DONNA SMITH, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
Donna Smith, Executive Vice President and co-founder of Smith NMTC Associates, LLC wrote the successful Habitat for Humanity International-Smith Associates allocation application that pioneered New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) funding for Habitat for Humanity affiliates throughout the United States.
Creatively addressing the challenges of funding a wide range of smaller Qualified Low Income Community Investments (QLICIs), Donna helped create The Smith Model used in 7 HFHI-SA NMTC I LLC Community Development Entity’s (CDE that SmithNMTC formed with and for Habitat for Humanity International) transactions and 15 other transactions with Habitat affiliate borrowers (QALICBs) and 12 other third party CDEs. The Smith Model allows for aggregating Qualified Active Low Income Community Businesses (QALICBs) in one transaction, with separate Qualified Low Income Community Investments (QLICIs) as small as $500k per transaction for each QALICB to build a total transaction amount of $5M or higher; keeping transaction costs low and benefits high for each QALICB. The Smith Model has helped fund 81 Habitat for Humanity borrowers in 30 states. To read an article discussing this unique model, click here.
Donna is the lead writer of all NMTC Certification and Allocation Applications that SmithNMTC writes on behalf of its partners and of its own CDE. Among her other responsibilities, Donna monitors the QALICBs and provides reporting, compliance and financial counseling assistance to them for reporting purposes. As Compliance Officer, she also completes the Community Investment Impact Systems (CIIS) reporting.
Within her own community, Donna works closely with organizations striving to better the City of St. Louis. She is a founding member of the organizations and currently serves as board Secretary for America SCORES St. Louis, an affiliate of America SCORES; and previously served as president, vice president and member of her local school board.
Along with the Smith NMTC team, Donna continues to develop and pioneer new ways to implement New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) and other incentives for robust, sustainable, low income communities poised to grow and flourish for the long term.
An attorney with a varied background in real estate, litigation, and technical writing, Donna has worked for herself, Rothman, Sokol and Adler, Thompson, Mitchell and Wolff and Frankel. A recipient of the William Webster Criminal Law Scholarship, she received her J.D. from Washington University School of Law and was on staff and published in the Washington University Law Quarterly. In private practice, Donna specialized in appellate work, appearing before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals as counsel for the Special School District in the St. Louis desegregation case.
