2024 Conference

Hope and Optimism Amidst Many Challenges

The volatility and uncertainty that marked the start of the post-pandemic era are still with us. Our markets are disrupted, operating our properties has never been more challenging, and to paraphrase Gregg Colburn, co-author of Homelessness is a Housing Problem, affordable housing has become a large-scale game of musical chairs. The challenges are real and relentless, and yet we remain hopeful and focused on solutions. 

Nowhere is this truer than when we come together at Strength Matters. Our 17th Annual Financial Management Conference will bring together more than 200 CFOs and other senior financial management professionals from the nation’s leading nonprofit housing and community development organizations, along with investment, accounting, and other industry partners. These are our people – whether attending their first conference or their 17th!  

And Chicago will be a great backdrop for our meeting. The Loews Chicago Hotel is a block from the Chicago River, two blocks from Michigan Avenue, and three blocks from the Navy Pier. Those arriving early will get a chance to take part in a property tour and see the work of Hispanic Housing Development Corporation.   

We will learn from and support one another as we work to strengthen our organizations, which are needed more than ever. 

Register for Conference 

Photo of apartment complex and sky

DRAFT AGENDA

All times are Central Time
Information about CPE credits here. 

Tuesday, Sept. 3

2:00-4:30PM | Humboldt Park Neighborhood Tour
5:30-7:00PM | Welcome Reception

Wednesday, Sept. 4

7:30-8:30AM | Breakfast
8:30-10:15AM | Opening Plenary – The State of the Industry

A number of economic, political, and social factors have converged to make this one of the most complicated periods for the affordable housing and community development industry. Rising costs, continuing rent arrearages, staffing shortages, immigration pressures, increasing homelessness, crime rates, aging stock, polarized politics – these are just a few of the trends that have come together to create what for many organizations in our industry is an existential crisis. The opening plenary will examine the principal economic factors at play today from the perspective of key industry players and will help ground the conversations that will follow, offering hope and a path forward.

10:15-10:30PM | Break
10:30-12:00PM | Concurrent Sessions
Enterprise Risk Management 2.0

This session will provide a practical approach to assessing the state of your organization’s ERM process. We will provide an ERM Overview with a review of the importance of the work and then review the typical ERM process, in theory and in practice with practical tips and tools to take back to assess your organization.

Foundations Support to Meet New Challenges

Owners of affordable housing are facing new challenges and headwinds. Many owners realize that they must re-think their business models. Many nonprofits that believed they could “do it all” are forced to face the choices that they did not make in the past. The foundation world was, and is, a key partner and player in that decision making process- what values to support and how to support them. In this conversation leading foundations will look back at the values they have supported in the past and the current landscape. What are the values, the outcomes, and the measures their organization are prioritizing.

Portfolio Optimization

In the current climate owners of multifamily portfolios can no longer think in terms of “break even” or even “sustainability”. Owners are beginning to figure out what the optimum shape and content their portfolio is. What does “Highest and best use” mean to a mission based, nonprofit organization? Who is the best owner for a property? A CFO, a developer and an industry leader share strategies.

Recruiting

Finding talent is hard. What are the creative ways for recruiting talent to your organization. What makes you an attractive employer and how do you differentiate your organization from the competition for new staff. This panel will include recruiting firms and HR professionals who have been successful in finding top talent for their open positions in Finance, Development and Asset Management.

12:00-1:30PM | Networking Lunch
1:30-3:00PM | Concurrent Sessions
Ratings Panel

More organizations, both affordable housing developers and CDFIs, are being rated by S&P and Moody’s. This session will discuss the approach to ratings and the view on the industry from the standpoint of the Rating Agencies and will discuss the process and the implications from the standpoint of a newly rated CDFI and an affordable housing developer.

Employee Retention

Turnover and finding new talent are an ongoing and chronic concern amongst our members. Why not get in front of the challenge? How do we create a culture that enhances retention of employees? What are the cultural elements of an organization that lead to reduced turnover? Tools and tips for improving your employee retention will be covered by a consultant in this space and HR professionals with expertise in addressing this need.

