Marietta Rodriguez, president and CEO of NeighborWorks America, believes nothing is worse than doing nothing. That was the theme of a NeighborWorks campaign during the housing crisis of 2008. At the time, Rodriguez was NeighborWorks' vice president of National Homeownership and Lending Programs. Now at the helm of the organization, Rodriguez spent the week of Sept. 15 – the anniversary of the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008 – sharing lessons from that period. She continues to share those lessons, which follow, in her own words:

NeighborWorks President and CEO Marietta Rodriguez spoke with the National Credit Union Administration on Sept. 15 to help educate credit unions about NeighborWorks and about the potential for future partnerships. "We are very focused on local communities," she explained, and on generating the highest impact.
 

The AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers at The Neighborhood Developers Inc. (TND), in Chelsea, Massachusetts, had been at their various assignments for just over seven months when everything changed. Starting in March, when the spread of COVID also caused the spread of hard financial times, there were new needs. For the VISTAs (Volunteers in Service to America), there were new responsibilities.

Victor Cruz, former wide receiver for the Super Bowl-winning New York Giants, believes giving back – and coming back – to a community can inspire others. He brought his own brand of inspiration to a conversation with Marietta Rodriguez, president and CEO of NeighborWorks America, during an afternoon workshop sponsored by JPMorgan Chase.

Chief executive officers from three major community development intermediaries, including NeighborWorks America, talked about renewed commitments to racial equity, new partnerships and allocating resources in the time of a pandemic as part of a virtual panel hosted by NeighborWorks. The CEOs, all people of color and together for the first time in a forum like this, shared their thoughts on the state of community development in front of 70 executives from NeighborWorks network organizations based in the Northeast.

Since 1993, NeighborWorks America has convened over 15,000 lower-income resident leaders at its annual Community Leadership Institute (CLI). The nation's largest effort to amplify resident voices equips these leaders with the tools, seed funding and network of support they need to drive changes in their neighborhoods.