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An overview on the self-dealing law, including definitions, common problem areas, exceptions, penalties, and resources.
Sample board committee descriptions, including roles and responsibilities of committee members
This weekly conference call series welcomed New Jersey-based grantmakers along with national funders and provided an opportunity for grantmakers to hear from a wide range of experts in the field of disaster philanthropy. This series started on November 5, 2012, one week after Sandy struck New Jersey, and continued through March 25, 2013. The written summaries of each recording are listed below.
CNJG’s first-ever Policy Agenda that includes our approach to the policy work, and five policy priorities.
Amalgamated Bank is America’s socially responsible bank that specializes in supporting social change organizations, companies, and people working to make the world more just and sustainable. Nearly 100 years ago, immigrant women union members founded Amalgamated to provide banking service to their own community and to send money back to their mother countries. Since our founding, Amalgamated has been explicitly committed to environmental justice, economic inclusion, and the rights of working people. Today, Amalgamated is a full service financial institution supporting clients in 50 states across their banking, investment, and donor advised fund needs. At Amalgamated, we believe that you do not need to sacrifice services and rates to have a partner aligned with your values.
Banking and Investing With Your Values
Amalgamated Bank and its clients believe that where you bank matters. When you deposit your money at Amalgamated Bank, you know that it is being used in ways that align with your values and not invested in strategies that would further degrade our planet. Amalgamated believe that banks can be a force for good to curb climate change, advocate for gun safety, fight hate, and stand up for racial justice.
Here are some of the ways you can use your organization’s assets to build a more just and sustainable planet.
Bank with Your Values: Everyone’s bank deposits are lent out and invested in strategies that fuel our future economy. Simply, where you bank matters, because banks use your deposits to invest in other people’s ideas. It’s time to make sure that those ideas align with your values. At Amalgamated, we only invest in mission aligned companies and strategies that further a more just and sustainable planet. We lend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to clean energy, affordable housing, , sustainable agriculture, businesses owned by women, immigrants, and people of color, and more.
Invest with Your Values: Amalgamated believes that endowment and reserve account dollars should be used to achieve both a social and financial return. Our investment team specializes in risk adjusted options that screen out extractive industries and channel those resources to mission aligned strategies.
Give with Your Values: Amalgamated’s donor advised fund and pooled fund strategies help you move money to the causes you care about. Donors are able to move grants with ease using our innovative technology and financial acumen. Institutional funders are able to rely on our expert back office to manage their pooled and collaborative funds.
How Amalgamated Helps PSOs and Foundations
Amalgamated Bank is collaborating with United Philanthropy Forum and its members (including CNJG and its members) to offer preferred banking services. Every banking relationship is different, but Amalgamated and the Forum are committed to reducing costs, increasing returns, and improving financial operations. Specifically, CNJG members can expect:
- Discounted banking, depending on the organization’s specific needs
- Preferred private banker who understands the specific needs of PSOs and foundations and mission aligned investing strategies
- Full fee and rate analysis before you move to understand the financial gains of switching to Amalgamated Bank
- Consultation on credit needs including working capital, corporate credit cards, and more
- Bespoke portfolio development for ESG investment products
Learn More
To learn more about partnering with Amalgamated Bank, please visit their website or contact Caitlin Duffy, First Vice President of Philanthropy Banking, at [email protected] or (202) 721-0775.
The City of Newark and Newark Philanthropic Liaison are working closely with several consortia of nonprofits to address some of the City’s most critical challenges. Grantmakers with an interest in Newark are connecting with these groups to better understand issues, interact with organizational leaders, and find ways to leverage philanthropy across a range of needs.
The coalitions often have ambitious agendas that focus on reviewing and changing policy on local, statewide and national levels. They offer a platform to share information and create strong cases for increased investment from both public and private sources. Below is an overview of just three of these groups. Through their convenings, they provide a powerful opportunity for Newark-related nonprofits and grantmakers to mobilize to improve the fortunes of the State’s largest City.
Opportunity Reconnect
Mayor Cory Booker has made public safety the leading priority of his administration. Success will come only through lowered recidivism, better management, and increased job opportunities and support for persons returning from prison. The Opportunity Reconnect (OR) consortia meets weekly at Essex County College, the site of OR’s comprehensive one-stop center that offers ex-prisoners an array of services from dozens of organizations and agencies.
OR’s strength lies in its ability to create partnerships and memorandums of understanding among for-profit government contractors, community-based groups and government agencies. The shared protocols are having a profound effect on the City’s ability to provide efficient and effective services for thousands of returning inmates each month. The agreements are enabling the City to respond to RFPs from both private and federal sources to strengthen the capacity of OR and its effect on public safety. The City welcomes participation of grantmakers to further leverage the strength of these proposals and maximize OR’s continued growth.
Interagency Collaboration for Addiction Treatment
This informal collaborative of nonprofits, faith-based groups, government agencies, and funding partners meets regularly at Integrity House, a long-term residential and outpatient treatment program. Integrity House is the lead agency for the United Way’s Bridge to Recovery, a consortium effort of over 200 agencies dedicated to helping those with addiction problems.
Among ICAT’s goals is the creation of a central Newark facility to handle all intake, referral and screening of individuals in need of detox. The group is also seeking to link and combine databases among agencies for better support of clients, who often include the homeless and ex-prisoners. A number of legislative barriers prevent some persons from receiving aid to cover costs of addiction treatment. These persons often end up in hospital emergency rooms or under the jurisdiction of law enforcement. ICAT is looking at ways to advocate for policy changes that would provide the additional preventive-care funding to remedy these situations.
Green Future Summit Working Groups
Mayor Booker has called for the City to become a leader in urban sustainability by implementing economic and environmental strategies that will make Newark a safer, wealthier, and healthier place for its children and families. Under the auspices of Apollo Alliance, a national organization, a team of allies is developing an agenda and recruiting participants for the “Green Future Summit” in Newark on September 11-12. Pre-summit planning sessions have involved a coalition of businesses, government leaders, environmental groups, community-based organizations and grantmakers.
The coalition has divided into working groups focused on three areas: green buildings, green space, and green economic development/jobs. The working groups are now drafting roadmaps and defining concrete, measurable goals and strategies for each issue area (e.g. "retrofit 100 homes"). They are also securing commitments from stakeholders on how they will work to meet these goals.
The groups communicate through listservs and periodic check-in calls as they shape the Summit agenda, recruit speakers, and build the relationships necessary to carry their work forward to develop a roadmap for the City. Members of the CNJG are playing an active role in the Summit and additional partners are welcome.
CNJG members can gather a wealth of information by tapping into the resources of Newark’s collaborative groups. Additional consortia have been formed to address the foreclosure crisis, homelessness, newly-formed Family Success Centers, and other areas.