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The Atlanta Land Trust is committed to securing permanently affordable housing for everyone who wants to live in ATL. Given the city’s rapid growth, it's a daunting task. But with its Executive Director, Amanda Rhein, at the helm, the organization is set up for success to scale. In this case study, learn how Infinite Giving has helped the Atlanta Land Trust to:
- Grow its funding with a better cash management program
- Establish its first investment policy for cash reserves
- Sustainably grow reserves to $1 million and hire more staff
“We’re at a crisis point in the need for affordable housing, and this model provides a sustainable approach.”
In 2018, Amanda was hired to lead and relaunch the Atlanta Land Trust. Given her experience with organizations including Invest Atlanta and MARTA, Amanda had a keen understanding of what it takes to invest and serve Atlanta’s most underserved communities.
“It was an opportunity to do work that I was really passionate about, and to lead an organization from the beginning,” Amanda said. Her strategic management skills plus her experience working with boards (particularly understanding the governance aspects of a nonprofit) set the foundation for the Atlanta Land Trust and shaped how the organization could grow.
Atlanta Land Trust operates as a community land trust which seeks to remove real estate from the speculative market and move it into control for community benefit. Community land trusts were created more than 50 years ago as part of the Civil Rights Movement. “The first community land trust was created during the civil rights movement to provide economic solidarity and racial equity,” Amanda explained. “This is a common thread uniting land trusts across the U.S., and there are now over 300 programs.”
Growing awareness of this model helps people to both understand how land trusts work, and the nature of community development. Creating affordable housing is the key aspect of the model is a dual ownership structure, acquiring the land, building homes, and then selling houses to income-qualified families.
“It’s gratifying to be part of these community building efforts… I’m always thinking about fundraising, and stewarding our existing funders and donors.”
Recognizing the opportunity for cash management and investments to support community development
Amanda shared that she first learned about Infinite Giving through one of her board members, Karim Shariff, who participated in Leadership Atlanta with Infinite Giving’s CEO and co-founder, Karen Houghton. Amanda and her board knew there was an opportunity for better cash management to help steward their funds.
“We’d been growing the amount of cash we had on hand but we weren’t doing a great job of managing it sitting in a checking account,” she said. “We recognized the opportunity to earn money on that cash and grow it in a reserve fund.”
After deciding to partner with Infinite Giving for financial stewardship, Amanda started going through the process of putting the pieces into place, which included creating their first Investment Policy. “We had not had one previously, and this coincided with our desire to create a formal policy around establishing an operating reserve.”
From there, they developed and formally approved a policy to create an operating reserve, calculated how much cash they wanted to put into the new reserve fund, and then invested it with Infinite Giving.
“We’re continuing to grow our cash reserves every year,” Amanda said. “We have about $1 million in our operating reserve with Infinite Giving, which is fantastic.”
Amanda explained that when the Atlanta Land Trust has resources come in that they don’t immediately need to deploy (such as grants or loans) they’ll transfer that cash into the reserve fund. This gives the organization an opportunity to better leverage what they’ve been given and thus be more effective in achieving their mission.
Having a reserve fund has given Amanda and her leadership team the peace of mind that’s welcome in uncertain economic conditions. With the goal of building 300 homes within the Atlanta Land Trust portfolio, Amanda has needed to hire more team members to support the mission.
“Each year, I’ve hired one new staff member. A big part of that sustainable growth is ensuring we have the financial resources to continue paying them,” Amanda explained. “It feels really good now to be in a place where we have a robust operating reserve and we’re not worried about making payroll on a monthly basis.”
Looking ahead to growing their cash, for the first time, Atlanta Land Trust is launching a campaign within Infinite Giving. Their fundraising efforts offer more ways to give instead of just cash with donations including stocks, crypto, DAFs, and endowments.
“I’m looking for ways to get more traction on those types of donations, and tap into those types of gifts,” Amanda said.
“Infinite Giving has been great. It’s so nice to not only have an operating reserve but to also continue growing it.”
Want to better manage your nonprofit’s cash and grow your operating reserve fund?
Contact our team at Infinite Giving today to learn more about how your nonprofit can grow with thoughtful stewardship and better cash management. Get started here.
