It’s often said that even the best of intentions can go awry and that may well be an apt description of the careers of Greenlining Institute founders Robert Gnaizda and John Gamboa.

The duo grew up on opposite coasts, but in 1993 jointly incorporated what had been a loose coalition of activists groups into what became the Berkeley-based activist non-profit devoted to forcing banks and other powerful institutions to pour more resources into under-served neighborhoods usually populated by minorities and the poor.