Ellen Lazar is Senior Vice President of Housing and Community Initiatives at the Fannie Mae Foundation. In this capacity, she directs many of the Foundation’s grantmaking initiatives and manages the Foundation’s five regional offices. Ms. Lazar also leads the Foundation’s programs to provide financial literacy and home-buyer education to underserved communities, and she guides the Foundation’s community development efforts in Washington, District of Columbia.

Before joining the Foundation, Ms. Lazar was Executive Director of Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation (NRC). Under her leadership, NRC launched several national programs and developed a long-term strategy to raise the visibility of the NeighborWorks® network of community-based organizations across the nation.

Before joining NRC, Ms. Lazar was Director of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. As director of the Fund, Ms. Lazar expanded the Fund’s scope, launched initiatives to increase the capacity of CDFIs, and strengthened the Fund’s congressional support. Previously, Ms. Lazar was Executive Director of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, a national membership organization that promotes private investment in affordable housing. She also served as Vice President and General Counsel of The Enterprise Foundation. Before that, she was Assistant General Counsel to the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships and served in the Office of the General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Ms. Lazar serves on the boards of a variety of nonprofit organizations, including Nonprofit Finance Fund, Community Wealth Ventures, and the National Fund for Enterprise Development. Ms. Lazar is a graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York, and of the Indiana University School of Law at Bloomington.