2 Longtime Leaders Of Housing Nonprofit Leave To Launch New Firms

National affordable housing nonprofit Reinvestment Fund is undergoing a leadership shake-up, with two executives departing to pursue independent consulting ventures. 

Ira Goldstein spent 27 years with the Philadelphia-based nonprofit, most of them as president of policy solutions, before leaving last month to launch IJG Urban Advisors.  

“I felt like the team that I had built, the portfolio of work that I had built, the portfolio of accomplishments were all in a very good place,” Goldstein told Bisnow of his departure.

“It’s also time for the next generation of leadership to try their hand at being leaders and learn things along the way.”

Reinvestment Fund CEO Donald Hinkle-Brown is also leaving, and the nonprofit announced his replacement this week. Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta CEO Frank Fernandez is slated to take the helm in September. 

Hinkle-Brown formed his own company, Emergent Impacts, last month following his 35 years with the Reinvestment Fund, including 15 years as CEO.

He and Goldstein both continued to laud the Reinvestment Fund’s work after announcing their departures.

The federally certified community development financial institution — focused in large part on funding and researching affordable housing — also released statements celebrating Hinkle-Brown and Goldstein’s legacies.

“I believe that data advised, place-based investing is our greatest mission success, and one we share with many CDFIs, community foundations and philanthropy,” Hinkle-Brown said in a statement.

“As my successor prepares to take over this leadership role, I feel confident that Frank, with the support of our dedicated team, will build upon Reinvestment Fund’s 40 years of impact and take us to new heights.”

Goldstein was just days into his new venture when he spoke to Bisnow earlier this month.

He said an early focus of his at IJG will be continuing work on Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s $2B housing plan called the HOME Initiative, which has a goal of building and preserving 30,000 housing units. 

The Philadelphia native, who grew up in East Oak Lane, was a key architect of the One Philly Mortgage program, part of the larger initiative. 

The program will give a discount to lenders in exchange for reduced interest rates for new homeowners, who Goldstein said will only have to provide a 3% down payment. It will also remove the need for private mortgage insurance.

Goldstein is also working with Jackson, Mississippi, to address the housing crisis in the beleaguered state capital.

“They are very much in a condition that I probably have only seen in some places like Detroit,” he said.

The seasoned researcher said he plans to write op-eds and blog posts for his own website and other publications and will continue to lecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has worked part time for four decades.

Goldstein said he hopes some of his pupils there will be brought into the fold at IJG to further their studies.

“It might be an appropriate time and opportunity for some of my students to look at practicums,” he said.

The Reinvestment Fund lauded Goldstein for his work creating the market value analysis, a framework that has directed hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of investment. It was developed by the nonprofit at the behest of former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, who served between 2008 and 2016, and eventually deployed in cities nationwide.

Before Goldstein’s tenure with the Reinvestment Fund, he worked at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after completing his undergraduate and graduate studies at Temple University.

Hinkle-Brown, another Temple alum, shared details about his new venture, Emergent Impacts, in a social media post last month.

He said he aims to help CDFI organizations be more nimble and responsive to conditions in the communities they serve.

“When we seek more than scaled widgets, scaled outcomes, and we listen to the voices of the community we serve, we can create impacts beyond the equation ‘if this, then that,’” Hinkle-Brown said in the post. 

“Beautiful projections can get things wrong,” he added. “In the same way, impact finance can be too locked and linear — and for me it is the unintended benefit from our finance that is most intriguing. I call these emergent impacts.”