Full text of Profitwise News and Views (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) : Issue 2, 2017

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A look at Detroit’s affordable
housing market
by Desiree Hatcher
The foreclosure crisis had a significant impact on
Detroit’s homeownership rates. The 2000 and
2010 censuses indicate that the homeownership
rate in Detroit was 54.9 percent and 51.1 percent,
respectively. According to the 2011-2015 American
Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, the current
rate is below 50 percent. Detroit now has more renters
than homeowners. As more residents move from
homeownership, increased focus is being placed on
the city’s rental housing market and the findings are
not entirely favorable.

Detroit has a rental affordability gap
In 2016, the city of Detroit’s Housing and
Revitalization Department commissioned a “Detroit
Inclusionary Housing Plan and Market Study.”
The study was prepared with support from HR&A
Advisors, Grounded Solutions Network, and Capital
Impact Partners. An objective of the study was the
evaluation of the city’s multifamily housing stock.
According to the study, while Detroit remains a
predominantly single-family home market (in excess
of 70 percent), there are over 125,000 multifamily
units, concentrated primarily in the Greater
Downtown area. The citywide average rent amount
is $702. Based on federal guidelines, the average
monthly rent in Detroit is affordable to households
making just above 60 percent of area median income
(AMI) – $32,177 in 2015 – or more. However, 56
percent of Detroit’s renter households make 50
percent or less of AMI ($26,815 in 2015).1
Further, the study indicates that 97 percent of the
city’s rental units are affordable for those making
80 percent of AMI; 86 percent are affordable for
those making 60 percent of AMI; and 67 percent
are affordable to those earning 50 percent of AMI.

However, just 23 percent of the units are affordable
for those making 30 percent or less of AMI. Slightly
more than 30 percent of city’s total renter households
fall within this income category.2

Renting is risky
The decrease in home values caused by the foreclosure
crisis made Detroit a magnet for speculative investors,
who began buying rental properties at the Wayne
County tax auction at an alarming rate. Some of these
entities began renting dilapidated, uninhabitable,
and sometimes dangerous properties to individuals
and families with few housing options due to
limited monetary resources and/or subprime credit
ratings. Further, many investors were not paying the
property taxes.
As a result, homeowners who became tenants as a
result of foreclosure were again faced with eviction
when landlords were foreclosed upon. According
to the website, propertypraxis.org, speculators now
control nearly 20 percent of all land parcels in Detroit.

Efforts to promote an environment of
safe and habitable rental stock
By ordinance, all rental property owners in the city
of Detroit are required to register their properties
and obtain a certificate of compliance as proof that
the property has been inspected and found to be in
a safe and habitable condition. Failures to register or
get a certificate of compliance are both punishable by
$250 fines. However, limited staffing has prevented
the city from enforcing this requirement. In addition,
the majority of rentals are not registered. The city has
about 2,500 rental addresses registered, while U.S.

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Census data estimate there are more than 136,000
rental housing units in the city. In 2016, Mayor Mike
Duggan warned landlords that the city was gearing up
for “a serious enforcement period,” aimed at helping
strong landlords thrive and making it unattractive
for those who abuse the system. The mayor has also
proposed amending the ordinance to require that
rental owners be current on property taxes to obtain a
certificate of compliance for their properties.3

Helping at-risk renters become
homeowners
In 2015, the Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA)
instituted a buy-back pilot program allowing eligible
occupants of DLBA acquired homes the opportunity
to apply to purchase their home. According to the
DLBA’s January 2017 Quarterly Report, eligible
occupants for the pilot program include:
• The most recent owner of record before the home was
acquired by a public entity;
• The tenant of the most recent owner of record before
the home was acquired;
• The tenant of someone who claimed to own the
property;
• Persons who can demonstrate that they have made
substantial improvements to the property; or
• Persons who have paid for utilities in the home for at
least 12 months.
The occupant must agree to pay $1,000 to the DLBA
for the home and make a monthly payment of at least
$100 into an escrow account for future taxes, for a
minimum of 12 months, or until the next tax payment
is due if that date is longer than 12 months after the
closing. The occupant is also required to maintain the
exterior of the property, keep their water bill current,
and participate in quarterly “home preservation”
workshops. The deed is held in escrow until that
period and conveyed to the occupant afterward. As
of January 1, 2017, 182 occupants had completed the
closings and taken advantage of the pilot program.4

Limited affordable housing
opportunities in downtown and
midtown
In 2011, specified downtown and midtown companies
began offering their employees incentives to live in
those areas. These incentives for new and existing
homeowners and renters succeeded in sparking
resurgence. New and renovated housing units were
developed to keep up with demand. By 2014, of the
available rental units in downtown and midtown,
98 percent and 97 percent were fully occupied.5 As
demand has increased, so have rental rates. However,
limited options have recently become available to
assist in maintaining affordability for some residents.

Stay Midtown
Current residents of Detroit’s midtown who are in
danger of being priced out of their apartments by
rising rents can receive up to $4,500 over the next
three years to help them remain in the booming
downtown Detroit neighborhood. Stay Midtown – a
partnership between Midtown Detroit, Inc., Capitol
Impact Partners, The Kresge Foundation, and the
Ford Foundation – targets midtown households
earning 51 percent to 80 percent of AMI that spend
over 30 percent of their income on rent.6
About $400,000 is available for the pilot phase. To
qualify, applicants must not be students and have
to have lived in midtown for at least two years.
Applicants must show proof that their rental rates
have increased more than 10 percent from last year.7

Micro-apartments
Scheduled for completion by mid-2017, downtown
Detroit’s residential real estate market will have 218
brand new fully-furnished micro-loft rental residences
with the addition of “28Grand.” Average unit sizes for
the brand new apartment will be 260 square feet. The
development will include 133 market-rate apartments
and 85 apartments for residents who qualify for lowincome housing tax credits from the Michigan State
Housing Development Authority. Each unit will
feature a full bath, kitchen, utilities, Wifi, custom

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built-in cabinetry, and storage. All units are fully
furnished, including a double bed and television, to
provide residents with a turnkey living experience.
The building will feature 4,500 square feet of first
floor retail space and will be the largest ground-up
residential development in the city’s Central Business
District since the 1980s.8
Though micro-apartments are more closely
associated with expensive cities such as New York,
Seattle, and San Francisco, they are also appearing
in the downtown markets of Midwest states such
as Indianapolis and Des Moines. The shift toward
smaller apartments can be seen as simple economics:
smaller apartments are more profitable for developers
to build and more affordable for tenants to rent.
A study by the Urban Land Institute found that
units smaller than 600 square feet rented for $2.65
per square foot – 54 percent more than apartments
between 600 and 1,000 square feet, and 81 percent
more than apartments larger than 1,000 square
feet. However, not everyone loves micro living. The
study collected completed surveys from 110 microapartment renters, finding that they were less likely
than traditional renters to be satisfied with the value
they got for their money.9

Tiny houses
Detroit’s Cass Community Social Services (CCSS) is
in the process of building 25 different “tiny homes”
(250-400 square feet) on the north end of its campus,
approximately three miles north of midtown. Each
home will be on its own lot (roughly 30 x 100 feet) and
foundation. Most will have a front porch or rear deck
to increase the living space. The houses are primarily
targeted to low-income households who are formerly
homeless, senior citizens, or college students.10
The development will address three critical issues:
transforming the homeless into homeowners;
bringing density to an area that has vacant lots
and abandoned houses; and creating inexpensive,
environmentally friendly housing in the community.
Also, residents in the tiny homes will be within
walking or cycling distance to most of the other
services available at CCSS, including educational,

recreational, nutritional, medical, mental health
programs, and social activities.11
While the homes are affordable, residents must meet
income qualifications. A 300-square-foot home
will cost $300 in rent each month, plus heating,
which is estimated at $32 per month in the winter.
The organization is using a rent-to-own model,
where tenants graduate from a rental lease to a land
contract, with full ownership rights after seven years.
A 300-square-foot home will cost about $48,000 to
build, a figure that could decrease as the organization
achieves economies of scale. The Ford Foundation has
contributed $400,000 to this project.12
Tiny houses are gaining in popularity nationwide.
YouTube.com is replete with videos of people
building and promoting tiny houses as a method
for downsizing to a simpler life, freeing themselves
of stressful and excessive mortgage payments, or just
getting “off the grid.” There are even cable shows
devoted to this population. These homes, usually 100
to 500 square feet in size, are not a new phenomenon.
However, they are new to the city of Detroit.

Proposed inclusionary housing
ordinance
Detroit city leaders pulled together a work group of
nonprofit housing advocates, developers, planners,
and land-use professionals to address the issue of
inclusion in Detroit. These efforts have resulted
in drafting Detroit’s first inclusionary housing
ordinance with the goal of creating mixed income
housing in new development and rehabilitation
projects. The ordinance will mandate that developers,
who receive city-owned property at less than true
cash value and/or public funding, set aside 20 percent
of their units for residents and families making no
more than 80 percent of AMI for at least 30 years.
It will create a mechanism for enforcement through
an income verification process to ensure that the
designated units actually go to low-income residents
and families. The ordinance will also appropriate
funds, collected from penalties assessed on landlords
not in compliance, to create a housing trust fund,
the Detroit Affordable Housing and Development
Preservation Fund. This fund will address affordable
housing needs for Detroit’s most vulnerable citizens,

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families earning 50 percent of AMI or lower, with
a majority going toward individuals at or below 30
percent of AMI.13

Conclusion
The foreclosure crisis changed Detroit’s housing
occupancy landscape. The city now has more renters
than homeowners. City officials are working to study
and understand the rental market and now have
evidence that, though affordable options exist, a
significant affordable housing gap remains, especially
for residents in the lowest income brackets. The
rental market is extremely competitive, with those at
or below 30 percent AMI having the fewest choices
and the greatest likelihood of living in the most
uninhabitable conditions. As the new administration
in Washington, DC, looks to include housing as
part of its proposed budget cuts, Detroit’s proposed
inclusionary housing ordinance may offer a new
opportunity in addressing the housing needs of the
city’s most vulnerable residents.

