JPMorgan Chase issued a report this week seeking to determine the return on $214 million in philanthropic investments it made over the past decade into developing underserved Chicago communities.
While perhaps a little harder to measure than more traditional financial investments, the answer is: a lot, or more precisely, hundreds of them.
Since 2020, the bank has supported the city’s Reclaiming Chicago initiative to build affordable housing on vacant lots across the South and West sides. The Resurrection Project is developing 125 single-family homes in the Back of the Yards neighborhood through the program and more than $10 million in philanthropic funding from JPMorgan Chase.
Guacolda Reyes, chief real estate development officer at The Resurrection Project, said the bank’s largesse has been “transformational” in turning vacant lots donated by the city into affordable new homes on the Southwest Side.
“We were going to build single-family homes, new construction, responding to community needs in a neighborhood that has been completely disinvested,” Reyes said. “This funding gave us the opportunity to try it out with our own lots, and it worked … to make this dream become a reality.”
Reyes was among several community leaders who participated in a roundtable discussion Monday at the recently renovated 57th floor of Chase Tower to reflect on the progress of various projects funded by JPMorgan Chase.
The bank’s investments into community development have catalyzed everything from affordable housing and small business growth to a burgeoning workforce pipeline that all show early signs of reinvigorating disinvested neighborhoods on the South and West sides.
The Local Initiative Support Corporation, for example, received $4.75 million in philanthropic support from JPMorgan Chase, which turned into $16.5 million in lending capital for 23 loans to small businesses.
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“The investment from Chase made it possible for us to test out something that we thought: Small businesses are businesses, and if we work with them and we provide the support that you provide us for capacity building and technical assistance, they’re going to be successful,” Meghan Harte, senior executive director of LISC Chicago, said Monday.
In 2017, JPMorgan Chase announced it would invest $40 million in Chicago’s historically underserved South and West sides over three years in an effort to improve neighborhoods through economic growth. Modeled after a pilot program in Detroit, most of the money was allocated through grants to community organizations.
The following year, JPMorgan Chase upped the stakes with the first of two $10 million low-cost loans to the Chicago Community Loan Fund, which was also supplemented by $5.4 million in philanthropic capital.
Bob Tucker, president of CCLF, a nonprofit community development financial institution, said JPMorgan Chase’s funding has helped kickstart projects big and small.
“Those investments are huge and have real catalytic impact in our communities,” Tucker said. “But those investments also come at a rate which is very concessionary to my organization, which means at the end of the day, that’s concessionary to our developers, the people doing the work in the communities, building these facilities.”
In 2021, JPMorgan Chase announced plans to invest $150 million in grants and low-cost loans in Chicago’s South and West sides, which included the second $10 million loan to CCLF and a long list of other organizations and projects.
After nine years and $214 million in philanthropic funding, the bank hosted the roundtable seeking input from its beneficiaries. Key takeaways included the need for long-term private investment, the value of low-cost financing amid a higher interest rate environment and the importance of getting real estate in the hands of the communities themselves.
“People know what they want to see in their neighborhoods,” Harte said. “They know what they want to buy in their neighborhoods, but if others are investing in the real estate and making those decisions, then there’s no seat at the table, and that’s why big investments from outsiders in communities typically fail.”
Juan Salgado, chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago, was among the more effusive participants in praising the beneficial impacts of JPMorgan Chase’s philanthropic investments, particularly in strengthening its workforce pipeline. The bank invested about $51 million overall in career training programs, including more than $2.5 million with City Colleges.
Among other initiatives, Salgado cited IBM’s announced commitment in April to hire at least 180 City College apprentice alumni over the next five years for its planned innovation center at the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park.
“If we truly collaborate and we see this as an opportunity point, we’re going to create the entry-level opportunities for Chicagoans,” Salgado said. “We just have to make sure each company is looking for them in an intentional way.”
Damion Heron, JPMorgan Chase’s head of community engagement for Chicago, said the roundtable will inform the “next chapter” of philanthropic investing for the bank, whose own takeaway might best be described as doing good is good for business.
“If people are buying homes, starting businesses, living in vibrant communities, we are going to be better as a firm, and so it is part of our ethos,” Heron said. “We’re doing it for all the right reasons, but all those right reasons, at the end of the day, will make for a better business environment.”