The Charlotte-based Bank of America Charitable Foundation has announced grants totaling $20 million to organizations in forty-four U.S communities and London, England, through its 2009 Neighborhood Excellence initiative.

Through the initiative, local bank and community leaders identified the organizations best positioned to address critical issues facing their neighborhoods. The one hundred recipients, known as Neighborhood Builders, will each receive unrestricted grants of $200,000 to help address critical social issues ranging from housing and hunger to community and youth development.

Recipients include the Fifth Avenue Committee in New York City, which will use its grant to train, educate, organize, and support the economic and social needs of more than five thousand low- and moderate-income residents, and Washington, D.C.-based Manna, which will use the funds to develop as many as a thousand affordable housing units in the city.

"Bank of America is supporting communities across the country through the Neighborhood Excellence Initiative and other philanthropic, community development, and lending and investing programs designed to increase the economic vitality of individuals, businesses, and neighborhoods," said Bank of America Charitable Foundation president Kerry Sullivan. "As nonprofits face greater challenges and have fewer resources, this program and our larger corporate social responsibility efforts aim to reinvigorate local economies."