September 6, 2024 (Atlanta, GA) – Capital Impact Partners has selected 16 real estate developers from the city of Atlanta and its surrounding counties for the region’s inaugural cohort of the Equitable Development Initiative.

This free nine-month program will help Atlanta’s emerging real estate developers overcome the systemic obstacles that have prevented them from being more involved in the region’s booming real estate market — and, in turn, to bring more affordable housing and other real estate projects to disinvested communities.  

The Equitable Development Initiative is a landmark program created by Capital Impact Partners in 2018 in the Detroit region. Since then, the program has trained more than 250 real estate developers and expanded to several metropolitan areas throughout the United States.

From August 2024 through May 2025, program participants will receive the tools they need to grow their businesses — including training, technical assistance, mentorship, networking, and potential pathways for financing.

These 16 emerging developers are seeking to develop real estate in the city of Atlanta, as well as Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton, or Gwinnett counties:

• Ray Acosta, Dacula
• Miles Alexander III, Jonesboro
• Terry Brantley III, Atlanta
• Shelita Compton, Kennesaw
• Aaron Davis, Decatur
• Ashley Davis, Mableton
• Majesty Gayle, Atlanta
• Derrick Holland, Tucker
• Tomond Jack, Decatur
• Michael Oden, Marietta
• Marissa Phipps, Tucker
• Melvin Phillips, Atlanta
• Charles Robinson, Atlanta
• Lester Simpson, College Park
• Raven Thompson, Atlanta
• Ramon Tookes, Atlanta

“I’m pleased to welcome these 16 real estate developers and am excited not only to work with them over these next nine months, but also to see the impact they will create in our region’s disinvested communities for the betterment of their residents,” said Tommy Lester, manager of Atlanta initiatives for Capital Impact Partners. The mission-driven lender is part of the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations, which also includes CDC Small Business Finance.

A Need for More Affordable Housing Units in Atlanta

From 2010 to 2020, more than 800,000 people moved to the Atlanta region, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy. Home prices in Atlanta’s five-county core have increased by 73% since 2017, ​​according to a study by KB Advisory Group and Urban Land Institute Atlanta. Rent prices have also increased significantly, by 33%, and the five-county region has lost 130,000 units that had been priced at less than $1,000 per month. 

All of this has also made it more difficult for people living with low-to-moderate incomes to find housing, especially when they do not qualify for subsidies. And the increase in housing costs has also made it more expensive for the region’s residents to travel between their jobs and where they can afford to live. These increases in housing and transportation costs have particularly impacted communities that were already disinvested and in need of more opportunities.

How the Equitable Development Initiative Can Help

The Equitable Development Initiative is modeled after the successful program that Capital Impact Partners launched in Detroit in 2018. It has since expanded into several other regions facing similar situations, including the Washington, D.C. metro area; the San Francisco Bay Area; Dallas; and Cleveland. 

Capital Impact Partners also hosted a similar program in Austin called the Small Developer Training and has run other programs for more experienced developers.

Graduates of these programs have gone on to create important projects for their communities. For example, Edward Carrington, a graduate of the Detroit program, is building The Ribbon, a mixed-use building with one commercial unit and 18 affordable residential units; and Ayesha Hudson, a graduate of the D.C.-area program, recently created nine new affordable housing units and preserved four existing affordable housing units.

“The Equitable Development Initiative gave me a good foundation for how to do commercial real estate development,” said Ms. Hudson. “It opened doors for me, gave me instant access to an expanded network that would have taken much longer to build on my own, and accelerated my path forward.”

Historically, the real estate industry has been dominated by larger national and global firms. Helping Atlanta’s emerging real estate developers play a greater role not only helps them grow their businesses, but these developers are also often more focused on creating more affordable housing and adding mixed-use projects to historically disinvested areas. 

In Atlanta, the Equitable Development Initiative has been specifically crafted to confront the top challenges real estate developers face in the region. 

Developers will receive broad-based training — in areas such as obtaining funding, project budgeting, project and contractor management, site selection, sustainability, legal services, and community engagement — as well as local mentorship and network building. The curriculum will also include discussions about infill housing, missing middle housing, and transit-oriented development.

Program speakers will include representatives from government agencies as well as organizations that are seeking to create more opportunities for Atlanta’s disinvested communities. 

And Equitable Development Initiative participants will be connected with experienced real estate developers from Atlanta — including Leonard Adams, Daniel Alexander, Cassius Coleman, Joel Dixon, Darion Dunn, Sharon Guest, Cherie Ong, and Rod Teachy — who will serve as mentors or presenters. 

