Volunteers of America Michigan’s mission made possible by social enterprise thrift stores; support from IFF

Block by Block is a solutions journalism series that is supported by IFF, CEDAM, and Invest Detroit, and is focused on community development leaders and initiatives in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana.

While some businesses offer one-day-only specials, discounts, and services for veterans in November, other organizations have a year-round mission to help. Volunteers of America (VOA) Michigan is faithfully committed to providing shelter, food, education, and transformation for vulnerable veterans, seniors, and families in local communities. 

VOA Michigan is an independently operating charity part of the VOA network. They believe in ministry of service, culture and environment, servant leadership, and social innovation. In order to do this impactful foundational work and help put a roof over the heads of the vulnerable, sometimes nonprofits need help with their own roofs — literally. This was the case with VOA Michigan. Enter IFF, the Midwest’s largest community development financial institution (CDFI). 

IFF works to uplift communities across Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and other Midwestern states. By providing community-centered lending, development, and real estate consulting to urban, suburban, and rural communities, IFF makes dreams come true for nonprofits. The CDFI has provided more than $1.6 billion in flexible, affordable financing to various nonprofits across housing, education, health care, and the arts and culture sectors.

Chris Uhl is the executive director of IFF’s Eastern region, leading work in Michigan and Ohio. His responsibility is to make sure his team delivers on lending, real estate consulting, and real estate development across three offices — Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Cleveland. 

Uhl says the partnership between IFF and VOA Michigan began about seven years ago. 

“At IFF, we try to strengthen nonprofits to help them better serve the communities they’re in,” Uhl says. “One of the fundamental pieces of nonprofits is that they’re serving people in quality real estate. We’re all about facilities and finance, so our ability to help them improve their facilities, especially in ways that help them operate more efficiently, is a really big deal. Just being aligned with them as they deliver on their mission in a long-term partnership — not a transactional relationship — is essential to what we do.”

The VOA Michigan was looking to fix up a few of their thrift stores, repair parking lots, patch roof holes, and replace lighting with LED so they could be more energy-efficient. 

“What’s cool about that is that it shows that IFF likes to do those little things to help improve facilities in ways that other lenders — certainly banks and most CDFIs wouldn’t do,” Uhl says. “I think it’s great that we started there with that, a smaller transaction, and since then, we’re on loan number five with them, helping them buy new thrift store buildings throughout Michigan. It’s a really cool example of the arc of what we can do — the little things that aren’t as sexy as opening a brand new store but are super important in helping fix up their facilities all the way up through the multi-million dollar transactions for new stores.”

In 2018, IFF provided a $345,000 loan to support renovations and repairs (roof replacement, interior and exterior lighting, flooring, and parking lot repairs) at two thrift stores — Lansing South Cedar Street and the Burton store. The following year, IFF provided a $1.9 million loan to the Westland store. Also in 2019, IFF provided a $1.825 million loan to support the relocation of their Lansing West thrift store. 

Their sixth store was made possible after IFF closed a $2.3 million loan, enabling VOA MI to acquire and renovate a 46,000-square-foot commercial building in Saginaw. 

Uhl says that one of the things that makes IFF different is that they are non-appraisal-based, while most lenders seek to put a collateral value on real estate.

This can lead to undervalued appraisals, which in turn, prohibit the amount of dollars needed from coming in. Rather than traditional financing sources that might require partners to come up with 30% equity, IFF only requires partners to come up with 5% of their cash to be used in projects. This fundamental difference makes a big impact, says Uhl.

“How do you put a value on repairing a parking lot or fixing holes in the roof?” Uhl says. “Instead of looking at it that way and being limited, we recognize the inherent value in improving that real estate and can lend those dollars to the organization.”

IFF worked with the first two VOA thrift stores in Michigan, and now they have locations in Burton, Corunna, Lansing, Marshall, Saginaw, and Westland. 

“Now we’ve funded into five of those stores — so in a way, we are helping them grow this very important piece of their business that was kind of augmenting their traditional work,” Uhl says. 

While the work itself is important, Uhl says it’s also important to take care of or take pride in where they do that important work too. 

“At IFF, we believe that non-profits should be in high-quality facilities,” he says. “You should have high-quality lighting, roofs that work and aren’t leaking. Just the ability to walk into these places and see that they are high-quality facilities, and know that we had a role in helping make them that way is just a wonderful thing.”

Uhl considers himself privileged to be at an organization in a position to help organizations with their varied, impactful missions. 

The CDFI has also been leaning into its partnership with VOA Michigan in other ways, too. 

“We’re actually working with them on adopting some families for the holidays to purchase gifts for,” Uhl says. 

Aubrey Macfarlane is the president and CEO of Volunteers of America Michigan. She’s been with the organization for a little over two and a half years, working to build on the organization’s strengths to best meet the needs of the community.”

In March 2026, the organization will turn 130 years old. 

“We are a part of a number of affiliates with a National Volunteers of America organization, although we are our own independent nonprofit,” Macfarlane says. “We started as a post many years ago and still continue to serve Veterans today. What we do in a nutshell is provide housing, healthcare, and human services to veterans, families, seniors, and individuals with disabilities.”

Macfarlane says the mission is possible with the support of the thrift stores — acting as a social enterprise engine.

“It’s really a sophisticated business model that helps strive profit to the bottom line, so not only does it serve a social mission of providing inexpensive home goods, furniture, and clothing to communities — but it also offers a profit that can go back directly into support the veterans and seniors we serve,” she says. 

Some of the services provided include transitional housing for veterans who are homeless, helping secure permanent housing, or helping veterans find a job. They also offer a suicide prevention program for active duty military and veterans. In addition to federal government funding, the thrift store profits help make these programs possible. 

“We also offer affordable housing, and have 11 properties across the state where we provide housing to seniors, families, and individuals with disabilities,” Macfarlane says. 

Many of the VOA Michigan programs and services are loss leaders, which would create a deficit and require fundraising or a social enterprise to support the work. 

Proceeds from each purchase at the non-profit thrift store help support life-changing programs for homeless veterans, seniors, and struggling families. As recent trends show shoppers making it a priority to shop local, decrease over-consumption, and adopt more green lifestyles, some turn to thrift stores over traditional big-box stores. 

“We prevent 20 million tons of waste from going into the landfills every day,” says Macfarlane. “Your standard thrifter knows that you’re doing better for the environment. In addition, at nonprofits like ours, we supply jobs for 25 to 30 individuals in each of these communities who are working at our stores. Beyond that, what we really need to look at is our profit margin. Any profit we make after paying our staff goes directly into the services we provide. It’s not going to any bottom line funding someone or the unknown, it really goes directly to serve people in the community. It’s really a full-cycle shopping experience.”

Continuing to work alongside IFF has enabled VOA Michigan to open up a brand-new thrift store in Marshall just two months ago. A fifth loan of $2.4 million was recently approved to support this seventh thrift store. 

“In order for us to be able to grow as an organization, we need additional dollars to subsidize our services,” Macfarlane says. “That means growing our thrift stores, and IFF walks right alongside us. They have provided loans for six of our seven thrift stores, and are a fundamental part not only of the thrift division — but our ability to continue to provide services as an organization.”

She considers one of IFF’s greatest attributes to be its flexibility in resources that traditional lenders simply don’t provide.

“Because of their commitment to equity and this type of work, they are one of our greatest partners,” Macfarlane says. “We really wouldn’t be able to do this work and expand the way we have without a partnership with IFF. What that means, at the end of the day, is being able to impact more people in the community.”