In the world of community advocates, the Greenlining Institute stands out. Its success in cajoling financial companies to invest in low-income communities, treat minorities fairly, and be good corporate citizens reflects its approach: informed, tough, but cooperative.
"They're crystal clear about what they want, what they need, and what their position is. They do their research. They do their homework," said Tim Hanlon, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo & Co., who heads community development in the western United States. "It's a very solid and respectful relationship."
If not for Bank of America Corp., Greenlining (the name is a twist on the discriminatory practice of redlining) might never have come about. In 1992, B of A lent $100,000 to founders John Gamboa and Robert Gnaizda, who put up their homes as collateral.
Mr. Gnaizda, 69, said he first realized his passion for social and economic justice in February 1965 when he visited Mississippi to gather testimony for Congress that would eventually lead to the Civil Rights Act. His first job was director of litigation of the California Rural Legal Assistance.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gamboa, 63, was organizing 2,000 Hispanic managers at Pacific Bell to promote Spanish-language services at a time when phone companies opposed the move as un-American.
Back then, what would later become Greenlining based in Berkeley, Calif., was an ad hoc group that came together to address specific issues. It was incorporated in 1993 and today 40 groups as diverse as the First AME Church, the Asian Business Association, and the Mexican American Grocers Association work together under Greenlining's umbrella.
Its staff of 18 pursues a wide-ranging agenda that includes health care, education, and campaign finance. But its roots are firmly planted in financial services, and over the years it has figured out how to get what it wants from bankers.
"Greenlining doesn't approach it in terms of 'These are the bad guys and we're the good guys,' " said Mr. Gnaizda, the group's policy director and general counsel. He describes their style as "nonjudgmental and friendly."
Reza Aghamirzadeh, the senior vice president of community and external affairs at Washington Mutual Inc., calls Greenlining "forward-looking, thoughtful, and challenging." Wamu, he said, has a "trustful relationship" with the organization.
Mr. Hanlon of Wells added that Greenlining can come off as confrontational, "but once you get beyond that and realize that you're just really dealing with professionals who have figured out what issue they want to talk about and what their take on it is, then I think it becomes a much more professional meeting of the minds."
Greenlining board member Jorge Corralejo, a senior board member of the Latin Business Association, said Greenlining has earned bankers' respect through diligence and tenacity.
"Some would say we're tough, and we are," he said. "We're tough because we know what we're saying, what we're talking about. We're hard to brush off."
Greenlining insists on cooperation among members, too.
"If anyone violates it, we kick them out," Mr. Gamboa said. "We've done it many times."
Nor is it easy to join the coalition.
"A group has to be nominated by a member and voted on by all the other members," Mr. Gamboa said. "And the vote has to be unanimous." After their first year new members are voted on again, and again approval must be unanimous.
The founders met when Mr. Gamboa was a law student at the University of California, Berkeley, and Mr. Gnaizda was a guest lecturer. "We got in a fight in the classroom," Mr. Gamboa recalled in an interview last week. The two men are quite different, yet a 35-year collaboration was born.
Mr. Gamboa said the idea behind Greenlining was to teach competing groups to be partners rather than wrestle with one another over available resources.
"All we were doing was moving the resources around," he said. "We weren't making the pie any larger.
"Everything we are taught is 'get yours.' It's still our weakest point."
When Mr. Gamboa assesses Greenlining's record, he does not point to any single victory. Instead, to him, the biggest achievement has been a shift in the way companies view minorities.
"At first we had to sue companies and fight," he said. "Government has taught the whole county to look at minorities as a social problem, rather than as a viable market.
"That has changed. Now banks and others have come to the realization that this is an untapped, viable market. Businesses see they can produce goods, products, and services that we need in our communities, and they in turn will get a fair profit."
Greenlining knows it needs banks as partners.
"We'd much rather go with profit-oriented suggestions that benefit the community that are rooted in the company's own history or movement," Mr. Gnaizda said. "We are just a stimulus for them to put on their creative hats."
Greenlining uses the potential profitability of investing in lower-income communities as an argument for banks to sign community reinvestment deals. To date the group has negotiated commitments of more than $2.4 trillion under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.
"It makes economic sense," considering the enormous growth of the minority community, especially in California, Mr. Corralejo said. "The companies that are making the commitments are realizing greater potential," and "the ones who aren't, are cutting themselves short."
Though the dollar figures are staggering - JPMorgan Chase & Co. set a record last year with an $800 billion pledge over 10 years - Mr. Gnaizda said the CRA deals are not just about the money.
"It's that it forces financial institutions to develop long-term strategic plans for underserved or untapped markets," he said. "It forces them to go after the unbanked."
Greenlining has played a role in CRA deals with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Bank of Tokyo, Home Savings of America, and Washington Mutual.
The group also realizes a large CRA deal with one bank often paves the way to the next. After Bank of America committed to $750 billion in community reinvestment in 2003, Mr. Gnaizda said, JPMorgan Chase realized that being larger than B of A, "anything less would be hard to explain and would be very hard to trumpet as a leading commitment."
One of Greenlining's priorities is fair lending.
A strong national anti-predatory-lending law would protect borrowers and free lenders from dealing with dozens of different jurisdictions, Mr. Gnaizda said.
Greenlining recently filed a brief supporting New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's battle for access to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency sued in June to block Mr. Spitzer's office.
Though banks may not be intentionally discriminating against minority borrowers, Greenlining considers the inflexible tools lenders use to assess borrowers- namely credit scores - can lead to bias.
"We're going to try to work with all the banks to change their credit-scoring instruments and evaluation so that by 2007 there will be no disparities," Mr. Gnaizda said. "We're looking for prospective, positive relief."
Part of Greenlining's clout with financial institutions stems from its access to the industry's regulators. Greenlining makes two trips to Washington a year, bringing a number of its members to meet with the comptroller of the currency, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and various lawmakers, among others.
The group is proud of its track record with perhaps the most powerful regulator - its members have met with Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan twice a year every year since the early 1990s.
At times Greenlining is harder on federal regulators than on the banking industry.
"I'm not finding fault with the banks as much as with the government," Mr. Gnaizda said. "What we don't have is regulators who have put themselves in the shoes of both the community and the banks."
In particular, Greenlining is frustrated with Mr. Greenspan. Mr. Gnaizda said the Fed chief should "use his very considerable intelligence, wisdom, and political astuteness to move CRA from the backburner because if he did, groups like Greenlining would not be necessary."
The last time Greenlining officials met with Mr. Greenspan, Reg B came up for the umpteenth time. That Equal Credit Opportunity proposal, if the Fed ever approved it, would permit banks to collect race and gender data on all types of loans - not just mortgages.
The issue has come up again and again - without resolution. Mr. Greenspan's 18-year run is slated to end in January. Mr. Gnaizda jokes, "He told us to wait until he leaves before we try again."
