The Community of Faith for Economic Empowerment (COFFEE) is a faith based community development corporation established to implement the New Orleans WOW Program in the Greater New Orleans area. The New Orleans With Ownership Wealth Initiative was started in 2002 The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF). The CBCF goal was to bring together all of the housing stakeholders and have them work together to develop a city-wide homeownership program that would produce 5000 new homeowners in the Greater New Orleans area. COFFEE was established to administer the New Orleans WOW Program.

COFFEE was established to administer the New Orleans WOW Program because our local religious leaders remain the pillars on which local communities in New Orleans stand. As such, we realized that the support of the local faith community is essential in order for the New Orleans WOW Program to be successful and sustainable. Specifically, local religious leaders play a central role in helping to assure the maximum community acceptance, accountability and impact.

The CBCF realize, however, that these efforts will be successful only if the faith community is able to work and strategize together. Therefore, we brought some of our top local religious leaders together to serve on COFFEE’s board. This board and membership are comprised of over 20 leading ministers in the Greater New Orleans area, representing congregations totaling over 100,000.

Throughout the last two years, COFFEE has worked on improving the New Orleans WOW Program's procedures, relationships, processes, and organizational structure. This has allowed the New Orleans WOW Program to seamlessly identify, counsel, repair credit issues, pre-qualify, and help secure homes for families wishing to experience homeownership. However, during the process of developing and refining the New Orleans WOW Program another challenge was discovered. It became evident that there was not a sufficient inventory of quality affordable houses for the potential homebuyers that were in the New Orleans WOW Program pipeline.

To address the dual problem of low housing inventory and the low incomes of the majority of the New Orleans WOW Program participants, The WOW program incorporated into a larger  housing and commercial investment initiative called the Louisiana Initiative for Tomorrow (LIFT NEW ORLEANS). As part of the initiative, under the direction of a corporate sponsor, $1billion would be invested into housing and commercial revitalization projects within the Greater New Orleans Area; $300 million in commercial and $700 million in housing and mixed use development.