Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta’s impact investment fund, the GoATL Fund (GoATL), has closed on a $500,000 loan to Focused Community Strategies (FCS) to boost a successful affordable housing initiative. The investment will fund the acquisition and rehabilitation of blighted single-family homes located in the Historic South Atlanta neighborhood. The homes will be transitioned to affordable and workforce housing, enabling people to live near where they work while creating a stable living arrangement for their families.
 
FCS works to build thriving communities from the ground up through innovative and collaborative development. This work results in the best of both worlds, rehabilitating homes, removing rundown homes, starting small businesses and engaging neighborhood residents to strengthen inclusive communities. In one neighborhood alone, FCS has boosted home ownership from 10 percent to more than 50 percent in the last 20 years.
 
“Focused Community Strategies partners with neighborhoods and works alongside residents, businesses and other partners to create communities where individuals and families can live, work and prosper,” said Mark Crosswell, managing director, social impact strategy at Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. “Their work is perfectly aligned with what GoATL strives to achieve – investments that prioritize measurable social outcomes as well as a financial return.”
 
This investment marks a total of $6.25 million now advancing affordable housing, education and small business development through the GoATL Fund. Launched in 2018, GoATL is the first impact investing fund of its kind in Georgia and enhances the Community Foundation’s traditional grantmaking through flexible, low-cost loans that seek measurable social returns. In its first year alone, GoATL investments sparked 320 multi-family affordable housing units, 25 affordable single-family homes, 15 small business loans and one new school that will grow to nearly 650 students at capacity.
 
“The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has been a valuable, long-term partner for FCS through it’s grantmaking programs,” said Jim Wehner, president with FCS. “Now, with this investment from the GoATL Fund, we’re taking our partnership to the next level, one where we are both financially and socially invested in the success of thriving families and prosperous communities.”