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.
Needham &amp; Company
Needham was founded in 1985 by George Needham, Raymond Godfrey, and David Townes. George Needham was formerly a managing director of First Boston Corporation, where he established its business development and technology investment banking groups. Raymond Godfrey was vice president of business development at First Boston beginning in 1977. He left Needham in the 1990s but returned in 2000. David Townes, who also co-founded the firm, had previously been an investment banker at Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb focused on technology companies.