11. Runyan, Robin, 2016, “A Community of Tiny Homes Could Help Detroit’s Homeless,”
Curbed Detroit, May 19, available at https://detroit.curbed.com/2016/5/19/11713616/
tiny-homes-community-detroit-homeless.
12. Runyan, Robin, “This tiny house could be a game changer for the low-income
population in Detroit,” Curbed Detroit, September 9, available at https://detroit.
curbed.com/2016/9/9/12860756/tiny-house-detroit-neighborhood-low-income.
13. Sheffield, Mary, 2017, “Ordinance is Step in Right Direction for Detroiters,” Detroit
Free Press, February 9.

Biography
Desiree Hatcher is a community development and Michigan
state director in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s
Community Development and Policy Studies division.

Notes
1. City of Detroit, 2016, “Detroit Inclusionary Housing Plan and Market Study,”
November, available at http://www.detroitmi.gov/Portals/0/docs/HousingAndRev/
HRandA%20Detroit%20Inclusionary%20Housing%20Study.pdf.
2. Ibid.
3. Ferretti, Christine, 2016, “City pushes landlords to register rental properties,”
The Detroit News, June 10, available at http://www.detroitnews.com/story/
news/local/detroit-city/2016/06/10/city-pushes-landlords-register-rentalproperties/85692976.
4. Detroit Land Bank Authority, 2017, “Quarterly Report,” January, available at http://
www.buildingdetroit.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/DLBA-City-CouncilReport-January-2017.Final_.pdf.
5. “7.2 SQ MI: A report on Greater Downtown Detroit, Second Edition,” available at
http://detroitsevenpointtwo.com/resources/7.2SQ_MI_Book_FINAL_LoRes.pdf.
6. Thibodeau, Ian; 2016, “Rent subsidies available for Midtown residents,” The
Detroit News, November 4, available at http://www.detroitnews.com/story/
business/2016/11/04/midtown-affordable-program/93297352.
7. Ibid.
8. See www.28granddetroit.com.
9. Clark, Patrick, 2015, “Micro-apartments are coming to the Midwest,” Bloomberg
News, July 27.
10. See casscommunity.org.

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Investing in Healthy Communities:
Ideas to Action for Healthy People, Places
and Planet – A conference summary
by Steven Kuehl, Susan Longworth, Lisa Richter, and Jennifer Riggenbach
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and Incourage1 co-sponsored a conference, “Investing in Healthy Communities:
Ideas to Action for Healthy People, Places and Planet,” on December 7, 2016, in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin.
More than 200 participants from the fields of business, philanthropy, health care, academia, and government attended
the conference. This ProfitWise News and Views article provides an overview of the event, summarizes the salient
points from the keynote speakers and panelists, and concludes by discussing the way forward for healthier communities
in Central Wisconsin.

Overview
The Wisconsin Rapids event was the third in a
Wisconsin series and built on earlier events in
Milwaukee (December 2014)2 and Platteville
(July 2015)3. Co-sponsored by the Federal Reserve
Bank of Chicago and local leaders, the earlier
conferences highlighted the connections between
health, community development, and economic
development in urban and rural communities, as
well as the opportunities for these fields to improve
outcomes by working together. This third conference
focused on the role of investing to build healthy
communities, including how financial investments
by banks and socially motivated “impact investors”
can help to foster equitable access to health and
human development, while contributing to regional
prosperity and preserving natural resources.

Conference goals
Conference sponsors identified three specific goals:
1. Create common ground. Affirm the definition
of health, the determinants of health, and the
critical importance of health and health equity

to regional prosperity. According to the World
Health Organization, “Health is a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”4 The
social determinants of health are highly relevant
in community development and impact both the
quality and length of life. They include the physical
environment, socioeconomic factors, and access to
quality health care. Health equity describes conditions
where everyone has the opportunity to attain their full
health potential. affirms health for all – in policies
and plans, as well as economic and community
activities.
2. Support movement from idea to action. Examine how
a community/region can harness all of its resources to
foster health and human development for all residents.
3. Set the stage for ongoing regional collaboration.
Promote a sense of shared purpose among local health,
community development and economic development
networks, and with similar networks across larger rural
and urban regions. Local economies need regional
partnerships and vice versa. Profile partnerships that
model productive relationships and set the stage for
ongoing regional collaboration to optimize health and
prosperity for all.

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Broad conference themes
Consistent with the emphasis in the conference title
on healthy people, places, and planet, three broad
themes were highlighted:
1. People–Healthy Human Development over the
Life Course. Our nation’s health disparities provide
evidence of the risks of not investing in healthy human
development. Healthy communities invest private and
public dollars to ensure equitable access to quality,
affordable housing, child care, education, recreation,
health care services, healthy food, healthy workplaces,
and a range of services for affordable, dignified aging
in place.
2. Places – Employment and Workforce Development.
While place is the focal point for all efforts to foster
equity and health, unstable or lack of employment
in rural areas poses particular health and economic
risks. Communities seek resiliency through a range
of approaches – from stimulating local businesses and
farms that create jobs, to preparing a diverse, qualified
workforce, to connecting workers to jobs. Public and
private partnerships, including impact investing,
help to fuel the growth of businesses, nonprofit
organizations, and entire sectors, such as sustainable
agriculture, green building, and home health care,
which provide jobs while enhancing community
health.
3. Planet–The Environment. In rural communities,
environmental risk factors include agricultural or
industrial methods that pollute or deplete natural
resources. To foster a healthy environment, farmers,
businesses, and others are “greening” their approaches,
often with financing from community development
financial institutions (CDFIs), banks, and others.
Investors in the broader public markets for stocks
and bonds are implementing low carbon and green
strategies that reinforce environmental stewardship
and performance reporting. Conducive public policy
is critical to advance these efforts.

Welcoming remarks
Alicia Williams, vice president, Federal Reserve
Bank of Chicago, welcomed everyone to the event
and described how it was the 34th conference in

the Healthy Communities5 series across the Federal
Reserve System. Williams noted, however, that it was
the first one to focus on how financial investments by
banks and socially motivated “impact investors” can
help to foster better health and economic outcomes.
Williams explained that many of the familiar tools
in community development – facilities and service
delivery in the largest part – can impact both health
and socioeconomic status. However, she emphasized
that improved economic outcomes hinge on illness
prevention, wellness, security, and above all, human
development at all stages of life.
Kelly Ryan, president and CEO, and Kristopher Gasch,
board chair, Incourage, also provided a welcome to
the event co-sponsored by their organization. Ryan
stated that the conference goals were closely aligned
with the vision of her organization: to work with
residents to realize a community that works well for
all people. For Incourage, such a vision can only be
realized by recognizing the interdependence amongst
community stakeholders. In short, people are the
most important asset and positive community change
happens when individuals have the opportunity to
succeed. Ryan believes philanthropy has untapped
potential in its investment portfolios to impact
health and socioeconomic outcomes, and Incourage
is committed to deploying its financial capital and
aligning its resources to advance its vision. Gasch
stated that the public sector is a vital partner in
the fields of health and community development.
Communities need strong, courageous public
leadership that is principled, and has vision and the
ability to help others see the potential in their places,
he concluded.

A message from Wisconsin Rapids
Zach Vruwink, mayor, city of Wisconsin Rapids,
emphasized the important role that local communities
play, given that local governments have the ability to
be more nimble than their national counterparts and
are more accountable for producing results because
they are closer to their constituents.
David Greendeer, representative for the Ho-Chunk
Nation Central Wisconsin, welcomed the audience
on behalf of the approximately 7,500 tribal members
in the state of Wisconsin. Greendeer described how

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the Ho-Chunk Nation, which regards itself as an
independent country, has historically been one of the
poorest tribes in the United States, with no modern
housing stock until the 1990s. With the advent of
gaming, the tribe has become a multi-billion dollar
organization and Greendeer sees much untapped
potential within his tribe. He stated that Wisconsin,
and other neighboring states, remained relatively
unaware of the potential for economic growth
within the Ho-Chunk Nation. Greendeer invited
participants to collaborate with the tribe to achieve
economic development.

Part 1. Perspectives from the Healthy
Community Frontier: The convergence
of population health, community
development, and economic
development – a vision for healthy
rural communities
The conference’s first panel discussion explored
how public and private leaders are advancing a
culture of health. Julie Willems Van Dijk, director,
County Healthy Rankings Roadmaps (Roadmaps),
summarized the 2016 Wisconsin County Health
Rankings to highlight differences between rural
and urban communities. Roadmaps, a collaboration
between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
(RWJF) and the University of Wisconsin Population
Health Institute, serves as a tool to compare nearly all
of the counties in the United States with others in its
state, to illustrate how health is influenced by social,

Map 1. Overall rankings in health outcomes (Wisconsin)

Source: County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.

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economic, and environmental factors. These rankings
provide a starting point for change in communities.

Willems Van Dijk explained how map 1 represents
the relative health of Wisconsin counties using health
outcome measures: length and quality of life.

Map 2. Overall rankings in health factors (Wisconsin)

Source: County Health Rankings and Roadmaps.

Map 2 ranks the future health of counties based on
factors of health behaviors, clinical care, and the
social, economic, and physical environment.

suggest that, while all other non-rural areas have seen
health improvements, it appears that health outcomes
in rural communities are getting worse.

For both maps, degrees of ‘health’ range from light
(most healthy) to dark (least healthy).

Willems Van Dijk pointed to resources that exist
which help rural communities improve their health
outcomes, such as an evidence analysis of strategies.
Further, Wisconsin can learn from two local RWJF
2015 Culture of Health prize winners: the Menominee
Nation and the Waaswaaganing Anishinaabeg (Lac
du Flambeau) Tribe.

Willems Van Dijk noted that rural counties almost
universally suffer from less than optimal health
outcomes. Factors contributing to poor health
outcomes for rural Wisconsin counties are: low
educational attainment; high unemployment; and
a high percentage of children in poverty, a trend
that is echoed nationwide. Even more disturbing,
emphasized Willems Van Dijk, is that recent data

Katie Wehr, program officer, RWJF, introduced
RWJF as the largest philanthropy in the country
dedicated to improving the nation’s health and grants

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Figure 1. Differences in life expectancy and health
care spending across OECD countries, 2010
Life expectancy at birth, years
84
83

jpn
esp

82

isl

81

grc
kor

80

ita

nzl
gbr

prt

aus fra
swe

fin

bel

can
aut

nld
irl
deu

nor
lux

dnk

79

usa

78

cze

77
pol

76

svk

75
tur
mex

74

hun

73
0.0

1,000.0

2,000.0

3,000.0

4,000.0

5,000.0

6,000.0

7,000.0

8,000.0

9,000.0

Total expenditure on health per capita, US $PPP

Source: OECD Health Data 2010.
with over $400 million each year in urban, rural, and
tribal communities. Wehr pointed out that although
the US spends more than any other nation, Americans
live shorter, less healthy lives – outpacing peer
countries in early morbidity across all causes of death.
Considering what could be contributing to this
difference, Wehr explained that the US invests much
more in health care – taking care of those who are
already sick. Because Americans invest less in illness
prevention, greater health care spending doesn’t
translate into longer life expectancy, as illustrated in
figure 1 which compares health expenditures and life
expectancy across other developed countries.
Wehr noted that health varies by where you live: just
a few subway stops can mean improved educational,
environmental, health care, nutritional, housing, and
employment opportunities. This disparity exists not
only in urban areas, but also in rural areas. Wehr

emphasized that to improve the nation’s health,
there needs to exist a shared belief in the value of
health and community. Multi sector collaborations,
across the housing, education, transportation, and
health sectors, can create improved outcomes though
efficient resource utilization.
Farshad Maltes, director of strategic business
development, Wisconsin Housing and Economic
Development Authority (WHEDA), described how
WHEDA incorporates a culture of health in its
community and economic development financing
policies. He stated that the economic development
community already knows the strategies required
to achieve successful health outcomes. However,
two challenges remain. First, there is a lack of
money and resources; and second, community
members must be included in order to build trust
and sustain outcomes. To address the lack of money
and resources, for example, WHEDA financed the

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Menominee Market Food Co-op, a communityowned grocery store providing access to healthy
food choices, using a complex financing structure
leveraging many different sources, including New
Markets Tax Credits, which incentivize community
development and economic growth in order to
attract private investment to distressed communities.
Additional financing came from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (USDA) Business & Industry Loan
Guarantee Program. Maltes also pointed out that
WHEDA has used conventional financing on other
health-related projects, such as the Gerald L. Ignace
Indian Health Center, Inc., in Milwaukee and the
Access Community Health Center in Madison. Both
clinics provide health services in low-income, urban
areas. Further, WHEDA helped to finance a new
health center and library in Platteville, which serves a
rural population.
David Erickson, director of community development,
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, emphasized
four main points. First, health is not medical care;
rather, health is the result of socioeconomic indicators
such as income, educational attainment, access
to healthy food, and the safety of neighborhoods.
Second, low-skill, middle-wage jobs no longer exist
and therefore the focus of public policy should be
to increase the educational attainment of workers
and thereby productivity, in order to increase wages
and incomes. Third, there is a growing marketplace
comprised of consumers, institutions interested in
purchasing better health outcomes, and organizations
that are skilled at connecting buyers and sellers.
Fourth, disrupting the tight grip of intergenerational
poverty is very difficult, but progress is achievable and
the potential benefit to both the local community
and the surrounding region is enormous. Key
elements to accomplishing healthier communities
are: cross-sector collaboration among (local) interests,
including private industry, education, health care,
and public safety; initiatives and programs guided by
passionate individuals; data driven interventions that
have the support of the community; and a backbone
organization or “community quarterback” to ensure
continued progress.

Part 2. Moving from Idea to Action
on Building Healthy Communities:
How communities can move from
ideas to action in building healthy
communities, including the role of
impact investing
Breakout 1. Investing in People over the Life Course –
Childhood (Part 1)
One would be hard-pressed to argue against providing
quality, safe, affordable child care. However, panelists
described the challenges they face in ensuring that
this most vulnerable, yet essential, segment of the
population is cared for in a manner that meets the
needs of the entire family. While the challenges of
poor pay ($10/hour in rural Wisconsin), mounting
regulation, stagnant subsidies, and decreasing supply
are daunting, the panelists illustrated how these
obstacles are being overcome through hard work,
dedication, and collaborative innovation.
The St. Anne’s Center for Intergenerational Care grew
out of the need to ensure that caregivers for the elderly
did not miss work when their children were sick or
out of school. Sister Edna Lonergan, who developed
the center, noted how intergenerational interaction
extends the life span of the elderly by seven years and
advances childhood development by 11 months by
kindergarten age. Salli Martyniak, president of the
CDFI, Forward Community Investments (FCI),
described how FCI purchased a building on behalf
of a child care provider operating in a neighborhood
that was becoming a “child care desert.” The patient
capital and tax credits that her organization was able
to provide allow the provider to manage cash flow as
their business grows. Each of these examples requires
innovative, patient capital, many diverse partners,
and a dedicated champion to see them through,
according to Martyniak.
Doug Jutte, panel moderator and executive director
of the Build Healthy Places Network, described that
over $3 trillion is spent each year on medical care
in the United States. The budget for Head Start is
less than one-third of 1 percent of that amount ($8
billion/year), and yet, half of all eligible children are
turned away from Head Start funded agencies for

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lack of resources. While the case that prevention is
more cost effective than treatment in preserving good
health and preventing disease is well understood,
converting that understanding into investments
in early childhood education – when the impacts
of chronic poverty, trauma, and stress are most
damaging – remains challenging.
Kelly Borchardt, executive director of Childcaring,
Inc., a child care resource and referral agency, detailed
that challenge for the people in rural Wisconsin in
stark terms:
• In Wisconsin, 74 percent of children under the age of
six have resident parents in the labor force.
• Infant care and care for children whose parents work a
second or third shift is in very short supply – especially
in rural areas.
• In Wood County, where the conference was held, the
cost to provide child care for two children can exceed
$15,000 a year.
Nonetheless, since 2005, families in Central
Wisconsin have experienced a 60 percent reduction in
their child care choices. Borchardt detailed a precise
course of action to address the deficit in affordability
and accessibility of child care:
1. Supplement child care programs; subsidy rates have
been frozen for several years.
2. Build the supply of child care programs to reverse the
decline.
3. Maintain a quality child care work force; the average
wage of a child care provider is $10/hour without
benefits.
4. Increase the number of children in quality child care
programs.
5. Expand public-private partnerships with intentional,
creative, community-level planning.
An overriding theme of the conference was the need
to create a market that values health. In the case of
children, the experiences and opportunities of early
life will have significant impact throughout the life
course. A market that invests in these early years will
reap benefits across decades and perhaps generations.

Breakout 2. Investing in People and Place: Healthy Food,
Healthy Economy, Healthy People
Panelists discussed how strengthening regional
food systems provides the opportunity to increase
community access to healthy, fresh food, while
also creating equitable access to jobs and lower
transportation-related carbon emissions. Mike
Bedessem, vice president business development,
Organic Valley Cooperative (OVC), attributed their
success to a rural/urban partnership – rural farmers
grow food and people in cities eat the food. Although
OVC pays a premium to farmers for their products,
it has enabled both the cooperative and its supplying
farms to prosper and grow.
Jeff Metoxen is director for the Oneida Community
Integrated Food Systems (OCIFS), a series of
projects on the Oneida Reservation created to grow
the local economy through the food system. The
OCIFS includes a food distribution center, orchard,
cannery, retail business, two farms, farmers markets,
community gardens, and involvement with the
local 4-H. In creating OCIFS, the Oneida made
a commitment to their people and the cultural
significance of self-sustainability. He described his
experience managing Tsyunhehkwa, the organic
farm on the reservation, which is challenged to be
both profitable and offer affordable prices to residents.
Joel Kuehnhold, owner, Lonely Oak Farm, is a fourth
generation farmer who left a career as an agricultural
education teacher to focus on his family farm. While
in college, Kuehnhold learned about the modern
food system and vertical integration, but stated
he was inspired by his grandparents’ description of
the diversified array of farm products they sold into
the local economy and that were enjoyed by local
consumers. Kuehnhold now raises 200 sheep, 200
laying hens, has an on-farm canning operation, and
runs a 40-person community-supported agriculture
(CSA) farm.
Layne Cozzolino is executive director of Central Rivers
Farmshed, which connects a local food economy in
Central Wisconsin. Farmshed publishes the Central
Wisconsin Farm Fresh Atlas, which helps residents
to locate and support local farms in an 11-county
region. Farmshed also provides programming that
has an economic impact on community farmers,
such as: the Local Food Tastes Great Fundraiser,

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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which raises money for local schools by selling locally
grown and raised products; the Local Food Buying
Club, a local produce bulk purchasing option;
Frozen Assets, which freezes bulk produce for sale
through a community supported agriculture model
throughout the winter; and FoodShare, which offers
the opportunity to use benefit cards at two farmers
markets. Cozzolino emphasized that consumers,
farmers, and the local economy all benefit from an
interdependent, sustainably grown food system.

