Organizations

The Citi Foundation and NeighborWorks America have launched the Financial Capability Demonstration Project, a two-year, $5 million joint effort that aims to expand nonprofit capacity to provide financial management assistance to low- and moderate-income Americans. They estimate the project will help as many as 65,000 people.

The Virginia-based Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers awarded its 2011 HAND Housing Achievement Awards to: Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, Arlington, Va.; The Summit at St. Martin’s Apartments, Washington, D.C.; Poppleton II, Baltimore; Heritage Park Apartments, Fredericksburg, Va.; The Preventing and Ending Homelessness Initiative of the Fairfax County Office to Prevent and End Homelessness; The Rev. Msgr. Ralph J. Kuehner; The Michael Group, Baltimore; and Virginia State Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple.

People

The Ford Foundation has bestowed one of its Visionaries Awards, created in honor of Ford’s 75th anniversary, upon Martin Eakes, co-founder and CEO of Self-Help and CEO of the Center for Responsible Lending. Eakes has also since joined the Ford Foundation board. Other awardees include Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and Ellen Bravo, executive director, Family Values @ Work in Milwaukee. For a complete list see www.nhi.org/go/visionaries.

Xavier de Souza Briggs has gone back to the MIT faculty after more than two-and-a-half years as associate director for general government programs at the White House Office of Management and Budget. Briggs, who told Shelterforce that his decision reflects a desire to be back with his family, was replaced by Dana Hyde who previously served as senior policy advisor to the deputy secretary of state for management and budget. See the 2009 Shelterforce interview with Briggs and his pre-2008 election essay for Shelterforce.

Luther Ragin is the new executive director of the Global Impact Investing Network. Ragin was formerly the vice president of investments at the F.B. Heron Foundation. GIIN was launched at the 2009 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.

Janice Nittoli is the new president of The Century Foundation. She previously served as associate vice president and manager of The Rockefeller Foundation.

Kathe Newman, associate professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, will direct the school’s new Ralph W. Voorhees Center for Civic Engagement.

Bernie Mazyck, president and CEO of the South Carolina Association of CDCs, is the new chair of the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations. He succeeds founding chair Diane Sterner, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey and a board member of the National Housing Institute.

Catherine V. Godschalk, former director of the DC office of Self-Help Ventures Fund/Self-Help Credit Union, now manages the U.S. lending team at the Calvert Foundation. Following her departure, Tucker Bartlett will take over Self-Help’s NSP2 program, Deborah Momsen-Hudson its lease-purchase pilot efforts, and Tina Johnson its local community development lending efforts in the DC metro area.

Michelle Knapik is the new director of the Sustainable Environments Program at the Surdna Foundation. Knapik was previously the environment program director at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in New Jersey; before that she was the director of energy policy for Philadelphia’s Municipal Energy Office. She succeeds Sharon Alpert, who now serves as Surdna’s senior director of programs and strategy.

Carol Galante as been named acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, stepping into the post after a stint as HUD deputy assistant secretary for multi-family housing programs. Prior to joining HUD in 2009, she was president at BRIDGE Housing Corporation, headquartered in San Francisco. Robert C. Ryan, who led FHA after David Stephens left in April to head the Mortgage Bankers Association, is now a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

Peter S. Rummell is now chairman of the Urban Land Institute. Rummell, principal of the Rummell Company in Jacksonville, Fla., is former chairman of the ULI Foundation.

Shelterforce mourns the passing of Robert Hohler, executive director of the Melville Charitable Trust and a national leader in the effort to end homelessness, who died in June at the age of 78. Hohler, who in 2009 was honored as the year’s Distinguished Grantmaker by The Council on Foundations, was a driving force across Connecticut and the nation supporting and fostering solutions to both prevent and end homelessness, and was an important supporter of the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s successful effort to bring the National Housing Trust Fund into existence.