Danielle Bergner: Hello and welcome to the Health Care Real Estate Advisor Podcast. I’m Danielle Bergner, a real estate attorney with Hall Render. And today we will be speaking with Carrie Vanderford Sanders, CEO of Hope Community Capital, on the topic of New Markets tax credits for hospitals and federally qualified health centers, or FQHCs. Good morning, Carrie.

Carrie Vanderford Sanders: Good morning, Danielle.

Danielle Bergner: Carrie, maybe for those not familiar with Hope Community Capital, could you maybe just start by telling us a little bit about your organization and what you do?

Carrie Vanderford Sanders: Yes. Thanks Danielle. My name is Carrie Vanderford Sanders, as Danielle identified, and I am the CEO and founder of Hope Community Capital. We are a national community development finance consultancy. We work with projects across the nation that need to access interesting tax credits, other public subsidies, also impact capital to develop and operate high impact community facilities.

Danielle Bergner: Wonderful. Before we dive into the application of the New Markets Tax Credit Program to hospitals and FQHCs, I thought it might be helpful if we just talk a little bit more broadly about the New Markets program, it’s underlying policies and objectives and just basically how it works. I think that would be a good foundation for our listeners today. Maybe Carrie, from your perspective, just explain a little bit, how does the New Markets Tax Credit Program work? A lot of people have heard of it, they’re familiar with the term. But what I find is a lot of our healthcare clients aren’t intimately familiar with the program and what it’s really intended to accomplish.

Carrie Vanderford Sanders: So Danielle, the New Markets Tax Credit Program is section 47d of the IRS code. And it was originally envisioned in 2001 and is currently administered through the US Department of Treasury through the Community Development Financial Institutions office. The point of the program then and still today is to provide a federal tax credit to investors for investing in a qualif