The judges for this year's Environmental Finance IMPACT Investment Awards celebrated the $82.5 million US Property Acquisition fund (US PAF) – led by Habitat Capital and managed by Enterprise Community Loan Fund – winning the award for impact measurement and metrics.

Launched earlier this year with investments from JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Enterprise Community Loan Fund, ImpactAssets, Arnold Ventures, and Annie E Casey Foundation, and equity from Habitat for Humanity International, the fund provides Habitat affiliates and other mission-related entities with property acquisition financing. The fund aims to accelerate the production of affordable housing and increase community impact by providing acquisition/rehab lines of credit and loans.

US PAF uses an Impact Rating Tool to review and select projects and report impact, incorporating the Impact Management Project's Five Dimensions of Impact – 'What', 'Who', 'How Much', 'Investor Contribution', and 'Risk'.

The tool evaluates investments on 24 indicators across 14 'sub-dimensions', such as the number of affordable units a project will create and whether the financing is likely to boost the development capacity of the borrower. The tool provides a weighted numerical impact score for each project.

The impact framework creates a benchmark of average scores to assess the fund's progress towards its goals and provides direction on which borrowers or projects require additional resources to better achieve impact objectives.