Growing Housing Developers (GHD) is a four-year, $40 million initiative funded by Wells Fargo to support a cohort of 39 affordable and market-rate housing developers. Wells Fargo partnered with four community development financial institutions (CDFIs) to implement the program, offering capital and support services with the goal of producing 2,000 units of affordable housing and strengthening the cohort of developers.

Why This Matters

Several philanthropic initiatives have emerged in recent years to support housing developers. We are evaluating GHD’s distinctive combination of enterprise-level grants, lending capital, and robust technical support services to understand what elements are important for effective developer-support programs.

Key Takeaways

In this brief we describe the primary components of the program: group training, mentoring and peer support, equity grants, and debt financing. We also describe the role of the implementation partners and selection criteria for the cohort. We establish a baseline assessment of the developers, measuring financial attributes such as assets, liabilities, and revenue sources. We also measure the units the developers have built or are developing, categorizing these units by affordability and ownership.

How We Did It

We interviewed the 39 participating developers and representatives from Wells Fargo and the implementation partners to understand their expectations and goals for the program. Additionally, we collected data from the developers on the organization’s financials and project pipelines.