CIVIC BUILDERS INC

Civic achieves the mission of removing real estate as a barrier to an excellent public education by addressing the full spectrum of facilities and financing challenges faced by public charter schools. Civic school buildings are designed to meet the unique needs of the school community, and include advanced technology, brand new libraries, science labs, and bright classroom spaces.

Through partnerships with leading educators we launch excellent schools in communities where the need is greatest. Students in Civic’s NYC partner schools are 98% students of color and 85% economically disadvantaged. Civic’s schools have become anchors of the communities they serve, transforming outcomes by equipping students with the resources for success within and beyond the classroom. The high school graduation rate for our scholars in NYC is 94%, compared to 74% graduation rate in peer schools. Civic is committed to prioritizing neighborhoods that are often underinvested in, meeting the demand for high-performing schools, and working to promote thriving communities.

Civic partners with visionary school leaders to develop facilities from start to finish; from site identification, financing, and design through construction to ultimate school occupancy. We bring our nonprofit mission to each project, and understand the importance of completing all projects on time and on budget. Civic works with a variety of partners in government and real estate, from city housing authorities to affordable housing developers, to identify unique site opportunities and build cost-effective facilities options for charter schools.

As opposed to many for-profit charter school developers, Civic provides our charter school partners with the opportunity to purchase their property at a price well below the cost of development, allowing the school to save significantly on long-term facility costs. Most for-profit developers base rental expense or purchase options on cap rates or market value, while our mission-aligned approach is to sell the building back to schools at-cost. These dollars are then available to reinvest into the classroom, which is the ultimate goal of school leaders and Civic.

When functioning as an Owner’s Representative, Civic serves as a school’s expert advocate and liaison with the property owner or developer. By establishing clear goals, setting firm milestones, and utilizing consistent communications, Civic ensures the completion of project development along the defined timeline and budget. With deep experience in charter school development, our team guides all parties to facilitate a project design that accommodates school’s requirements while maintaining budget objectives.

The Facilities Investment Fund (FIF), a partnership between Civic and the Walton Family Foundation, is a groundbreaking loan fund founded in 2017 that has introduced $300 million in affordable capital to finance facilities for high-performing charter schools and networks across the country. FIF offers public charter schools five-year fixed-rate loans for new construction, acquisition and facility renovation. FIF loans feature low, fixed interest rates, size up to $25MM and can fund up to 90% of project costs.

New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) are a federally funded program through the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Each year, NMTCs are allocated to top applicants called Community Development Entities (CDEs). Civic has been actively involved in the NMTC program and has been awarded $228 million in NMTC allocation authority since 2013. The team has utilized its NMTC allocation to provide flexible and below-market financing to 18 high-performing charter schools nationwide creating more than 9,700 student seats.

Civic also provides technical assistance in the form of ongoing information, tools, and resources to operators and other stakeholders in the public education ecosystem on charter facilities. From webinars to small convenings, Civic continues to build awareness and understanding for a variety of stakeholders on charter facilities.

Demonstrated Impact:
Civic Builders invests in excellent public charter schools that are outperforming other public school options, bringing choice to families, and improving outcomes for scholars. Great public schools with high-quality facilities are community anchors that provide access to transformative opportunities in traditionally under-resourced communities. Civic Builders’ portfolio represents $1.45 billion invested into low-income and historically marginalized communities. Our focus across all of our products and services is ensuring that all students have access to safe and student-centered learning environments.

Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Racial Justice:
Civic Builders believes that every child deserves access to a high-quality education. Unfortunately, due to historic racial and socioeconomic discrimination, children nationwide are often prevented from this opportunity, especially in communities where the need is greatest. To address this problem, Civic partners with the country’s best educators to eliminate real estate as a barrier and construct schools that change lives and revitalize communities. Because we support schools that serve low-income communities and communities of color, we have a responsibility to center diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice in all of our work.

We strive to cultivate a team that reflects the identities and backgrounds of the communities we seek to support, bridging a deeper connection to their needs and thus, fostering a greater impact in achieving our mission. Our team is committed to establishing a common language and building a shared understanding of how race and other isms impact our work so that we can create a more equitable, just, and inclusive organization at every level.

We seek to apply our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and racial justice to our product development, work with school partners, and collaboration with vendors. We bring a spirit of collaboration to our approach with funders and others in the space, advancing important conversations about equity, and working together to accomplish more, in service of our mission, than we could alone.

As a nonprofit organization with two decades of experience, Civic’s portfolio represents $1.45 billion invested into economically distressed communities to ensure all students have access to safe, positive, and student-centered learning environments. Since 2002, the organization has supported the growth of 72 schools nationwide, educating more than 38,000 students each year.

Civic celebrated the twenty-year anniversary of its founding in 2022, and harnessed this important moment as an opportunity to reflect on past successes and chart the path for the next twenty years. Because of its adaptability and entrepreneurial spirit, Civic has expanded to a full suite of services including turnkey development, lending, and technical assistance, that serve incredible schools nationwide. As a result, Civic Builders has creatively combined government subsidies, philanthropic funding and commercial bank capital to provide high quality schools with access to affordable capital, while continuing our development work with community-based independent charter schools, large charter management organizations, and the nation’s best educators. This evolution came from listening to and learning from our partners and the charter community on how we can be most impactful.

Throughout 2022, the Civic staff and Board worked to collaboratively define the organization’s Theory of Change and establish strategic priorities. This work informed a three-year strategic plan, which focuses on five areas of adaptive capacity building: Talent, Operational Excellence, Governance, Data & Systems, and Lending. Core activities going forward will address each of these areas and the foundational work necessary to prepare for Civic’s continued impact and innovation.