Since 2004, Bank of America has invested over $280 million in 50 communities through Neighborhood Builders® partnering with more than 1,400 nonprofits and helping more than 2,800 nonprofit leaders strengthen their leadership skills. In Dallas-Ft. Worth, 53 nonprofits have been selected as a Neighborhood Builder, with the bank investing $10,600,000 into these local organizations through the program since 2004.
The invitation-only program is highly competitive, and leading members of the community participated in a collaborative selection process to identify this year’s awardees.
LVTRise and Harmony Community Development Corporation have been selected as the 2021 Neighborhood Builders® awardees. Each organization receives $200,000 in flexible funding over two years and comprehensive leadership development training to advance economic mobility in North Texas.
Programs that help address the local issues around housing, health, and education are enabled to scale and help more people through this multi-year grant from Bank of America. Each organization’s executive director and an emerging leader will receive training on topics ranging from increasing financial sustainability, human capital management and strategic storytelling. This program is the nation’s largest investment into nonprofit leadership development.
Awardees join a network of peer organizations across the U.S., and get the opportunity to access capital to expand their impact.
“Nothing is more foundational to life than safety, education, housing, and employment,” said Willie Rankin, executive director of LVTRise. “Participating in the Neighborhood Builder program empowers LVTRise to learn more about these issues and how to better address them in our community. Since our creation three years ago, we’ve made great strides in improving the quality of life for people in the Las Vegas Trail area. Being a Neighborhood Builder will multiply our work moving forward.”
“Collaboration and access, that’s what Harmony CDC is about,” said Mark Porter, executive director of Harmony CDC. “We serve 25,000 people annually in southern Dallas with food, rent relief, economic mobility, counseling and legal services, and more. The community we serve has some of the highest rates of poverty in Dallas — being selected as Neighborhood Builder is a blessing and will allow us to hire more staff and serve even more people.”
