Through partnerships with organizations, residents, and public- and private-sector partners, NeighborWorks America creates opportunities for people to live in affordable homes, improve their lives and strengthen their communities.
Over the past 30 years, NeighborWorks America, a national nonprofit created by Congress, has assisted hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-income families with their housing needs. Much of their success is achieved through their support of the NeighborWorks network – more than 235 community development organizations working in urban, suburban and rural communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. NeighborWorks America is the nation’s leading trainer of community development and affordable housing professionals. The importance of public participation and community values is stressed in all program work.
NeigborWorks abounds in national programs addressing a wide variety of relevant issues and obstacles to housing access. Some programs include the NeighborWorks Community Building and Organizing Initiative, which helps to recruit and train local leaders and build community capacity (including youth leaders), and the NeighborWorks Rural Initiative, which seeks to develop innovative strategies for housing and economic growth in struggling rural areas.
The Success Measures Program offers an approach to outcome evaluation that integrates participatory processes, training and technical assistance and the web-based technology of the Success Measures Data System (SMDS), found at http://www.successmeasures.org. SMDS offers ready-to-use data collection tools and other features which support organizations to plan, manage and analyze evaluations on their own. Training and SMDS subscriptions are available to community-based organizations, intermediaries, funders and other nonprofits.
The NeighborWorks website also provides a few resources, including reports on relevant and current topics in community development and a list of “Winning Strategies”—the innovative approaches that organizations within the NeighborWorks network have been using in their own communities.
NeighborWorks America’s overall vision is for America to be “a nation of vibrant communities all are proud to call home.” The organization attempts to address problems through local partnerships that include NeighborWorks organizations, community residents, and public- and private-sector partners.