NeighborWorks® America's Sustainable Business Initiative helps community-based NeighborWorks organizations strengthen their foundations and grow revenue. In 2024, the SBI provide seed grants to seven network organizations with promising earned revenue strategies. Over the next few weeks, as part of Small Business Month, NeighborWorks will highlight some of those outcomes.

There are some places where housing conversations stay theoretical. Juneau is not one of them. 

During a recent visit to Alaska, NeighborWorks® America President & CEO Marietta Rodriguez joined housing leaders for a full-day tour across Juneau to see firsthand how communities are responding to some of the country’s most complex housing challenges with urgency, innovation and partnership. 

More than 400 tribal leaders, housing practitioners, health organizations, community development professionals and national partners gathered in Anchorage, Alaska, this month for the Housing Our Relatives Summit, a first-of-its-kind convening focused on

In urban Minneapolis, Minnesota, a NeighborWorks network organization has started a new loan product to help families and individuals finance new manufactured homes. In Providence, Rhode Island, another network organization is focused on modular homes as an affordable housing solution. 

In other locations across the country, developers are just starting to learn how off-site built homes might work as an attainable housing solution in their communities, especially as the price of land, material and construction excludes more people from the dream of homeownership. 

The Sustainable Business Initiative helps community-based NeighborWorks organizations strengthen their foundations and grow revenue. In 2024, the SBI provide seed grants to seven network organizations with promising earned revenue strategies. Over the next few weeks, as part of Small Business Month, NeighborWorks will highlight some of those outcomes.

NeighborWorks® America welcomed leaders from across its nearly 250-member network to Washington, D.C., last week, for its annual Executive Symposium. The gathering gave leaders – and, for the first time in person, board members – a chance to connect, to innovate, and to talk about solutions for the nation’s housing crisis.

This year, about 220 network leaders and 120 board members joined in the event. The theme was Collective Leadership: Building Strength for Today & Tomorrow!

Marcia Erickson grew up on a cattle farm in rural South Dakota where neighbors knew and took care of one another. If one neighbor fell ill or got hurt when it was time to bring in the corn, the others were ready to help. “The crops can’t wait,” Erickson said.  

Lee Anne Adams has more than 20 years of experience working with affordable housing and community development organizations, both in the U.S. and Latin America. She's spent more than half of her career at NeighborWorks® America and in July, became the national nonprofit's executive vice president and chief operating officer. We sat down with her to talk about the insights she's gained from her new role.

You’ve been Chief Operating Officer at NeighborWorks® America for about nine months. What have you learned about NeighborWorks and yourself?