISC
LISC Chicago was founded in 1980 as part of a nationwide non-profit (501c3) corporation, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation headquartered in New York. LISC operates in over 30 cities and a like number of rural communities throughout the United States.
Founded in 1979 by the Ford Foundation, LISC helps both community-based and for-profit development organizations transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy ones – where people choose to live, do business, work and raise families.
By providing capital, technical expertise, training and information, LISC supports the development of local leadership and the creation of affordable housing, commercial, industrial and community facilities, businesses and jobs.
National LISC is governed by a Board of Directors headed by Robert Rubin, the former US Secretary of the Treasury. Other members of the Board include senior executives of major corporations and development organizations from around the country. Michael Rubinger, a distinguished veteran in the field of community development, is LISC’s CEO, guiding some 350 staff nationwide.
National LISC has also created a number of affiliated organizations over the years to provide additional technical and financial resources to the local LISC sites. Most prominent among these is the National Equity Fund, which syndicates low-income housing tax credits (a federal program) to generate equity for the development of affordable housing. In all, NEF has invested in 121,000 units of housing across the country.
As part of a single corporate entity, LISC Chicago operates as a unit of national LISC. That said, the local programs have great latitude in their policies and programs and rely to an unusual degree, relatively speaking, on the advice and counsel of the local Board of Advisors.
In the case of Chicago, the relationship between the national office and the Chicago Board is guided by a set of protocols negotiated several years ago that speak to such matters as communications, operations and policy-development.
National LISC maintains a healthy balance sheet, with net assets (as of 12/31/10) of $193 million. The national office also maintains pools of capital available as loans for projects in the LISC local service areas.
LISC Chicago generally draws on these pools for projects in the metro Chicago region, although we occasionally form syndications among local financial institutions for specialized programs – such as advancing funds to the City for projects in Tax Increment Finance (TIF) districts, or an acquisition fund to preserve multi-family projects that might be lost to the affordable housing inventory.