Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Pledge
We expect all members of the AHIC community to promote and maintain an environment where everyone feels included and treats each other with respect. As an association led by volunteers, we seek to embrace diverse perspectives to deepen our understanding and strengthen our impact. We also commit to using our financial resources and human capital to advance racial equity.
Board and Leadership: AHIC’s member corporations vary by geography, industry type, asset size, and investing approach. We have sought individual members for leadership positions who reflect the range of these companies, as well as different roles in the housing credit investment life cycle and corporate hierarchies. Now our intention is to increase diversity along racial and gender lines among our committee chairs, governors, and officers. To develop a leadership pipeline that facilitates this, we will seek to increase engagement and connection with a broader range of our members. This wide representation is critical to AHIC meeting the needs of investors and the communities our member institutions serve as effectively as possible.
Best Practices: One of AHIC’s core strategies to advance our mission is to create best practices in housing credit underwriting and asset management. Many of our resources have become standards that have been widely adopted, in particular our Underwriting Guidelines and Risk Ratings. These recommended practices should be continuously reviewed through the lens of fairness and justice, as should new tools and resources that AHIC develops. The Asset Management and Underwriting Committees are examining our key guidelines and asking the questions: How did we get here? Do these standards and practices lend themselves to making the equity gap wider for communities of color? How can we do better? They are also exploring whether to develop new resources around deploying housing credit investments as assets to promote racial equity. For example, the Asset Management Committee is drafting a site visit protocol that would include evaluating the social infrastructure for the residents and broader community that is supported by the housing credit development.
Committees: AHIC has five committees that provide services to members (Program), engage the broader industry (HFA Outreach, Membership) and develop tools and resources for the field (Asset Management, Underwriting). Active participation in a committee has often been a path to being tapped for AHIC leadership. Engaging diverse members from AHIC companies will ensure that the committees benefit from broad perspectives and develop the leadership pipeline facilitates our DEI efforts. In their work, the committees will also seek out projects that advance equity and social justice. For example, the HFA Outreach Committee is exploring partnering with allocating agencies on strategies for diversifying the developer community.
Membership: AHIC’s individual members are staff at corporations that invest in housing credit developments. Most of these are large companies that have internal DEI efforts to raise awareness of racial justice issues and implicit bias; to use their housing credit investments to bolster racial equity; and to increase diversity among their staff. AHIC will work with our members so we can support and engage more deeply with their diverse colleagues, including new entrants into the field and early career professionals. The regional Emerging Leaders Program, a one-day workshop with networking and career exploration activities, is an initial foray into providing opportunities to individual members who may not have access to the resources necessary to attend a national, multi-day meeting. We are also committed to deploying technology to present webinars and virtual monthly Third Thursday Open Forum gatherings to reach these members. AHIC membership will be free for MWBEs that seek to join our association and meet membership eligibility requirements.
Panels and Speakers: AHIC’s Program Committee will increase the racial and gender representation among the experts we tap for member events and our annual Affordable Housing Summit. We will seek to balance long-time deans of the industry and their historical perspectives with the emerging vanguard.
Programming: In the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and others that sparked a national racial reckoning, AHIC’s Program Committee committed to providing our members and the industry thought-provoking and enlightening sessions on affordable housing and racial equity. In October 2020 they presented Social and Economic Justice and Affordable Housing and in June 2021 offered Racial Equity: Diversifying the Developer Community. This commitment is ongoing. The committee also plans community-based volunteer activities after our spring meetings for members when the schedule and local conditions allow it.
Vendors: AHIC has a limited budget that primarily supports contracted executive director and administrative services (both currently women-owned firms) and its events. The organization’s leadership has directed its meeting planners to focus on sourcing local businesses -- with an emphasis on MWBE and community-based entrepreneurs -- when researching options for service providers, dinner and reception venues, caterers, etc. and will direct our funds to these enterprises when possible. We will request and evaluate DEI statements from all vendors as a policy.