Breakout 3. Investing in People and Place: Community
Health Needs Assessments – A Tool for Regional
Investment Strategies
The Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA)
and Community Health Implementation Plan
(CHIP), mandated by the Affordable Care Act,
can motivate community investments that improve
health. By thinking differently about their investment
strategies, health systems and hospitals are improving
the health of their communities and neighborhoods.
Kristie Rauter Egge, community health planner/
health promotion specialist, Wood County Health
Department, and Nan Taylor, director of business
development and community relations, Aspirus
Riverview Hospital and Clinics, Inc., discussed the
CHNA, which is required for all nonprofit hospitals,
as well as for local public health departments. The
CHNA is a comprehensive process to determine
the most pressing health concerns of a community
by analyzing demographic and health statistics,
surveying the community and involving key
stakeholders. At the conclusion of the CHNA,
key stakeholders collaborate to develop a CHIP to
address the health priorities identified in the CHNA.
This overview informed the panel, which highlighted
three regions in Wisconsin and how they are working
toward outcomes through aligned agendas and
investing in health.
Sarah Grosshuesch, public health officer, Adams
County Health and Human Services Department,
discussed how the Central Wisconsin Health
Partnership (CWHP), a consortium representing six
central Wisconsin counties, collaborates to improve
access to behavioral health services. Success requires
that the six health officers from the counties of
Adams, Green Lake, Juneau, Marquette, Waupaca,
and Waushara understand that the overall health

of a community is a shared responsibility amongst
all stakeholders, including human services, health
care providers, nongovernmental organizations, and
community members. All six counties identified
gaps in the provision of behavioral health and the
treatment of substance use disorders. The CWHP
leverages resources to provide population-based
services targeted to those most at risk for poor mental
health and drug use outcomes.
Sarah Havens, director, community and preventive
care services, Gunderson Health System (GHS),
discussed how GHS, an anchor institution in the
Powell-Poage-Hamilton (PPH) neighborhood in
LaCrosse, Wisconsin, uses its CHIP to address the
city’s health, quality of life, and economic stability.
Havens described how the CHIP led to the creation
of a tax increment financing district that provides a
funding source for PPH projects, a neighborhood
development plan, and a development corporation.
Results include new single family homes, mixed
market apartments, a hotel, medical resident
housing, as well as reduced surface parking, and
street and sidewalk modifications for increased
safety, walkability, and security. Havens stated
that the anticipated ripple effect is evident with the
creation of additional single family home builds,
employee home purchase incentives, existing home
and property upgrades, place-based human services,
and educational incentives.
Amy Mihm, director of clinical nutrition and
culinary services wellness options at work, UW
Health, discussed the University of WisconsinMadison approach to investing in community health.
She explained that UW Health has made sustainable
commitments through internal and external
collaborations, including culinary and clinical
nutrition services, staff leaders, and wellness options
at work, as well as working with REAP Food Group,
the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and
Consumer Protection (DATCP), and local growers,
producers, and artisans. The work has been shown to
be financially sustainable for UW Health by focusing
on cost neutral pricing initiatives, using pricing
strategies to promote healthier choices, investing
internal capital to drive and promote economic
growth, and menu engineering for cost effectiveness.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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Breakout 4. Investing for People and Planet: Advancing
Health and Well-being through Environmentally
Sustainable Development
Moderator, Carrie Vanderford Sanders, founder/
principal, Hope Community Capital LLC, set the
stage for the panel discussion about how investors in
sustainable development can pursue a triple bottom
line that includes social, environmental, and financial
returns. Sanders stated that we are in the midst of a
global environmental crisis that will particularly affect
the most vulnerable in society. The panel discussed
how to approach this issue considering the interests
of business, policy, community leadership, and
capital providers. The Wisconsin Rapids community,
via Incourage, conducted community surveys to
establish a vision for creating sustainable resources.
Incourage’s approach involved the entire community
in the redevelopment and repurposing of the former
Daily Tribune building, the first LEED-Goldcertified building in the region.6 Sanders emphasized
the community movement to transition away from
legacy fossil fuels toward increased reliance on
renewable sources of energy, carbon sequestration in
the form of living landscapes, and the development of
environmentally sustainable products and processes.
This movement guides how Incourage invests its
assets and conducts its business within the local
community and region.
Nick Hylla, executive director, Midwest Renewable
Energy Association (MREA), focused his remarks on
the opportunities available to influence energy policy
toward more sustainable outcomes. The MREA
works with partners around the Midwest to expand
renewable energy adoption through innovative
programs, renewable energy training, and educational
events. The MREA is trying to change the economic
marketplace for renewables, particularly photovoltaic
systems, by enabling more funding to derive from local
communities and by developing more partnerships to
make it happen. Hylla sees on-site energy creation as
the key to the industrial world’s transition away from
gas and oil to more renewable sources of energy, with
solar and wind energy infrastructure development
leading the nation in new energy built capacity. In
fact, more people work in solar than in oil and gas.
Hylla also sees a shift in how renewables are being
funded toward a business model much like a major
utility. This results in a shift in approach to return

on investment: some investors require traditional
bottom-line returns while other investors seek triplebottom-line returns that factor in people (social),
planet (environmental), and profit (financial returns).
With more capital flowing into renewables, Hylla
sees an opportunity to decouple the nation’s Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) from traditional fossil fuel
production.
The Center for Resilient Cities (CRC) has developed
a proven, replicable model for creating sustainable,
thriving neighborhoods that relies on a combination
of community engagement, connected systems,
and restorative environmental design to address the
racial and economic inequities found in many US
cities, according to the CRC’s executive director,
Marcia Caton Campbell. For example, Badger
Rock, a LEED-Platinum neighborhood center and
charter school in Madison, Wisconsin, transformed
an under-used site into a public space with green
and sustainable design that fosters resident and
neighborhood resilience. The CRC’s building attracts
residents of all ages for education, healthy food and
fitness, civic engagement, leadership development,
and friendship-related activities. The CRC acts as a
connector and organizational bridge between complex
capital resources and investable systems by making
voices at the table heard in ways that otherwise would
not happen. These voices impact sustainability and
Caton-Campbell stated that the CRC can broker
resilience through its skill at community organizing
and networking, taking projects one step beyond
sustainability, to where they thrive and flourish.
The Central Waters Brewery Company is committed
to being one of the most environmentally
sustainable breweries in the nation. Owner Paul
Graham considers every aspect of the brewery –
from upstream product sourcing to downstream
management – when managing the environmental
footprint: bottles are sourced from the greenest
manufacturer in the country; packaging is postconsumer recycled cardboard; and raw inputs into
the beer are locally sourced, when possible. Central
Waters is the only brewery to receive recognition
from the state of Wisconsin’s Green Tier program as
a sound environmental steward. Believing that his
sustainability efforts provide a competitive advantage
for his products, Graham prefers to invest in his

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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employees, while taking a long-term view for returns
on capital investments in his brewery.

Lunch and plenary panel
The conference’s lunch panelists brought seasoned
leadership perspectives to key questions: what can be
done to build healthy communities in today’s global
economy; what kind of leadership is necessary; and
what role can leadership play in periods of economic
or political change?
Doug Nelson, retired president and CEO, Annie E.
Casey Foundation, led off to suggest that solutions
must be forward-looking in order to answer how we
improve health and other outcomes for those who
live in places that have been impacted negatively by
globalization – rural communities, as well as small and
inner-city communities that relied on manufacturing.
It may take two to three generations before the
majority of the population is ready for a high tech,
global economy. Interim progress needs to focus at
the regional level, investing in sectors that make sense
and lend themselves to local control, while ensuring
inclusive strategies that advance social equity.
Katherine Tyler Scott, managing principal, Ki
ThoughtBridge, built upon Nelson’s framing to ask
how to help local communities focus. She noted the
sense of isolation that permeates communities that
have lost or are losing traditional industries. They are
grieving, and “magical thinking” can’t occur unless
there is a community steward working with local
residents and institutions to understand and adapt to
change. Scott added that recognizing the magnitude
of the changes helps to shift focus to building
competence and confidence in caring for others,
whether on economic, spiritual, or other levels.
She reminds participants that being a trustee of a
community in challenging times requires rebuilding
trust. It also requires encouraging people to look to
themselves rather than authorities for solutions, and
to respect differences and engage in civil dialogue.
Incourage’s Kelly Ryan spoke about the 40 percent
job loss following the off-shore sale of the local paper
mill that had driven her community’s economy for
a century. A place-based, values-led, and residentcentered foundation, Ryan described how her

