Multifamily Impact Investing Leaders Announce Formation of the Multifamily Impact Council

 (May 19, 2022) — A consortium of more than 20 industry leaders from across the Commercial Residential Real Estate sector have announced the establishment of the Multifamily Impact Council (MIC) – a non-profit membership organization dedicated to establishing impact investing principles and data-driven impact reporting frameworks for the multifamily housing industry.

“As interest in socially motivated debt and equity capital continues to grow, it is essential for the multifamily industry to come together and develop generally accepted principles and reporting frameworks that facilitate the flow of impact capital and support affordable and sustainable housing investments in the United States,” says Antonio Marquez, Managing Partner of Comunidad Partners who will serve as the Chairman of the Board of the new organization. “The Multifamily Impact Council will serve as the collaborative focal point for property owners, investors, lenders and service providers to work together to create transparency, validity, and mutually accepted standards to accomplish this goal.”  

Organized as a 501(c)6 non-profit membership organization, MIC will have three primary objectives: 

1) Establish and maintain impact investing principles and data metrics that are aligned with global Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, are specific to the multifamily industry, and can be used to guide investing, product development and asset management decisions;

2) Build strategic partnerships with existing ESG certification and research organizations to simplify existing certification processes, develop industry-specific tools to help calculate the social return on investment, and quantify the financial benefit of impact initiatives for multifamily investors;

3) Serve as an industry clearinghouse for research, best practices, and collaboration opportunities that support the growth of multifamily impact investing in the United States.   

“Currently, there is limited investor and operator consensus on what constitutes impact investing in the affordable housing sector in the United States,” says Summer Haltli, Principal of ESG and Impact at FCP and board member of MIC. “As a result, investors and property owners must either create their own guidelines or adjust to broad enterprise-level ESG frameworks that may not directly apply to multifamily properties. It is critical to develop a common structure for multifamily impact investing in order to unlock a private sector solution to the housing affordability crisis in the United States.” 

Bob Simpson will serve as President and CEO of the Multifamily Impact Council. Simpson, who founded the Impact Advisory Firm, Simpson Impact Strategies, brings more than 25 years of housing finance and public policy experience to the role – including a 20-year stint at Fannie Mae where he oversaw the Affordable Multifamily Business and led the creation of the company’s innovative green and healthy housing lending programs.

Marquez notes that as a nationally recognized expert in affordable, sustainable, and healthy housing investments, Simpson brings the experience, institutional knowledge, and collaborative mindset the Council will need to be successful in the years ahead.

“Establishing impact investment principles for the industry will require a significant amount of collaboration across our sector. It is critical that our approach to building these principles be open and inclusive,” says Simpson.  “I am looking forward to engaging with folks from across the multifamily and impact investing community to help develop a common framework that will attract capital to affordable and sustainable housing.”

To learn more about the Multifamily Impact Council and to see a list of the organization’s members, please visit multifamilyimpactcouncil.org.

About Multifamily Impact Council

Multifamily Industry, to establish and maintain multifamily impact investing principles
and reporting guidelines to help increase the flow of global impact capital into affordable
and sustainable rental housing in the United States.