Established in 1998, the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations was designed to become the uniting force for Latin-based fraternities and sororities. Latino organizations had developed in different parts of the United States in their early years, and this created difficulties for the organizations to find information on their peer groups. As a result, two different umbrella organizations evolved, the Concilio Nacional de Hermandades Latinas, which primarily consisted of fraternities and sororities on the east coast, and NALFO, which primarily consisted of fraternities and sororities that originated on the west coast. In the winter of 2001, the two groups merged under the NALFO name.