The Community Investment Advisory Council is ending 2017 on a celebratory note. Interest in the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s community investment programs has continued to grow this year, with five new member applicants and 25 new sponsor applicants for our competitive Affordable Housing Program and 263 members enrolled in our Downpayment Plus^® (DPP^®) programs.

We also applaud two new initiatives by the FHLBank Chicago in 2017 that exemplify the Bank’s responsiveness to the needs of members, community organizations, and consumers in our District:

First, with input from the Advisory Council, the Bank added a new requirement for homebuyers participating in the 2018 Downpayment Plus programs to receive pre-purchase education from a provider that has adopted the National Industry Standards for Homeownership Education and Counseling, or an online provider approved by the FHLBank Chicago—an important step toward guaranteeing consumers a consistently impartial, reliable, and professional source of advice. To make compliance with this new requirement easier, the Bank contracted with NeighborWorks to provide complimentary local training to providers in our District.

Second, the Bank introduced the Community First^® Capacity-Building Grant Program, recognizing an unmet need for funding to support the growth and sustainability of nonprofit lending institutions in Illinois and Wisconsin. The program allows agencies to use grant funds in ways most funding sources don’t—for example, to invest in strategic planning, technology, professional development for their boards and staff, or improvements to their financial or mission-related reporting. We’re confident that this funding will yield meaningful benefits, both for the six organizations that shared $250,000 in Capacity-Building Grants this year and for the communities they serve.

We are also pleased to welcome Cinnaire Lending as a Community First Fund partner, and to report that commitment of the fund is nearly complete. To date, Community First Fund partners have used 108% of funds distributed by the program, showing that the revolving loan fund is working as it was intended to, with repaid loans fueling new investments.

Finally, we’d like to celebrate the Community Investment Advisory Council’s second joint meeting with the full FHLBank Chicago Board of Directors this May. Once again, the Board was eager to gain insight from our experiences of how the Bank’s community investment programs are being used, layered, and leveraged within our District. We appreciated the opportunity for dialogue between these diverse groups, who represent a variety of communities and organizations throughout Illinois and Wisconsin, and we look forward to more of these meetings in coming years.

In service,

Diane Schobert, Chair

Mary Patoka, Vice-Chair