Countrywide Financial Corporation, the largest U.S. home-mortgage lender by volume, plans to announce today a partnership with the nonprofit Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America on a loan-restructuring program to help borrowers avoid home foreclosures, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The announcement is surprising since the nonprofit group has been one of Countrywide’s harshest critics on the growing number of loan defaults for the organization’s borrowers. The charity recently called for a boycott of the company and has held protests outside its branch offices. In testimony before members of Congress last month, Bruce Marks, chief executive of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, in Boston, called Countrywide “the prime example for both predatory lending and predatory servicing” of loans.

Countrywide approached the charity less than two weeks ago to propose that the two organizations work together on a loan-restructuring program. Through the program, the nonprofit group will provide an analysis of individual household budgets to Countrywide as a way to cut many borrowers’ payments to levels they can afford. Mr. Marks said he believes the cooperation will help thousands of borrowers, and he hopes to enlist other lenders to adopt the approach.

The Boston Globe reports that the agreement details will be disclosed today in Washington.

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