institution learned how others had supported their
communities in times of crisis and through a cultural
transformation. With a Maya Angelou quote as
guidance – “You did then what you knew how to
do, and when you knew better, you did better” –
Incourage believes that people are the most important
asset and positive community change happens when
individuals can realize their full potential. Through
this practice, Incourage has learned that residents
who feel ownership, shared responsibility, and
shared destiny toward their community are essential
in shaping healthy, sustainable, and inclusive
economic growth.
This transformational work has taken the form of
several key initiatives, including:
• Partnering with the USDA to sponsor Blueprints
for Tomorrow, an economic development skills
and network building initiative in which key, local
institutions advance development projects in the
context of interdependence and shared vision;
• Investing in Workforce Central to help local
businesses value the interdependence among business,
worker, and community; and
• Supporting Speak Your Peace, whose multi-lingual
materials encourage civil dialogue and behavior in
regional development work.
Incourage has also made a commitment to align all
of its assets to mission. Under this mandate, it has
invested in Wisconsin’s high performing CDFIs as
part of its fixed-income allocation, and is creating
a passive index of Wisconsin-based and Wisconsinfocused companies in which it will invest as an
active shareholder to encourage healthy community
practices.
The work of Incourage is best symbolized by the
organization’s leadership on the redevelopment and
repurposing of the former Daily Tribune building.
The old newspaper building, with its unique circular
shape, has been reborn as a community accelerator
and the first local LEED-certified building designed
through a resident-centered process. As a result,
responsibility for the region’s economic future has
shifted from “they” (the area’s former largest employer)
to “me” (the Central Wisconsin resident impacted by

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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the paper mill layoffs) to “we” (working together on a
brighter and more diverse economic future).

elderly population. And, an expert in policy for the
elderly revealed the policy/legislative challenges.

Shared stewardship can be practiced by any
community, said Lisa Richter, managing partner,
Avivar Capital. Echoing many of the other sessions of
the day, she added that all communities undergoing
transformational change require a range of patient
financial capital. Nelson noted that, before creating
a new community, residents must decide they can do
so and leadership must be on-board. Without hard
evidence, imagination and acts of faith are required,
along with resolve, to find a pathway forward. Scott
concluded that adaptive problems are unclear and
complex, and solutions require the people affected to
be involved in the solutions. The leader’s position and
expertise are not automatically accorded authority,
so relationships and trust must be developed.
The leader’s capacity for self-awareness and selfmanagement engenders trust and builds healthy
relationships, though even effective leaders will
encounter challenges. Ryan stressed that leaders must
model culture change and practice shared stewardship
to realize the vision of a community that works for all
people. Incourage has learned that relationships are
the real work of building community, building upon
shared humanity, interdependence, and connected
futures by virtue of a shared place.

Much evidence exists documenting the return on
investment for early child care programs. Creating
similar models for investments in programs and
initiatives in support of the elderly is possible, with
arguably shorter time horizons in which to reap
measurable cost savings. Janet Zander, advocacy and
public policy coordinator for the Greater Wisconsin
Agency on Aging Resources, presented evidence of
several such programs:

Breakout 5. Investing in People over the Life Course:
Advancing Age (Part 2)
As life expectancy continues to extend, increasing
the number of years without physical or mental
impairment becomes a key objective for health care
providers, their patients, and their families. Enabling
individuals to live as close to the moment of death free
of disease and disability – referred to as ‘compression
morbidity’ – hinges on many factors, medical care
being only one. In fact, of the factors affecting healthy
aging, medical care accounts for only 20 percent of
the picture, the remaining 80 percent are individual
health behaviors (20 percent), social and economic
factors (40 percent), and the physical environment
(10 percent).
Panelists in the Investing over the Life Course: Advancing
Age session brought varied but interconnected
perspectives. Two CDFIs represented the housing
development and the small business financing
aspects. A leader of a business providing home health
care spoke to the workforce challenges of serving the

• The State of Wisconsin Falls Prevention Program7
resulted in a net savings of $500 to $900 per person
with a 70 percent reduction in emergency room visits.
• The cost of a home delivery meals service for one year
is equivalent to the cost of one day in the hospital.
• Meals on Wheels reported significant benefits related
to the ability to stay in one’s home, improved health,
and overall safety (as the meal deliveries constituted a
well-being check and provided a sense of security).
Programs that can impact the number of visits to the
emergency room, and interactions with the health
care system in general, result in measurable, near
term cost savings, and often improve and extend the
quality of life for beneficiaries.
However, the challenges of providing the supportive
services needed to ensure individuals can “age in
place” are daunting. Tracy Dudzinski, administrative
coordinator, owner, and board member of Cooperative
Care and May yer Thao, executive director of the
Hmong Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce, both
of whom are charged with leading organizations
that directly support the provision of in-home care,
recognized that successful models are only as strong
as the people delivering the care. However, programs
that are dependent on state and federal subsidies are
limited in what they can pay their care providers.
Evidence compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of
Chicago illustrated this challenge in stark terms,
reflecting Dudzinski’s assertion that “we compete
with gas stations for employees.” Table 1 illustrates
the three primary occupational classifications used
in delivering home health care (home health aides,
personal care aides, and nursing assistants) and the
associated median hourly wage. It also shows a ‘competing’
occupation paying just slightly more per hour.

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Figure 2. Segment of population that is over 65
(Wood County, Wisconsin; US)
18%
16%
14%
12%
10%
8%

USA

6%

WI
Wood

4%
2%
0%
1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Table 1. Home health car upations and comparable
jobs
Median Hourly Wage
Home Health Aides
Counter and Rental Clerks

$ 9.34
$ 9.37

Personal Care Aides
Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids
and Housekeeping Cleaners

$ 11.14

Nursing Assistants
Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutters
and Trimmers

$ 12.78

$ 11.18

$ 12.90

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, demand for skilled, qualified care
providers is growing, as demonstrated by figure 2,
which shows that the segment of the population
that is over 65 in Wood County, Wisconsin,
where the conference was held, is increasing at a

disproportionate rate when compared to the state and
nation. In fact, the over-65 share of the population
there has doubled since 1970. However, the wages
for those charged with caring for the elderly do not
reflect these market conditions and remain artificially
low due to low levels of government subsidy. The
challenges of providing care in a rural environment
when care providers must travel long distances to
reach clients – sometimes providing only an hour or
two of care at a time – compounds the challenges of
recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce.
In an effort to introduce efficiencies into this
framework, Mary Patoka, CEO of CAP Services,
spoke of some of their successes in establishing
multi-unit, affordable housing options that would
enable seniors to remain in their (often very small)
communities, if not in their original homes. The scale
of the projects – perceived as too small for traditional
developers who balked at the less than 20-unit sizes
and too large by mainstream financial institutions

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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who questioned occupancy projections – required
the innovative financing and associated services of a
CDFI.
However, wrapping associated support services
around built developments in a cost-effective manner
remains vital to the success of these initiatives.
Again, a CDFI’s ability to be context-responsive
in its financing and services provides a solution.
Thao conveyed how her organization provides
working capital loans to the small businesses serving
the elderly amongst the Hmong community in
Wisconsin. Despite the unique cultural requirements
of serving this population, the economic challenges
of low wages and sometimes delayed government
payments remain the same. The Hmong Chamber
of Commerce, through its small business working
capital loans, helps ensure consistency of service to
this growing immigrant population.
The number of elderly is increasing nationwide, but
especially in states like Wisconsin, with large rural
populations. The vast majority of this population
wishes to age in place, at least in the community
where they were often born and raised their family,
with independence, dignity, and strong physical and
mental health for as long as possible. Ample evidence
shows that enabling these conditions reaps almost
immediate cost savings in terms of reduced hospital
stays and emergency room visits. However, the market
seems to conspire against these positive outcomes.
Affordable, safe, quality housing (that would prevent
falls, provide community support, maintain adequate
climate controls, etc.) still faces financing and
development obstacles. In terms of service delivery,
the market undervalues the professionals who meet
the daily needs of the elderly under their care. And,
yet, not providing these structures and support has
been shown to reduce both quality and length of life,
as it increases health care costs significantly.
Providers – regardless of where they fall in the
spectrum of care for the elderly – have the evidence
needed to make their case. The demand is welldocumented, the actual costs and potential savings
accounted for, and the gaps in housing and services
precisely measured. All that that remains is the
recognition that caring for the elderly is both a
responsibility and an opportunity.

