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Developed in partnership with United Philanthropy Forum and Northern California Grantmakers, this guide shares seven practices and 12 tools for Philanthropy-Serving Organizations who seek effective ways to mobilize resources to sustain their organization’s work. The guide features perspectives from dozens of leaders of national and regional PSOs and examples from our work with these organizations. Much of the content is based on conversations and strategy work with PSO leaders, staff and board members.
This advocacy and civic engagement toolkit is designed for community and public foundations that want to educate and encourage their grantees about getting involved in civic and policy activities to increase organizational capacity and impact. While its primary focus is on the grantmaking activity of these foundations, the toolkit also addresses rules and guidance for policy involvement by foundation officials acting on behalf of their foundations.
The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey is pleased to announce that it has awarded $3,515,084 in grants to eleven New Jersey nonprofit organizations in its fourth quarter of giving in 2024. The grants include two major gifts to area hospitals, including a $1,250,000 multi-year grant to Trinitas Regional Medical Center and a $1,000,000 multi-year grant to Overlook Medical Center.
The largest award of the quarter is a $1,250,000 commitment (to be paid over three years as a $750,000 grant and up to $500,000 in matching funds) to Trinitas Regional Medical Center to modernize its Cardiac Catheterization Lab. The renovation will include the purchase of two Philips Flex-Arm devices, which provide surgeons with greater clarity of vision while offering patients a reduced amount of radioactivity. Trinitas anticipates that the new equipment will remain in service for more than a decade and will lead to a 30% increase in cardiac catheterization patient volume.
The other large hospital gift announced this quarter is a three-year, $1,000,000 grant to Overlook Medical Center to create new mental health services for children and teens. This grant will fund the creation of an HFNJ Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Center, which will be part of a larger effort at Atlantic Health that will bring together intensive outpatient services, partial hospitalization services, and more. The Center will provide children with stabilizing mental health care for those who are in a mental health crisis, and referrals to appropriate levels of care.
The award to Overlook is one of two multi-year grants awarded this cycle. KinderSmile will receive $450,000 over three years to fund its oral health program. KinderSmile brings much-needed oral health services directly to Newark schools, including education, nutritional counseling, dental exams, cleanings, and treatments. Over the course of the three-year project, KinderSmile will pilot the application silver diamine fluoride (SDF) in the school setting to arrest the progression of decay and as a preventative for healthy teeth, and will monitor patients’ progress throughout the three year period.<
Other grants awarded this quarter address a wide spectrum of community needs. A $175,000 grant to Jewish Vocational Services will fund an employment training program for the health professions, helping individuals advance their careers while also filling gaps in the healthcare workforce. Imagine a Center for Coping With Loss will receive $100,000 to support a third year of a program aiming to change the culture of grief in Newark – moving from their work building up grief support services in Newark schools to partnerships with the Boys and Girls Club of Newark and After School All Stars to bring more support to the community. Integrity House will receive $85,000 to support the second year of its Creative Arts Initiative, which engages clients with substance use disorders in artistic practices such as drawing, writing, and storytelling to aide in their recovery journeys.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has had a long-standing commitment to increasing the effectiveness of grantmaking organizations, a commitment reflected in its Philanthropy Grantmaking Program. In 2015, the Foundation commissioned Harder+Company Community Research, in partnership with Edge Research, to conduct a field scan to inform its own strategies in this area as well as those of other organizations working to increase philanthropic effectiveness.
The Foundation was interested in learning more about how foundations find knowledge and how it informs their philanthropic practice. The scan focused on practice knowledge, which the research team defined as anything about the effective practice of philanthropy irrespective of the programmatic issues that are the goals of most grantmaking. The research team used a variety of methods to ensure that a wide range of perspectives are reflected in the field scan findings, including interviews with staff and board members from 75 foundations, an online survey of foundation professionals that had 738 respondents, four in-depth case studies, and a literature review. The field scan was exploratory and offers findings from foundation staff and board member perspectives.
The Lumina Foundation has announced a second cohort of communities - including Newark, NJ - to participate in an initiative to increase the number of local residents who hold postsecondary credentials. The partnership with Lumina will provide support and technical assistance for a new consortium, the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC), which has set as its goal that 25% of Newark residents will have high quality college degrees and credentials by 2025. In 2011, local funders discovered a dearth of philanthropic investments in college access and success. "We recognized that, even among the Newark students who were getting into college, there were huge dropout rates before students completed their first year" said Jeremy Johnson, Newark Philanthropic Liaison and Co-chair of the Newark City of Learning Collaborative. "Lumina's support of the Collaborative will help us figure out the barriers, address interventions, and build a robust collective of partners to share data, measure success, and provide feedback for mid-course corrections along the way," said Dale Anglin, Victoria Foundation Program Officer and also Co-chair of the Newark City of Learning Collaborative. Newark funders working through the Newark Philanthropic Liaison initiative have been instrumental in moving the NCLC forward.
Hear Executive Director Keith Adams speak on how New Jersey VOAD members are responding to the current crisis during our first COVID-19 Funder Briefing.
