In addition, the firm is re-energizing its focus on local initiatives. By early spring 2009, in New York, Enterprise plans to reach its goal of investing $1 billion into the city to create and preserve 15,000 affordable homes for 45,000 low-income New Yorkers, in a program called The Billion Dollar Promise. In Los Angeles, the firm has partnered with the city to create the New Generation Fund, a $100 million predevelopment and acquisition fund designed to preserve and build approximately 4,000 units of affordable housing a year until 2014. Getting funding to sustain all of these programs is a tall order. But Koo is determined to have Enterprise play a number of roles in the recovery, whether distributing funds to local groups, helping with best practices, or linking people who need funds with those who have them.
That vision is just one of the many reasons Koo seems to be the right person to lead Enterprise through this tenuous period. Combine her rare ability to communicate with people from all walks of life—whether wealthy Wall Streeters, D.C.’s power brokers, newly arrived immigrants, or lifelong public housing residents—with her ability to build compromise and generate new ideas, and it’s easy to see why this may just be the right time and place for a community organizer from Chicago to change housing policy in the country. No, not the community organizer in the White House, but an Asian-American immigrant with a warm, yet powerful presence.
“[Doris] is very much into the policy [side],” former Congressman Lazio says. “She’s testified on the Hill. I think her background and personal story and passion are remarkably convincing.”
Leadership Lessons
> Age: 58 > Favorite Quote: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists; and when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: We did it ourselves.” —Lao Tzu (600 B.C.)
> Best Business Decision: Bringing Enterprise in to help rebuild the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina
> Person You Most Admire: James Rouse
> Best Advice Ever Received: When you find yourself in a position to lead, lead.
> Leadership Philosophy: Focus on the big picture, build a unified vision, and empower others to become leaders and implementers.
> Favorite Music: Classical, mostly Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven
> Last Book Read: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (Crown Publishers, 2006)
The Company: Enterprise Community Partners
• Year Founded: 1982 • Headquarters: Columbia, Md.
• No. of Employees: 467
• 2007 Revenue: $140.5 million
• 2008 Units Managed: 105,386
• 2008 Units Built: 4,985 (all LIHTC deals)
• Geographic Coverage: National
Reignite the Movement
Doris Koo wants to bridge industries to achieve social change.
Doris Koo knows she’s part of a bigger movement, one that started in the ’60s and ’70s advocating community mobilization and social change. Now, it’s found its way to the upper echelons of society, business, even the White House.
Koo says the leaders of this movement have a number of transformative qualities, including an ability to identify the vision of a constituency, find the best path to get a result for that vision, and stay optimistic no matter what the circumstances. Many leaders in that movement have taken those qualities into other industries, such as health care and affordable housing, she says. But the real question, she says, is “how do we bring the movement back together again, not in the old way, but in a very professional way?”
Koo is trying to take the lead by integrating Enterprise and its agenda for social change with organizations in other industries. That’s how it aligned with environmental groups for its Green Communities initiative. One new target: the AARP.
“In addition to the inevitable trend of global warming, we have the inevitable trend of the aging of this nation’s people,” Koo says. “How do we help low-income elderly to age in places that are respectful and dignified? That mission was one I wanted to help propagate.”
Top Draw
Here are the enterprise’s top three legislative priorities under Doris Koo’s direction
As the Obama administration takes over, Enterprise is confident that its vast legislative agenda will gain traction with the new administration and Congress. Here’s a sampling of the programs the organization wants to advocate in the policy arena.
1) LIHTC. Enterprise wants $5 billion in HOME funds to fill the gaps for the decrease in tax credit values. In addition, the organization seeks refundable LIHTCs to ensure that investors can claim credits; modification of rules that will encourage more bank investment; the ability for investors in multi-state funds to get credits; and an extension of carrybacks from one year to five years.
2) Foreclosures. Doris Koo believes the country will need an additional $5 billion in neighborhood stabilization funds in order to increase the impact of the $3.9 billion that Congress has already allocated. If you include the $1 billion in the National Stabilization Trust, that would leverage a whopping $7.5 billion of private capital to rehab more than 100,000 homes and produce 100,000 new jobs.
3) Green. Enterprise wants to put $8 billion of flex funding towards energy retrofits and other types of energy-efficient measures at affordable housing developments. The firm also advocates for creating an energy-efficient tax credit for multifamily rental units. In addition, Enterprise supports reauthorizing a green HOPE VI program that would ultimately require all public housing revitalization projects assisted under the HOPE VI program to meet Enterprise’s Green Communities standard.