Breakout 6. Investing in People and Place: Trends in
Workforce Development
Jenny Riggenbach, director of workforce, Incourage,
moderated the panel and provided the overarching
theme that the quality of a person’s employment
and the level of educational attainment significantly
impacts their own health, that of their family, as
well as the prospects for wealth generation in the
community. Both rural and urban communities are
seeking innovative approaches to increase their ability
to attract, retain, and grow a talented workforce.
Public and private partnerships, as well as impact
investing and public policy are helping to fuel the
growth of businesses and increase the quality of jobs.
Riggenbach explored several innovative approaches
and strategies, including how communities can
build and strengthen partnerships with committed
businesses. For example, the National Fund for
Workforce Solutions (NFWS) brought together
a group of national foundations and the U.S.
Department of Labor to invest in local communities
committed to employer-driven strategies that realize
positive outcomes for businesses and workers. Urban
centers such as Boston, Seattle, and Milwaukee are
realizing positive results from such partnerships, and
the NFWS continues to be an innovative network
and source of capital that incentivizes urban and
rural communities to create systems change. These
innovations have influenced public policy and local
behavior. Employer engagement is a key component of
the 2015 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act,
and is generating examples of employer-led strategies
across the county. As one of the first rural NFWS
sites, Incourage’s workforce strategy represents nearly
a decade of innovative investment and collaboration
in Central Wisconsin. Riggenbach shared how their
innovation starts with skilled facilitation and builds
trusting relationships between business and among
public and private partners. Communities like those in
Central Wisconsin, hit hard by a changing economy,
benefit from a combination of local and national
capital investments, including financial, intellectual,
social, and human. Results include a stronger pipeline
of workers, business-driven training solutions, and a
comprehensive local economic development strategy.
Rene Daniels, executive director, North Central
Wisconsin
Workforce
Development
Board
(NCWWB), shared the role of the public sector

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in driving innovation. The NCWWB has made a
concerted effort to collaborate with partners who
have a greater ability to innovate and test solutions.
Daniels highlighted the learning she gained as one
of Incourage’s partners in the Food Manufacturing
Certificate Program, which now offered as a diploma
program at three Wisconsin technical colleges. She
described establishing employer relationships and
transferring this learning to other communities
within their nine-county region. The NCWWB
results include launching the Central Wisconsin
Metal Manufacturing’s Alliance with over 60
employers, which promotes and provides educational
and career opportunities in the welding, fabricating,
and machining trades.
The panel then discussed recent innovations in
workforce development. There is greater appreciation
that not all jobs are created equal, and that while
employer-driven training and pipeline strategies are
important for economic growth, so is the quality of
the job. Businesses experiencing growth in profits are
those that understand their workers are an asset and
not just a cost. National Fund partnerships provide
examples and data that illustrate that commitment to
job quality pays off.
Kelly Aiken, CareerSTAT director, National Fund,
described the National Fund Job Quality Strategy
as having three interdependent components:
compensation, opportunity, and support. While
compensation, including family sustaining wages,
accessible benefits, and flexible scheduling, is
important, so are opportunities for advancement and
a work environment with supportive supervision and
frontline worker coaching. Employers that integrate
business practices and policies to support and sustain
quality jobs create a work culture that enables both
employees and the business to thrive.
The Hitachi Foundation has a library of over 100
case studies on “Pioneer Employers,” according
to senior program officer, Tom Strong, which
describe companies that have made investments
in corporate performance, while also creating
compensation and career opportunities for lowerwage workers. To illustrate the Pioneer Employer
concept, Strong described how Optimax Systems,
an optics manufacturer based in the suburbs of
Rochester, New York, produces customized lenses

for use in aerospace, medicine, and other high-tech
fields in a short one-week timeframe. To enable this
competitive advantage, Optimax has invested heavily
in cross-training and career development for all staff,
as well as developing an agile, team-based approach
to management with little overhead. The company
also offers employee ownership and a robust profitsharing plan. Optimax’s team-based system enabled
the company to weather the Great Recession without
layoffs, and nearly triple in size since then. While
companies like Optimax represent a potential path
out of poverty for some workers, Strong pointed out
the limitations of this approach without broader
community support. The founders of Optimax
initially hired talented people with relatively low
levels of education and trained them up. But as the
company grew and developed a reputation as a great
place to work, Optimax became an “employer of
choice,” able to attract highly educated employees.
They have continued their commitment to all workers
in the community.
The Waupaca County Department of Health and
Human Services (WCDHHS) works with clients
who struggle with employment. Its director, Chuck
Price, underscored that stable employment is essential
to the success of the whole family. Price stated that it
is critical for employers to take steps to understand
the complex backgrounds and experiences that
employees bring to their workplace in order to fully
support them. Price observed that when joining
WCDHHS four years ago, the staff turnover rate
was almost 20 percent. Over the past four years,
Price has implemented a wellness program focused
on secondary trauma, using the adverse childhood
experiences (ACEs) framework. As a result, turnover
is now less than 5 percent, and client success is on
the rise. The ACEs framework is focused on 10 types
of childhood trauma. Price described a confidential
process that provided important insights about his
staff, which led to new strategies where coworkers
support each other to bring their best selves to work.
Price says other employers in Waupaca County are
interested in understanding ACEs as a way to support
their workers.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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Breakout 7. Investing in People and Place: Connecting
Capitals to Advance Health in Central Wisconsin (Blueprints
Case Study – Fostering Conditions of Readiness)
Heather McKellips, Blueprints project director,
Incourage, outlined the program details. Blueprints
for Tomorrow (Blueprints) is a 25-month Incourageled and USDA-supported program designed to
build networks, vision, and skills for a new regional
economy. Blueprints is a place-based program
that was designed by a team of national thought
leaders and a local Incourage team who could
bring community needs, knowledge, and on-theground coaching to participants. The curriculum
consists of four integrated tracks, including adaptive
leadership; impact investing and non-traditional
financing; local, inclusive, sustainable economies;
and resident-centered approaches. Participants
from six community organizations were selected to
participate in the program based on the role that they
play in economic development, with Incourage being
one of the participants. The curriculum was designed
to build skills while developing trust, relationships,
and connectivity between the participants. Although
the program is still in progress, McKellips shared
that they have seen early signs of behavior change.
Madeleine Taylor, CEO of Network Impact, the
evaluator for the program, conducted a recent survey
of the participants, which indicated an increase in
collaboration, trust, and relationships inside and
outside of the cohort.
Stan Gruszynski, Wisconsin state director, U.S.
Department of Agriculture Rural Development
(USDA-RD), explained that USDA-RD is charged
with dispensing federal financial resources into
rural communities in manners that align with its
mission. Examples include providing loans, loan
guarantees, and grants for projects such as: building
hospitals, sewer, and water infrastructure; providing
housing and community facilities; and expanding
telecommunications. Blueprints is made possible
by a co-investment partnership between USDARD and Incourage, through a Rural Community
Development Initiative grant. This new approach was
acknowledged nationally by being awarded the 2016
HUD Secretary’s Award for Public-Philanthropic
Partnerships, which recognizes excellence in
partnerships that have led to measurable benefits in
housing and community development, including

increased economic development, workforce
development, innovative regional approaches, and/
or housing access for low- and moderate-income
families.
Kelly Ryan stated that Blueprints represents a new
approach to economic development in Central
Wisconsin. Formerly, the economy was heavily
concentrated in the paper industry. Thus, the
economic development infrastructure – beyond
suppliers to the paper industry – was underdeveloped.
When the paper mill was sold from local to national
to international ownership, there was a subsequent
vacuum with regard to the economic development
strategy for central Wisconsin. As a result, there is
now a concerted effort to work more collaboratively
on an overarching economic development strategy.
Also, in 2014, Incourage committed to deploy its
investment portfolio in alignment with its mission,
and the Blueprints strategy not only helps local people,
businesses, and anchor institutions work together, but
it also helps to create a pipeline of investable deals
that can be funded with local endowments.
Jo Ann Grode, executive director, Wisconsin Rapids
Housing Authority, shared her perspective on being
a participant in the Blueprints program. Grode
described that the 195 affordable housing units in
Wisconsin Rapids were built between 1970 and 1974.
These units are falling into disrepair due to decreased
government funding. Further, efforts to secure tax
credits through a developer have been unsuccessful,
as the funds were directed to urban rather than rural
sites. Grode stated that she felt the Housing Authority
was isolated from ideas and resources. Blueprints has
offered her the ability to establish new connections
to the broader community of economic development
practitioners in the wider Central Wisconsin area.
Grode added that two of her employees are benefitting
from the leadership training offered by the program.
Matt Wysocki, vice president, organizational
development, Impact Seven, discussed the role of
CDFIs in place-based economic development. He has
found that, regardless of their lending niche, CDFIs
are adept at putting together complex financing deals,
requiring multiple layers of capital, each with its own
regulatory and technical requirements. Further, as is
true for Impact Seven, CDFIs are often challenged
to work across multiple regions and communities.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
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Blueprints helps remove this barrier because the
program creates a pipeline of deals across Wisconsin,
including from smaller, rural communities, that
links directly to community development plans,
representing multiple sectors, driven by community
leaders from a diversity of organizations.
In closing, McKellips stated that Blueprints
approaches economic development differently by
working together to move development projects
forward for the overall benefit of the community,
not just one institution. Incourage’s investment
in Blueprints demonstrates its commitment to
accelerate community change and co-learning.
Inter-organizational relationships across sectors
that are characterized by trust, shared norms, and
alignment of priorities for greater impact are critical
to community change.

