The First Ten Years at the Illinois Facilities Fund - IFF

2Balancingrisk andrewardAround a conference table, 18 IFF boardmembers and staff listen with rapt attention as vicechairand treasurer, Rhonda Hopps walks them throughthe proposed year 2000 budget. Like a storyteller, theAllstate Insurance Company investment analyst brings tolife each grey column of numbers, pointing out interestingspikes and valleys and putting each one in perspective.There’s $500,000 allocated to a new “board designatedendowment,” she notes, which will bring both financialstability and flexibility down the road. There’s a jump instaff costs. “Money well spent,” Hopps argues, for five newemployees.Then she calls attention to the real eye-popper:a $10 million projection for loan volume in 2000.“This will double our disbursements,” she says,checking faces to gauge reaction, “but we think it ismanageable.” Jane Bilger doesn’t flinch, though as theorganization’s director of finance and lending it is herresponsibility to move those dollars. “It’s a goodstretch number,” Bilger affirms, smiling with a banker’sconfidence. Hopps then concludes with a flourish,directing attention to the bottom line of the projectedstatement of position. “We’re looking at a $46 millionorganization next year.”Started with two staff and borrowed office space, theIllinois Facilities Fund has grown at a rate that would25