HUD Primer

In the lengthy recovery from COVID and the heightened focus on the formerly homeless, HUD continues to be a critical force. REAC inspections, ENSPIRE, rent ‘catch ups’ and subsidy allocation are complex and stressful. Get the latest on HUD’s view of where we are and how HUD can help.

Tech 1 – Assessing Needs and Evaluating Systems

This session will address assessing your systems and the tools in your operating platform with a focus on identifying your real needs and wants, aligning your technology strategy mission and vision, auditing your technology, assessing your needs and set values-driven priorities, creating a practical and mission-aligned product and portfolio road maps. The steps for technology strategy and implementation prior to the buy or build decision. Panelists include technology consultants Software for the Common Good, Chief Information Officers from Affordable Housing Industry and Accounting Consultants specializing in technology assessments.

3:00-3:15PM | Break
3:15-4:45PM | Concurrent Session
A Development Primer for CFOs

The CFOs office is where the financial performance of a portfolio and the strength of the organization meet. And Real Estate development is usually the biggest investment and risk that an organization takes. This session offers CFOs an overview of the development process and will focus on the key decision points in the process: choosing deals, financing resources and support. What are the danger points, and red flags along the way? How to build an integrated process for your organization.

Syndication Panel

What are the trends and issues facing our syndicators against the backdrop of interest rates, rising delinquencies, and declining portfolio performances. How is this impacting structuring at the Fund’s upper tier level and impacting new business decisions? Syndicators will share their views on the state of the LIHTC equity markets.

Tech 2 – System Selection

Investing in new systems or making the decision to build an application? Experts will discuss a disciplined process for approaching these projects. While practitioners will share their experiences in system selection and implementation and the keys to a successful match of organizational needs to system selection.

Workforce trends

Everyone is struggling to hire new staff and keep the staff they have. Competition with for-profits is fierce. Can cross training really help? Are college degrees essential? Remote vs office staff? Getting creative in looking for help. Silos vs teams and more. Industry experts offer a broader range of options.

Thursday, Sept. 5

7:30-8:30AM | Breakfast
8:45-10:15AM | Plenary – Game Changing Technology Initiatives

For years, we have been expecting a quantum leap forward in the use of technology to drive solutions for our industry. Has that moment arrived? The same convergence of trends that makes for a complicated moment for our industry is driving forward technology innovations. This plenary will explore how technology is driving operating efficiency and impact in our industry. We will hear from technology and industry leaders – including nonprofit and for-profit affordable housing developers – on what tools and innovations hold the most promise. What has worked in the adoption of new technologies? What has failed? How do we position our organizations to navigate technology change and drive organizational strength for the future? ion.

10:15-10:30AM | Break
10:30-12:00PM | Concurrent Sessions
Insurance

After a brief market update, this panel will explore real estate risk from a financial perspective. The two key levers are risk management and risk retention. How much risk can we afford to retain? And which risk? Can we get partners to absorb a risk share? Can we fund a loss reserve? How much? What a captive means from an investment perspective. CFOs and industry experts discuss the strategies owners have employed, how they made their decisions and how the industry responded.

Investor Perspective on Portfolio Performance

Equity partners discuss their perspective on the current state of their LIHTC portfolios. The persistence of rent collections issues, opex trends, and the rise of nonperformers and the approach being taken to address problem assets are a few of the topics that will be addressed by this panel.

Public Private Partnerships

Your public partners have the 2nd greatest interest in the long-term success of your housing. As the industry faces severe economic and social headwinds, many Housing Finance Agencies are looking for ways to support our common mission. In this session the leaders of three HFAs discuss their perspectives and their strategies to provide resources, to ease obligations and to offer assistance.

Workouts

Workouts are no longer a strategy just for deals that do not work. They are essential tools for creating portfolios that do work. Understanding the equity in deals and also the potential in properties, if they can be improved, are essential items in the asset management toolbox. Workouts can be as important to having a strong organization as having a strong property. Experts share their workout experience.