Breakout 8. Investing for People and Planet: Assuring
Healthy People and Planet through Institutional
Investment Strategy
Moderator Kathryn Dunn, vice president, community
investment, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, noted
that boards, trustees, and others who manage
institutional wealth are more aware of the need and
opportunities for aligning investments with values.
Worldwide, investors are increasingly applying
environmental, social and governance (ESG) screens
to drive corporate practices that reduce harm to the
environment and increase transparency in reporting
environmental practices. Investors are constructing
portfolios that steward natural resources through
techniques of inclusion (screening in holdings of
companies with positive environmental performance),
exclusion (divestment of holdings in companies with
inadequate environmental performance), shareholder
activism, and/or thematic investing in sectors that
foster environmental conservation and restoration.
Dunn pointed to an increasing number of investment
products being developed to advance this work,
including Milwaukee’s Bader Philanthropies creation
of an $11 million portfolio, including a private equity
fund that supports minority business development.
Money management firm, Aperio Group, has
created $4 billion in some 600 separately managed
accounts (SMA) that customize passive index funds
of public equities to reflect client values, according
to chief of staff, Liz Michaels. Passive index funds

or ETFs (exchange-traded funds) seek to mirror the
financial performance of the overall stock market.
The goal is to minimize deviation between the fund’s
performance and the market benchmark under 100
basis points. Michaels illustrated Aperio’s customized
work with conference co-sponsor, Incourage. Aperio
and Incourage have constructed a passive index
fund to reinforce Incourage’s priority of regional
economic development. The fund includes companies
headquartered in and/or employing workers in Central
Wisconsin and the broader state, with an emphasis
on those that reflect Incourage values of excellent
labor relations, community involvement, diversity,
non-discrimination, and environmental stewardship.
The fund targets tracking error of less than 100 basis
points with respect to the Russell 3000, will use
shareholder activism to encourage strong social and
environmental practices by the corporations it holds,
and will seek Wisconsin co-investors in corporations
that are strengthening the state’s communities.
Laura Berry, trustee of the William Caspar
Graustein Memorial Fund and an expert in
shareholder activism, described how investors can
use that strategy to influence corporate practices.
She noted how, beginning in the 1970s, faithbased and other investors voted proxies and filed
shareholder resolutions that challenged American
companies to relocate from South Africa, unless its
apartheid system was dismantled. Following that
success, shareholder activism has become a critical
tool to encourage strong social and environmental
performance by corporations. Berry cited a Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation grant to the Interfaith
Center for Corporate Responsibility to organize
shareholders with different ideologies on a campaign
to motivate corporations to adapt practices that could
help to reduce childhood obesity. Wendy’s decision to
remove sugar-sweetened sodas from their kids’ menu
was one positive outcome of this work. Berry closed by
encouraging all investors – institutional, individual,
and/or beneficiaries of pension and retirement funds
– to vote their proxies, given that the issues that come
up for decision can have great social or environmental
consequences.
Dawn Neuman, CFO, Incourage, provided further
details on how they developed a commitment to
align 100 percent of capital or resources with the
organization’s vision. The sale of Consolidated

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 23 —

Papers in 2000, and again in 2007, resulted in a 40
percent decline in area jobs, prompting Incourage
to adopt reflective practice and user-centered
approaches focused on what it means to be an
authentically-values-led, resident-centered, placebased philanthropy. Early in this process, Susan
Berresford, then president of the Ford Foundation,
assisted members of Incourage’s board, staff, and
community to visit leading rural CDFIs in Maine
and New Hampshire, helping Incourage to see that,
unlike a traditional philanthropy that funds grants
with earnings on its investment portfolio, it could
apply investment principal as well as earnings to
advance its place-based priorities.
In 2010, Incourage made an investment in Community
Assets for People, a regional CDFI. It also provided a
grant, to support the organization’s governance and
marketing efforts. In 2012, Incourage purchased the
former Daily Tribune property along the Wisconsin
River with the intent that residents would decide its
future uses. The city’s first LEED-certified building,
the Tribune is more than real estate redevelopment: it
is a demonstration of a resident-centered process that
offers hope, change, and progress toward realizing
a community that works well for all people. Over
2,000 residents participated, with the result that the
Tribune will serve as a "community accelerator" for
economic growth and opportunity, environmental
sustainability, learning, creativity, community
gathering, and events. In 2014, Incourage’s board
committed to aligning 100 percent of its capital to
mission. This commitment now guides all policies
and practices. As part of its fixed-income allocation,
Incourage now has investments in three regional
CDFIs, each targeting a different type of impact:
small business, entrepreneurial startup, affordable
housing, nonprofit facilities, and sustainable
agriculture finance. Incourage is working with
Aperio, Avivar Capital, and Colonial Consulting,
to develop the tilted passive index fund described
above and other strategies. Incourage is taking direct
ownership interests in publicly traded companies
that play vital employment roles in its community,
utilizing shareholder activism to motivate positive
community change. It is further reviewing all of its
securities holdings to achieve as much alignment
as possible. When investments run counter to its
vision, Incourage may divest or hold the investment
and practice shareholder activism to encourage more

positive behaviors; however, at a minimum, Incourage
will avoid unintentionally holding investments that
are counter to its vision. Finally, Neuman stated
that Incourage welcomes other philanthropies and
investors to join its efforts to unlock investment
principal as well as grants to support long-term
positive community change for all, and is partnering
with the Greater Milwaukee Foundation to increase
collaboration among the state’s impact investors.

Part 3. Staying the Course: Crafting an
Agenda for Ongoing Collaboration
The closing session of the Investing in Healthy
Communities conference provided an opportunity
for all participants to reflect on the event’s goals
and how to support follow-up action. To recap, the
conference goals were to:
• Create common ground in understanding the
connections between health and other community
development activities, including investing.
• Support movement from idea to action in how a
community or region can harness all of its resources
or “capitals” to foster health and human development
over the life course, for all of its residents.
• Set the stage for ongoing regional collaboration among
local and regional health, community development,
and economic development networks to optimize
health and prosperity for all.
To support the closing dialogue on moving from idea
to action, at the end of each panel session, conference
participants were polled on three action-oriented
questions:
• What was the top achievement or opportunity
discussed in your session that we can advance
with regional networks?
• What was the top challenge discussed in your
session that we can advance with regional
networks?
• What was the top network discussed that can
advance opportunities or progress on challenges?

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 24 —

The closing session provided the opportunity to report
out the achievements, challenges, and favored networks
that participants identified through session polling.

Achievements
• Early Childhood: Fostering a stronger
infrastructure for child care, including financing
early childhood care programs by leveraging
multiple payment streams, such as demonstrated
by the Intergenerational Care Center.
• Food Systems: Strengthening community ties
to local food production and building better
Wisconsin connections across the food systems
value chain (mutually reinforcing local business
relationships from producer to processor to
distributor to retail and institutional consumers).
• Community Health Needs Assessment: Local
institutions are considering ways to build on the
possibility of making upstream investments to
increase community capacity to foster health.
• Environmental Sustainability: Development of
political capital that advocates for environmental
conservation as part of shared stewardship for
natural resources.
• Aging: Focus on evidence-based care
opportunities, to demonstrate that aging in place
produces better outcomes and lower system costs.
• Workforce: Employers are seeking ways to improve
jobs to ensure they are able to keep the workforce
they need. Job quality strategies can include
improving internal processes, health and wellness,
engagement strategies, training and development
opportunities, as well as pay and benefits.
• Blueprints: Realizing that leadership groups need
to cut across organizations and sectors in order to
affect regional transformation.
• Institutional Investing: Traditional tools of local
investing, passive fund indexing, and shareholder
activism are being applied within the state of
Wisconsin to grow local businesses and advance
positive labor and environmental practices.

Challenges
• Early Childhood: The sector needs financial capital
and creative funding. Those parents most in need
often cannot pay for child care. Providers, in turn,
cannot be financially sustainable without outside
grant support.
• Food Systems: Two inter-related issues remain hard
to overcome when seeking to create vibrant local food
systems – how to pay farmers a living wage, while
making healthy, local food affordable to lower-income
local residents.
• Community Health Needs Assessments: To have an
effective CHNA, communities need a cross-section of
stakeholders. But these entities already have their own
priorities. It is challenging to get decision-makers to
offer additional resources to collaborative efforts.
• Environmental Sustainability: While the field has
increased political capital, a need for coordinated
representation remains.
• Aging: Demand for caregivers is growing, but wages
do not reflect the demand. This constitutes a failed
market, putting elderly residents at risk.
• Workforce: Recruiting and retaining a skilled
workforce requires a culture of shared responsibility
and commitment among communities, business, and
workers.
• Blueprints: Building resources and aligning capital
and creating effective collaboration will be fraught
with challenges, and program participants must
prepare for that.
• Institutional Investing: The term impact investing
is now a buzzword, yet the actual practice still needs
more leaders to incorporate impact investing as part of
a change methodology.
In reviewing achievements and challenges, some
of the same issues came up as both success and
challenges, reflecting the complexity and long-time
horizon of transformation change.
The achievements and challenges also highlighted the
importance of networks to accelerating, sustaining,
and broadening the base of change.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 25 —

Networks for advancing the regional
work of building healthy communities
• Early Childhood: Networks that promote
intergenerational care are likely the best place to
advance needed innovation in financing.
• Food Systems: Grassroots networks seemed most
important, with government and business links also
being very important.
• Community Health Needs Assessments: There is a
need for networks that more effectively gather input
from those affected. Part of the CHNA process is to
hear the voice of the most vulnerable, and to pinpoint
what they need in their communities.
• Environmental Sustainability: Networks are needed
to develop the next generation of environmental
leadership.
• Aging: Networks should build on the user-centered
concept, leveraging grassroots participation in the
discussion and a variety of funding streams.

Commitments
• Participants were reminded that the conference app
will serve as a living reference library for the event and
any follow-up activities. The moderators encouraged
participants to post their updates using the hashtag,
#HealthyStrongWI16.
• The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago committed
to publishing an article on the Building Healthy
Communities Conference in its online journal,
ProfitWise News and Views.
• Incourage proposed regular blogs throughout 2017-18
on topics relevant to the conference.
• Incourage will explore ways to share the health and
community development timeline and network maps
electronically.
• Incourage will keep participants abreast of its efforts
to expand impact investing in the state.

