LISC Community Development Lending, Grants and Capacity Building
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
One of the largest U.S. community development intermediaries, combining flexible lending to under-resourced borrowers with grantmaking, capacity-building services, a public resource library and its own policy research and impact assessment through the LISC Institute for Community Power. The dual role matters here — LISC both capitalizes community organizations and publishes research on them, so it is a plausible funder, data partner and dissemination route for social work research on housing, safety and justice, health, and income and wealth building.
- Indicative award
- Amount not published (varies by call)No per-award or per-loan figures are published. The funder's site reports lifetime aggregates only — approximately $7 billion in loans and $1.8 billion in grants since 1979, contributing to $102 billion in total development.
- Timing
- Varies by programmeNo specific published date recorded. This funder publishes a cycle rather than a date, and this database does not invent one.No single national deadline. Lending is rolling and grant opportunities are announced by individual local offices and programmes on their own schedules.
- Who can apply
- Community organisation, Practitioner
- Eligibility
- Works with community-based organizations and under-resourced borrowers across its programme areas, delivered largely through local offices, so the operative eligibility and geography are set at the local-office level rather than nationally. The funder's main site does not state eligibility requirements, service areas, available amounts or application procedures and directs interested organizations to contact their local LISC office. A university is generally not the borrower for the lending products; the route for a researcher is partnership with a funded community organization or engagement w
- SSWR clusters
- Topics
- community development · affordable housing · safety and justice · small business · policy research
- Apply at
- https://www.lisc.org/
- This entry
- Curated by the working group. Written 2026-08-07. The funder link has not yet been machine-checked.
Amounts and dates on this page are indicative and are maintained by people rather than scraped. Funders change ceilings, windows and eligibility without notice; confirm all details at the source above before applying.
Also on the Communities and Neighborhoods shelf
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