12:00-1:15PM | Lunch – DEI/Social Inclusion

This lunch block will include time for informal networking among peers, followed by a short panel discussion on DEI and social inclusion in our industry.

1:15-1:30PM | Break


1:30-3:00PM | Concurrent Sessions
Business Combinations

There has been a recent uptick in asset acquisitions, mergers and other “business combinations” to enhance and expand capacity and services or to simply grow. Come hear how four affordable housing organizations have/are expanding their platforms. Learn how they identified the opportunity and the support they brought in to create and structure the transaction.

Tech 3 – Implementation and Integration

Successful implementation and integration of new systems requires a rethinking of process and procedures, change management to get the team to adopt and use the new system to its fullest extent, and a well thought out integration and adoption plan. This panel will address the successful implementation of systems. The panel includes consulting experts to help with documenting new work flows for process, as well as practitioners with shared experience in new system adoption.

3:00-3:15PM | Break

3:15-4:45PM | Concurrent Sessions
Learning Culture – Feedback Loops

Creating a culture of communication and honest feedback in a highly collaborative space is essential in a housing development organization. The communication between the Finance-Development-Asset Management-Property Management-Resident Services is critical to achieving high results. How do we form effective feedback loops across the business segments and develop a culture of collaboration? This panel will include Organizational Consultants who have expertise in developing the necessary frameworks and supporting management in achieving these goals.

Housing Stabilization and Rent Collection – Re-Creating A Rent Paying Culture

Long Covid effects housing just as it does people! Multifamily portfolios continue to suffer slow or nonpayment of rent, and high long-term receivables. Reestablishing a norm in which residents pay their rent means recreating a culture of housing stability and mutual trust. This not what Property Management or Resident Service are trained to do. Learn how owners have changed communication, incentives, and debt forgiveness to rebuild relationships. And how CFOs have changed their cash flow projections.

Liquidity Management

Managing organizational liquidity begins with a board adopted liquidity framework assessing the operating and investment needs of the organization. Defining your risk tolerances and liquidity management strategy, how do you then safeguard your cash investing it prudently, managing FDIC insurance risk, managing fraud risk with appropriate bank protections. This session will cover Liquidity Management from both a governance and practical approach with panelists including consultants, cash management leaders and CFO practitioners.

Permanent Supportive Housing

Permanent Supportive Housing is hard but there are housers who are making it work through aggressive adoption of service model, pairing healthcare reimbursements, and other innovative efforts. This panel will address models for owning and managing permanent supportive housing from nonprofit that have been tested and have been proven to be successful.

Tech 4 –The Practical Implications of AI

What are the practical implications of AI in our business. Explore the use of digital works, and machine learning and how to incorporate these efficiencies into your business models to drive down cost. This panel will include experts from the work of Generative AI and machine learning, along with nonprofit practitioners who have implemented digital workers into their operating platforms.

5:00-7:00PM | Optional Evening Outings

Friday, Sept. 6

7:30-8:30AM | Breakfast
8:45-10:15AM | Concurrent Sessions
Accounting Updates Panel

Industry panel comprised of CPAs from top accounting firms supporting the Affordable Housing Industry will discuss “hot topics” and trends they are seeing with their clients. Discussion will include rising fraud concerns, accounting for loan restructures and modifications, and new technology impacting the sector.

Wearing too many hats? – CFO’s sharing the challenges of managing IT, HR, Risk Management and other functions

All too often the nonprofit CFO is not simply the CFO (as if that isn’t enough) but also a COO managing all or some of a disparate array of functions to include IT, HR, Risk Management, Asset Management, etc. Learning to manage functions outside your natural area of expertise is a challenge. A panel of practitioners wearing many hats, will discuss how they manage the array of functions within the span of their control.

10:15-10:30AM | Break
10:30-11:30AM | Closing Session: The Road Ahead

What just happened? What are the major themes and learnings that emerged over the past three days? What action items can we take back for implementation? What future content do we want Strength Matters to deliver throughout the year and at next year’s conference? Join your colleagues for an honest assessment of the conference and gain insights that you can take home and apply to your work.

11:30AM | Adjourn
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