The First Ten Years at the Illinois Facilities Fund - IFF

he would see things that others missed: an inflatedappraisal, for instance, or a poorly conceived floor layout.Bringing that kind of expertise permanently onto theIFF staff became a goal before the first set of child carecenters was finished, augumented by board memberssuch as Dan Azark of Hyatt Development Corporationand Bill Jones from LISC.A bit of technical assistance was always part of theIFF loan application process, and sometimes chewed uphundreds of hours as IFF staffers helped a borrower solveunexpected problems. Turning such work into a payingproposition made good business sense, but it didn’tgel until late in 1996 when the Chicago Department ofHousing hired the IFF to study its program to fundrenovations for nonprofits. Joe Neri was soon hired asdirector of the Real Estate Services division, and he foundplenty of work: analyses of community child care needs,feasibility studies on building proposals, and small jobshandling acquisition contracts, permits and schedules.The common thread is specialized knowledge, which iswhat Neri looked for as he built up his staff.The division’s current director, Gabriella DiFilippo,is the nonprofit world’s equivalent of a downtowndeveloper. She did most of the preliminary work forCommunityHealth, a $1.3 million project that involvedthe IFF from start to finish. DiFilippo worked withthe agency finding and purchasing a suitable building,financing the buildout with a bank loan and a $500,000second position IFF loan, and selecting the architectand general contractors. She then turned the projectover to Marquisos for construction management whileshe started over again, this time for a new child carecenter in the Back of the Yards.With as many as 10 projects underway at any onetime, the division has confirmed broad demand for itsservices, but one type of agency wasn’t fitting into theIFF’s offerings. Logue and Neri both had encounteredagencies that badly needed better facilities but weretoo weak financially to pursue them. “One group spentseven years talking about the critical need for anew home, but just couldn’t do it,” says Logue. “So wedesigned a program to help them get started evenbefore they had financing in place.”Out on a limbThe first participant in the Community Asset Builderprogram is Southwest Women Working Together, aprovider of services to battered and abused women.Working from cramped offices with inadequate privacyfor counseling sessions, the 25-year-old organizationnonetheless provided educational, emotional andsocial support to 13,000 women in 1999. It had solid130131