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August 19, 2024 (Arlington, VA/San Diego, CA) – Capital Impact Partners, one of the leading mission-driven nonprofit lenders in the United States, has now deployed more than $3 billion in lending since its founding in 1982 — much-needed financial capital that helps invest in otherwise disinvested communities.

That financial capital supports affordable housing, quality health care and education, cooperative development, healthy food and dignified aging facilities. Capital Impact Partners reached the milestone by financing projects that increase access to these fundamental social services.

Capital Impact Partners was founded at the direction of the United States Congress to support the development of cooperatives in disinvested communities. In the decades since, Capital Impact Partners has broadened the types of projects it supports and has incorporated a place-based strategy, concentrating its work in several geographic focus areas throughout the country.

Capital Impact Partners reached its first $1 billion in lending nearly 25 years after its founding and has rapidly scaled up, surpassing $2 billion in 2014, $2.5 billion in 2018, and $3 billion in 2023.

“Reaching $3 billion in lending is a significant investment. More important than that is what that investment represents — funding that helps open the doors for the opportunities that everyone deserves and supports an economic system that respects and uplifts all peoples’ right to achieve the dreams they have for themselves and their communities,” said Ellis Carr, president and CEO of Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Finance, both of which are part of the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations.

Throughout its 42-year history, Capital Impact Partners’ lending has delivered social impact across these sectors:

• Aging in Community: more than $125 million, supporting older adults with dignified community living
• Cooperative Development: more than $300 million to worker-owned and resident-owned cooperatives
• Education: nearly $1 billion, providing access to education for nearly 3,000 students annually
• Healthy Food: more than $200 million, providing more than 1.1 million people with healthy food options
• Health Care: more than $1 billion, expanding access for nearly 3 million patients
• Affordable Housing: more than $650 million, creating nearly 45,000 units of housing

Of the more than $3 billion in financing from Capital Impact Partners, more than $1.6 billion has been invested in Momentus Capital’s focus regions, supporting communities in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Detroit, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Washington D.C. region.

And as part of the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations, Capital Impact Partners is poised to do even more in the years to come.

Capital Impact Partners and CDC Small Business Partners, two nationally renowned nonprofits with decades of experience, formally came together under a shared mission and vision in 2021 and launched the Momentus Capital brand in 2022. The family of organizations also includes their affiliates: Momentus Direct Capital, Momentus Securities (a FINRA-member broker/dealer), and Ventures Lending Technologies.

Joining together as Momentus Capital has created an ability to support economic and community development more effectively, and at a larger scale. And it provides clients with access to more resources and products.

For example, in 2023, Momentus Capital deployed more than $531 million in financial capital, which:

• Served 627 small businesses and real estate developers
• Created or preserved 5,700 jobs
• Created or preserved 1,628 affordable housing units
• Funded educational facilities and businesses serving a total of 948 students
• Funded health care facilities and businesses serving a total of 57,807 patients
• Funded healthy food businesses providing an estimated 424,000 people with expanded access to food

Momentus Capital continues to seek innovative ways to drive more financial capital to those who need it. 

That includes launching Momentus Securities, an investment bank with a social purpose, which seeks to break up the logjam between the small business owners and community organizations that need financing, the mission-driven lenders that want to help them, and the institutional investors that seek to support these transactions.

And it also includes raising $171 million through the Equitable Prosperity Fund for impact investments, which differ from traditional debt capital and traditional venture capital by providing entrepreneurs with options beyond traditional debt, and by ensuring that these entrepreneurs maintain control of their companies. Momentus Capital’s impact investments aim to accelerate the growth of companies that are creating positive impact in underestimated communities, including through access to health care and healthy food.

Capital Impact Partners and the Momentus Capital branded family of organizations also recognize that financial capital is not the only way to support entrepreneurs and communities. Knowledge capital (what you know) and social capital (who you know, who knows you) are also important. That is why Capital Impact Partners provides free, extensive training programs for real estate developers throughout the country who are working to bring more affordable housing and other needed developments to disinvested communities.

“I am proud of the continued commitment shown every day by our talented and passionate team. We also did not get here alone — nor will we be moving forward on our own,” Mr. Carr said. “Momentus Capital cannot fulfill its mission without the support of the community leaders and stakeholders who guide us on how best to help; the local and national partners who join alongside us on projects and initiatives; and the organizations and investors who provide us with grants and other key funding that makes all of this possible.”