• Workforce: There is a need to think holistically
and create a new kind of network that works across
education and business networks.
• Blueprints: Innovative networks can generate genuine
assessments of the landscape; i.e., help those leading
equitable, sustainable development in their local
communities to learn the scope of activity in their
communities.
• Institutional Investing: There is an opportunity to
leverage the many community and other foundations
in Wisconsin that are expressing an interest in impact
investing. The goal is to formalize a collaboration that
facilitates impact investing statewide.
In closing, commitments to follow-up actions, as well
as final reflections on the work of Building Healthy
Communities in Wisconsin, were highlighted.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 26 —

Crafting collaboration
Event planners were intentional about providing
opportunities for participation and networking,
using “Gather: The Art and Science of Effective
Convening”8 and the seven building blocks for an
effective convening as guides. The first step was to
ensure a balance of program content, interaction, and
co-creation. To this end, strategies were implemented
to engage conference participants outside of
traditional panel presentations. A few of those are
highlighted, here.

A conference app
Development of a conference app was trialed at the
Platteville conference and showed great promise
and reduced the need for printed materials. At the
Wisconsin Rapids conference, the technology was
further leveraged to increase the level of participation
with live polling to consolidate priorities from
throughout the day at the closing session.

Interactive timeline
Interwoven with the conference were advancements
and innovations in public health, workforce,
environmental sustainability, and impact investing.

Notes

To visually demonstrate their interrelated nature
and progress over the years, a 20-foot-long timeline
was assembled with color coded key events from the
late eighteenth century into the future. Conference
participants were provided with markers and sticky
notes to annotate the timeline with other important
milestones from their perspective.

Network map
With the registration information in hand and
guidance and advice from our network professionals,
a network map was created to enable “individuals and/
or organizations (to) connect as peers.” Participants
were presented with a map of the Unites States
featuring participant geographical locations and were
encouraged to draw connections to others in their
networks. The result was an opportunity to visually
co-create a network map in real time.

Innovation Hall
The Innovation Hall provided an opportunity
for conference participants to further learn from
the breakout sessions. Ten innovations from eight
organizations were displayed, including local food
solutions, impact investing, and public health
collaborations, to allow networking and learning
during break and transition times.

8. Deloitte Development LLC, 2013, “Gather: The Art and Science of Effective
Convening,” June, available at https://assets.rockefellerfoundation.org/app/
uploads/20130626174021/Gather-The-Art-and-Science-of-Effective-Conveing.pdf.

1. Incourage, available at https://incouragecf.org.
2. Kuehl, Steven, 2014, “Healthy Communities – Milwaukee,” Community Development
and Policy Studies, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, blog, November 12, available at
http://cdps.chicagofedblogs.org/?p=1602.
3. Kuehl, Steven, Karen Timberlake, Kayla Brenner Peissig, and Lexi Handrick, 2016,
“Investing in Healthy Rural Communities – Lessons Learned and Future Directions,”
ProfitWise News and Views, No. 3, available at https://www.chicagofed.org/
publications/profitwise-news-and-views/2016/investing-in-healthy-ruralcommunities-lessons-learned-and-future-directions.
4. Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization, adopted by the
International Health Conference held in New York from June 19 to July 22, 1946,
signed on July 22, 1946, by the representatives of 61 States and entered into force on
April 7, 1948, available at http://www.who.int/governance/eb/who_constitution_
en.pdf.
5. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Healthy Communities, available at http://
www.frbsf.org/community-development/initiatives/healthy-communities.
6. LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a green building
certification program that recognizes best-in-class building strategies and practices.
7. Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging, see https://wihealthyaging.org/stepping-on.

Biographies
Steven Kuehl is the economic development and Wisconsin
state director for the Community Development and Policy
Studies Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Susan Longworth is a senior business economist in the
Community Development and Policy Studies Division of
the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Lisa Richter is a managing partner and co-founder of Avivar
Capital, an SEC-registered investment advisor assisting
foundations and other institutions to design and execute
impact investing strategies.
Jennifer Riggenbach is Workforce Central site director at
Incourage.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 27 —

Small Business Credit Survey
Are you a small business or do you
work with small businesses that would
be interested in participating in the
2017 Small Business Credit Survey?
The dual mandate of the Federal Reserve includes
maximum employment. Small business development
and growth is essential to full employment. “More
than half of Americans either own or work for a small
business, and they create about two out of every three
new jobs in the US each year,” according to the Small
Business Administration. To learn more about credit
access and business conditions for this very large
cohort of employers, Community Development and
Policy Studies, a department of the Chicago Federal
Reserve, is working to engage small businesses
through trade, advisory, and other intermediary
groups to participate in the Fed System’s Small
Business Credit Survey.

Background on the Small Business
Credit Survey
The small business credit survey collects information
about business performance, financing needs, capital
sources and borrowing experiences of firms with 500
or fewer employees. Responses to the survey provide
insight into the dynamics and details behind aggregate
lending and business trends. The survey was launched
in 2010 through an effort that combined the regional
surveys conducted by several Federal Reserve Banks.
In 2016, over 10,000 small employer firms responded
to the survey, and table 1 breaks down the Seventh
District states, which is important since each state
with at least 200 responses will have a state level
report. Additionally, each institution that has at least
50 responses will receive a customized report for their
organization.

Table 1. Respondents by 7th District state
7th District State
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Wisconsin

Number of Respondents
234
120
62
131
112

Source: Small Business Credit Survey, Federal Reserve Banks.

Highlights of the 2016 findings
Small businesses reported that although many were
profitable and optimistic, a significant majority had
faced financial challenges, experienced funding gaps,
and relied on the personal finances of the owner
to fund basic capital needs. In 2016, 87 percent of
employer firms relied on their owners’ personal credit
scores to obtain funding. Lack of access to credit
often inhibits growth. These issues were even more
pronounced for the smallest firms.
Only 30 percent of the firms surveyed were considered
“healthy,” according to the following criteria:
1. (2015) profitability;
2. Low credit risk (business or owner has good or
excellent credit score); and
3. Growth through retained earnings (rather than
owner’s personal funds or credit to fund the
business), as can be seen in the graphic image on the
following page.
Additional reports on the 2016 Small Business Credit
Survey will be released throughout 2017. These will
take an in-depth look into specific types of small
businesses, including start-ups, minority firms, and
microbusinesses.
If you are a small business or if you work with small
businesses that would be interested in participating in
the 2017 Small Business Credit Survey, please contact
the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Small Business
Credit Survey representative, Emily Engel, at emily.
engel@chi.frb.org or (312) 322-5520.

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 28 —

2016 SMALL BUSINESS CREDIT SURVEY

WHO

10,303 SMALL
EMPLOYER FIRMS

what where WHen
BUSINESSES,

a majority of which have
1 to 4 employees and
annual revenues of
$1M or less

ALL
50 STATES
AND
WASHINGTON DC

as of

ofitable
1 Pr
year-end 2015

dit risk

HEALTHY

dit score)
or excellent cre
ings
ea
es retained rn e
3 Us
rily us
(does not prima
l funds or
owner’s persona
business)
credit to fund the

STABLE

Meet 2 of 3 criteria

Meet
all 3 criteria

small firms

Applied for
financing†

Funding
shortfall

45%

Funding
needs met

16%

18%

Received some

42%

Received all

14

%

Debt averse

9%

Discouraged

27%

24%

Sufficient financing

AT RISK

55%

DISTRESSED
Meet none

Meet 1 of 3 criteria

APPLICATION
RATE

APPROVAL
NET
RATE*
SATISFACTION**

LARGE BANK

50%

77%

77%

SMALL BANK

46%

67%

75%

ONLINE LENDER

21%

62%

75%

CREDIT UNION

11%

54%

47%

6%

46%

26%

CDFI
Didn’t apply
for financing

10%

WHERE FIRMS APPLIED
FOR LOANS AND LINES
OF CREDIT, WERE APPROVED,
AND WERE SATISFIED

10%

Received none

31%

BUSINESS
CONDITIONS of

of the criteria

DEMAND FOR FINANCING AND
FINANCING OUTCOMES

May have
unmet
funding
needs

FALL 2016

33%

30%

w cre
2 Lo
ner has good
(business or ow

26

To learn about
FINANCING and

SMALL FIRM FINANCIAL HEALTH SPECTRUM

THE CRITERIA

%

WHy

Surveyed in

* Share approved for at least some credit.
** Among approved firms, the share satisfied minus
the share dissatisfied.

8%

Other
1% of applicants were unsure
or didn't answer the question.

†

Source: Small Business Credit Survey, Federal Reserve Banks

ProfitWise News and Views Issue 2 | 2017
— 29 —

ProfitWise News and Views welcomes article proposals and comments from bankers,
community organizations, and other readers. It is available digitally on the Internet,
as well as at www.chicagofed.org/publications/profitwise-news-and-views/index.
You may submit comments or proposals, or request a subscription by writing to:
		
		
		
		
		

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The material in ProfitWise News and Views is not necessarily endorsed by and does
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please email or write to the address indicated above.
Advisor
Alicia Williams
Managing Editors
Michael V. Berry
Susan Longworth
Assistant Editor
Mary Jo Cannistra

Contributing Editors
Jeremiah Boyle
Emily Engel
Steven W. Kuehl
Robin Newberger

Designer
Jeff Youngberg
Web Content Specialist
Britt Oliver