The First Ten Years at the Illinois Facilities Fund - IFF

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6BuildingnonprofitmuscleThe waiting room is always full on Tuesdaynights at CommunityHealth, a free medical facility on aworn stretch of Chicago Avenue, but tonight the coucheshave been pushed to the side and the children’s playhouseis serving as a coatroom. More than 200 guests,mostly in business attire, are celebrating the facility’sgrand opening, a $1.3 million investment in health carefor Chicago’s uninsured and working poor residents.The mood is triumphant.Joy Glazer, an LPN who is director of clinical services,remembers opening the first tiny facility in 1993. “Wedid no advertising but the first week we had four patientsa night. It rose to 20 the second week and we’ve beenbusy ever since.” In 1999, the free services provided by300 volunteer doctors, nurses and attendants attracted10,000 patient visits. For this kind of load, eventhe group’s second facility, a converted union hall, waswoefully inadequate. “It was hanging lightbulbs andhalf-walls around the exam rooms,” Glazer remembered.“In comparison, this building is like working in heaven.”Behind the terra-cotta façade of Community Health’sfirst permanent home are 12 private exam rooms, alaboratory, pharmacy, patient education room, volunteerlounge and offices. The Illinois Facilities Fund provideda $500,000 second-position loan and managed theconstruction. Honoring the volunteer culture of the145
organization, the IFF staff also turned out to help paintthe yellow and white walls. “This space is changing theculture of our organization,” says Roberta Sharpiro,executive director. “Our volunteers love working here,but more importantly, they love what the facility allowsus to do for patients. We can serve our patients withdignity. And it is opening up the way we think about ourwork. We used to let the space constrain us.That restriction is gone.”Nonprofits on the riseHelping nonprofits make a leap in quality has always beena central IFF goal, but accomplishing that often takesmuch more than a loan. For the IFF to be an informed andeffective lender, it has had to steep itself in the shiftingnature of the nonprofit world and grapple with theforces that can make or break any organization: markets,cashflow, government policy and management.If knowledge is the foundation of the IFF’s approach,research provides the building stones. Before theIFF incorporation papers were even signed, the fledglingorganization had commissioned its first study, ananalysis of the needs of Illinois children under the state’scare. The Chapin Hall Center for Children at theUniversity of Chicago documented that institutionsand group homes were losing government supportand that family-oriented foster homes were becomingthe placement of choice. But the study also noted thatthere would always be a need—and accompanyinggovernment support—for group homes that serveespecially disturbed children and those teenagers whowould resist a family setting. This knowledge gave theIFF enough confidence in its first three years to makefive loans for these types of facilities.“The lesson is that we should always do research to beaware of the needs of the nonprofits and whether therewill be long-term commitment from government orother sources,” says Logue. “We have to understand thewhole nonprofit world, including real estate but alsoprograms and funding and mission.”The next study laid out a huge potential market forthis knowledge-based lending. A 1991 survey of 472Illinois human service agencies, by Loyola University’sKirsten Grønbjerg, documented massive facility needs,including widespread building code and safety issues,plus a lack of government funding streams that could betapped to make the improvements. This suggestedthat agencies had to use their financial resources wisely,become better fundraisers and even get involved inchanging government policies.146147
Page 1 and 2: ADifferentKind ofLenderThe First Te
Page 3 and 4: There’ssomethingabouta building..
Page 5 and 6: invested toward a big problem, with
Page 7 and 8: What morecan we do forthe nonprofit
Page 9 and 10: make a venture capitalist smile. Th
Page 11 and 12: analysis of the program or services
Page 13 and 14: Illinois Facilities Fund Loans Clos
Page 23 and 24: The bricks were laid andthe mortar
Page 25 and 26: create public-private partnerships,
Page 27 and 28: Learning processBuilding the child
Page 29 and 30: We are bringing new sourcesof finan
Page 31 and 32: After numerous discussions at the b
Page 33 and 34: It was a remarkable process because
Page 35 and 36: The IFF will become thepreeminent f
Page 37 and 38: Paint-bucket chairsAcross the hall
Page 39 and 40: Agencies served by Real Estate Serv
Page 41: When I came to the oldfacility I al
Page 45 and 46: fine idea, but Chicago’s building
Page 47 and 48: 7APermanentinstitutionThe mood is a
Page 49 and 50: notes Mark Pinsky of the National C
Page 51 and 52: 1991 1992AssetsCash $ 2,475,000Gran
Page 53 and 54: 1995 1996AssetsCash $ 3,271,271Gran
Page 55 and 56: 1999 2000 ProjectedAssetsCash $ 10,
Page 57 and 58: Board member Jeanette Bitter andJim
Page 59 and 60: IFF staff member Kristine Westerber
Page 61 and 62: Former BoardFormer StaffJudy BlockJ

The First Ten Years at the Illinois Facilities Fund - IFF

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