Kairos is proud to be a Freddie Mac Multifamily Impact Sponsor. The Impact Sponsor Award was established in 2021 to recognize sponsors who simultaneously move the needle on affordable housing and create value through tenant advancement.
The 2022 Impact Sponsor cohort is comprised of sponsors who stand out amongst their peers by going above and beyond to promote affordability, green improvements, tenant supportive services, and more.
Freddie Mac amplifies the power of the Impact Sponsor Awards with an annual cohort of Impact Sponsor award winners. The cohort are like-minded sponsors who can celebrate each other’s wins, share learnings and ideas, and keep the momentum for change going.
Making An Impact Through Our Value-Based Investment Strategy
As we make a true social impact with our strategic investments in affordable housing assets, we also strive to make environmental impact by simultaneously investing in water conservation, energy efficiency, and waste reduction improvements at our properties. We believe impact investing can deliver on its promise of financial returns as well as measurable positive social or environmental impact.
Our goal is also to collect the empirical data needed to prove that impact investing can be used to reduce risk and enhance return. We want to create the roadmap for the attribution of return from impact investments to help raise awareness and inspire other investors to look for new ways to incorporate non-financial impact in their investment pursuits.
Five Core Objectives for our Overall Impact Strategy
- PROVIDE QUALITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING to effect change and directly impact the lives of tenants across the United States. Kairos has a tiered plan for investment in rent-restricted properties based on area median income (AMI). Additionally, we reserve a portion of our market-rate properties for tenants that earn below the AMI. Our target investments range from $5 million to $30 million per asset and with an overall portfolio size of $900 million.
- PROMOTE POSITIVE COMMUNITY SUPPORT through resident and community programs that are tailored, based on feedback from the tenants and their specific needs, to improve quality of life. In 2020 over 27,000 people participated in 343 different social programs hosted by Kairos owned properties. The programs range from job fairs to health and wellness events to senior social gatherings. We have also partnered with Esusu, an innovative fintech that helps renters increase their credit profile by reporting their rent payments to the credit rating agencies, to empower our tenants’ personal financial wellness.
- REDUCE OUR CARBON FOOTPRINT by making environmental impact investments in water conservation, energy efficiency, and waste reduction improvements in portfolio properties, thus resulting in decreased greenhouse gas emissions. Across our assets in 2020 we reduced water consumption by 36.7 million gallons in 2020, electricity consumption by 1.75 million KWH, and waste creation by 728 cubic yards.
- INVEST IN OUR PEOPLE by creating a diverse and inclusive workplace for our employees to feel empowered and to elevate to their highest potential. We want our team to grow in their career with Kairos. The firm is 90% minority owned and 38% of management is minority.
- MONITOR OUR PROGRESS to measure and understand key indicators that will help us improve our objectives. From number of units rented to affordable tenants to event participation and credit improvement Kairos has a select group of data points used to understand the success of our social impact. For our sustainability goals we measure our carbon footprint, gallons of water saved, return on cost, and return on equity. By these measures for 2020, our return on cost of our sustainability effort was 17% with a 5.9-year average payback.
The 2022 Impact Sponsor award winner’s cohort in addition to Kairos include Bridge Investment Group, CAF Capital, ColRich, Comunidad Partners, Fairstead, Greatwater Opportunity Capital, MRK Partners, Openpath Investments, and Stoneweg.
For questions or comments, contact our general information department at info@kimc.com.
