1978
Washington D.C.
Dorothy Mae Richardson began a neighborhood campaign on the north side of Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s to improve the condition of local houses by enlisting the support of government officials and financial institutions. The institutions provided loans to rehabilitate dilapidated housing through a revolving loan fund that would become Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS). Congress chartered NHS as NeighborWorks America in 1978 after it became a model replicated in 300 cities across the nation. Today the network has 240 community development organizations across the country.