Nehemiah Corporation of America
Nehemiah Corporation of America is a non-profit organization based in Sacramento, California specializing in homeownership, affordable housing and community development. It started in 1994 as a small organization, but grew to prominence later in the 1990s after it developed a program that allowed home buyers to make down payments on their purchases using funds that were derived from the home sellers. This program, the Nehemiah Program, became popular and was widely emulated, giving birth to what came to be known as the seller-funded down-payment assistance industry. The industry attracted criticism from U.S. federal agencies (particularly the Government Accountability Office and the Internal Revenue Service) and was ultimately shut down in 2008 by a change in federal law.
Kenneth Bae
In 2017 Bae decided to found a NGO to help North Korean refugees and raise the awareness of people around the world about the situation in North Korea. His inspiration was also the petition campaign that helped his release. "Nehemiah Global Initiative is a global non-profit NGO established by missionary Kenneth Bae who was detained in the North Korea for 2 years. It was founded in 2016 to protect vulnerable refugees of various nationalities and ethnicities. NGI’s Seoul headquarters was established on October 2017, and since then it has been ceaselessly working to rescue North Korean defectors and helping them to physically and spiritually reestablish new lives in South Korea." "The ‘Nehemiah One Million Prayer Petition’ Campaign is designed to engage people from all over the world who have a heart for North Korea. Through this campaign we REMEMBER the 25 million North Korean citizens, STAND WITH them, and PRAY for them. Inspiration for the campaign comes from the 178,000 people who petitioned former President Obama to fight for the release of Kenneth Bae, who was detained from 2012 to 2014 in North Korea. Its aim is to have one million people simultaneously praying for the 25 million North Koreans who live in North Korea."Projects in NGI: