Six years ago, Elizabeth Alonzo-Villarreal was in the NeighborWorks Achieving Excellence Program, thinking about a potential capstone project that would take her organization, NeighborWorks Laredo, to the next level. The program, which NeighborWorks® America hosts in cooperation with Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Business, provides classes, coaching and mentorship for leaders like Alonzo-Villarreal, who serves as CEO. She had her answer. “We wanted to become a CDFI,” she said.

Nobody wins when the family feuds.

Let me tell you a story about a house. 

Not just any house — but the big house. The house where my cousins spent summers running barefoot through the yard, where Sunday dinners stretched late into the evening, filled with laughter and the smell of southern cooking and my great-aunt’s White Diamonds perfume. A house full of memories, history and love. 

And then, it became a legal battlefield. 

Marietta Rodriguez presented this speech at the 2024 National Interagency Community Reinvestment on March 7 as part of a session entitled “A New Landscape for Community Impact.” 

Imagine a neighborhood. ANY neighborhood. A neighborhood that you live in, a neighborhood that you grew up in or a neighborhood you've visited. 

For 45 years, NeighborWorks America has strived to make every community a place of opportunity. Each year, different projects and initiatives work their way into the spotlight. As 2023 comes to a close, we look back on a successful year – and some of the initiatives that made it that way.

Native partnerships

"Why do you do what you do?" This is the question that we posed to a few affordable housing and community development leaders in and around NeighborWorks America. 

"I work at NeighborWorks America because the work we deliver for our network and our communities improves the lives of people!" 

—Marietta Rodriguez, President & CEO, NeighborWorks America

Subscribe to financial health