New Jersey Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) is a coalition of organizations dedicated to developing and sustaining community resiliency in the face of disasters. In his presentation, Keith will share how NJ VOAD is working with their members, nonprofits, and state partners to coordinate efforts and help to avoid duplicative services. He will also share some of the long-term needs and where there may be gaps in services. NJ VOAD’s dedication to helping communities throughout the entire disaster cycle will provide insight into the continuous and comprehensive efforts that will be essential for improving outcomes for New Jerseyans, especially for our most vulnerable populations.
Following Keith Adam's presentation, CNJG will provide an update on our own work assisting with COVID-19 response and relief efforts.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members and Nonmember Grantmakers.
This program is open to Grantmakers only.
Webinar Video
On this webinar, the conversation focused on the local news landscape with guests from Chalkbeat Newark, WBGO, and the Dodge Foundation. Additionally, attendees heard a quick briefing on Newark’s efforts to encourage social distancing from Director of Public Safety Anthony Ambrose.
Speakers:
Anthony Ambrose, Director of Public Safety, City of Newark
Patrick Wall, Senior Reporter, Chalkbeat Newark
Megan Van Dyk, Informed Communities Program Officer, Dodge Foundation
Brit Harley, News Voices Fellow, WBGO
Kevin Callaghan, Newark Philanthropic Liaison, CNJG
Catherine Wilson, President and CEO, United Way of Greater Newark
Cost: Free for CNJG Members/ $35 for Non Member Grantmakers
Webinar Video
On this webinar, speakers focused on mental health during this difficult time. Our speakers included Steve Margeotes from Main Street Counseling, Sonia Rodrigues-Marto from Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care, and Ron Chaluisan from the Newark Trust for Education on their social-emotional learning work in schools. We were then be joined by Aisha Glover of the Newark Alliance who is working with the City of Newark, Partners in Health, and the MCJ Amelior Foundation to help to coordinate the city's contact tracing initiative.
Speakers
Steve Margeotes, Executive Director, Main Street Counseling
Sonia Rodrigues-Marto, Program Director, Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care
Ron Chaluisan, Executive Director Newark Trust for Education
Aisha Glover, President & CEO, Newark Alliance
Cost: Free for CNJG Members/ $35 for Non Member Grantmakers
Webinar Video
Community Catalyst, Community Change, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have announced a $9 million commitment from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in support of an initiative focused on grassroots efforts to improve healthcare access, affordability, and dignity in care.
The Voices for Health Justice project will fund twenty-five state- and community-based organizations over two and a half years working to build grassroots power and effect policy change at the federal, state, and community levels. Grantees include local and statewide organizations working with Black and brown communities, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and low-income and rural communities to protect and expand access to Medicaid coverage, encourage states to provide comprehensive coverage regardless of immigration status, mobilize and engage alternative care providers in health policy reform, and narrow health inequities.
"The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is thrilled to launch this initiative with Community Catalyst, Community Change, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities," said RWJF senior program officer Andrea Ducas. "We are excited to support community-led efforts to advance policies that promote equity in health and health care. Now is the time for foundations in the health justice movement to focus on providing deeper investments in state- and community-based advocacy to address the root causes of America's health inequities because everyone deserves the opportunity to be healthy and thrive."
Wells Fargo is making good on its promise to help underserved communities.
On Monday, the bank announced it is giving a grant of $1 million to the Trenton Regional Business Assistance Corp. and a grant of $500,000 to the Camden-based Cooperative Business Assistance Corp. The grants are part of the Wells Fargo Open for Business Fund, which was created last year.
The organizations will use the grants to provide low-interest loans to small businesses that — for a variety of reasons — lacked the access to such capital.
Tomas Porturas, vice president of social impact and sustainability, said Wells Fargo hopes the funding will help underserved small businesses in Trenton and South Jersey stay open and preserve jobs through short- and long-term COVID-19 resiliency efforts. It also will expand microlending activities and programming for diverse business owners.
“Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund is another avenue of support and enlists the expertise of our CDFI partners to urgently help diverse South Jersey entrepreneurs recover and preserve the jobs they provide in their communities,” he said. “The funding will provide much-needed access to capital with increased equity in resources and technical assistance for local businesses, which are the backbone of our local economies and neighborhoods.”
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on Tuesday announced the recipients of the 2022 Creative Catalyst Fund awards. A total of 114 grants will be awarded to individual artists and artists’ collectives, with an average award of $3,200; and 34 grants will be awarded to small and midsized arts organizations with an average award of $10,100.
Baraka created the fund in January 2020 as a multiyear initiative providing the local community of artists and small and midsized arts organizations up to $1 million annually for at least three years. The fund has awarded a total of $2.35 million in grants in its first three years. Grantees use the funds to help pay for operating costs, space rentals, staff, programming costs, supplies and equipment, and COVID-related expenses.
“Newark has a long history as a center of the arts, and our administration has supported the arts in word and deed, creating great works like the second-longest public mural on the East Coast. We are proud, privileged and humbled to write a new chapter by supporting this year’s grantees. Their works will define the voice and talent of a new generation of Newark artists for our present and future,” Baraka said.