Our History
NALCAB was founded in 2002.
A group of passionate and experienced community and economic development leaders representing rural and urban Latino communities gathered to identify their most fundamental challenge: in order to build assets and wealth, community development organizations that serve Latino communities need greater access to capital and technical resources.
NALCAB held its' first national conference in 2003 entitled "Accessing Capital to Create Wealth" in Albuquerque, New Mexico and successfully engaged a national cross section of Latino-led nonprofits and investors. In the years that followed, NALCAB expanded its audience through a series of events and developed an increasingly national membership base, representative of both urban and rural communities.
In late 2006, the Board of Directors hired its first Executive Director, Noel Andrés Poyo. NALCAB began to implement an integrated program of grant making and technical assistance focused on accessing capital, building organizational capacity and advancing the readiness of asset building projects.
In 2008, NALCAB launched a Border Community Development Collaborative to serve nonprofit asset builders in the border region. NALCAB hosted a national conference in San Francisco and the first border community and economic development summit in McAllen, Texas.
In 2009, NALCAB launched a regional collaborative in the Northwestern U.S. to support local asset building efforts that serve quickly growing Latino and immigrant communities. NALCAB also organized national consortia among its members to respond to major federal funding opportunities. NALCAB hosted its national conference in Los Angeles and the second border summit in El Paso.
In 2010, a second emerging communities collaborative was launched in the Deep South. NALCAB hosted its sixth national conference in San Antonio, featuring high level representation from seven federal departments and commissions. NALCAB launched a first of its kind fellowship for leaders in community and economic development.
Today, NALCAB serves a membership of more than 80 nonprofit organizations operating in 30 states and the District of Columbia building community assets and family wealth in predominately Latino and immigrant communities.
