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A CNJG member received an application from a school district, and wanted to know if others granted funds to a school district, and what other funders learned from granting to a district.
New Jersey’s largest philanthropic association has named longtime social sector leader Maria Vizcarrondo as its president.
“Maria has been a trailblazer throughout her career,” said Council of New Jersey Grantmakers Board Chair William V. Engel. “We turn to her to help the state’s diverse and dedicated philanthropies to be even more effective in their quest to make this a better place.”
The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers is a nonprofit organization of over 130 members representing the philanthropic community in the state. Members include family, private, community, independent and corporate foundations, and corporate giving programs.
The Council exists to strengthen and promote effective philanthropy throughout New Jersey. CNJG’s programs and resources increase the impact of organized philanthropy’s support for adequate health care, quality education, a cleaner environment, community development, historical preservation, disaster response and relief, research, recreation, culture, and other areas crucial to the fabric of New Jersey's communities.
“I am very excited about joining the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers as its CEO and working with dynamic individuals — many of whom I have known and respected throughout my nonprofit career,” Ms. Vizcarrondo said. “Most importantly, I look forward to forging partnerships that will advance the Council’s social impact as a sector leader in New Jersey communities, the region, and nation.”
Ms. Vizcarrondo, who spent most of her career in northern New Jersey, comes to the Council from Cabrini University in Philadelphia, where she most recently was Director of Community Development and External Relations. She was inaugural Executive Director of the school’s Nerney Leadership Institute, launched in 2013.
Ms. Vizcarrondo brings more than 25 years of experience transforming service organizations and has served her communities as both an appointed and elected official.
In 2006, when he was first elected Mayor of Newark Cory Booker tapped Ms. Vizcarrondo to head Newark’s Health and Human Service Department, the largest of its kind in New Jersey. One of her first actions in that role was to develop a Children’s Bill of Rights to benchmark improvements in the lives of children and families throughout the city. Her accomplishments included securing state funding to establish Family Success Centers to provide neighborhood- based services, and launching a major citywide campaign to raise the immunization rates of Newark’s children.
Prior to her mayoral appointment, Ms. Vizcarrondo served as the first woman president and CEO of United Way of Essex and West Hudson. Her pioneer work in re-engineering the organization’s mission into community building was documented in the United Way Transformation Diaries. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Ms. Vizcarrondo led the New Jersey United Ways in a statewide coordination of services for affected families and managed the distribution of corporate funding for these efforts.
She was elected Essex County Surrogate in 1993 and served four years of a five-year term before leaving to join United Way.
Ms. Vizcarrondo has been listed among the “100 Most Influential People in New Jersey” and was a founding member of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
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With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, several states have either banned access to abortion care, or severely restricted access. As a result, states like New Jersey have seen a surge in individuals seeking care, further straining reproductive care providers. As New Jersey’s sole member of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), the New Jersey Access Abortion Fund advances abortion access and bodily autonomy by funding abortions for people traveling to, from, and within New Jersey. The very first portion of this briefing will be an update on the reproductive rights legal landscape from Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. After the AG departs, we will then introduce attendees to NJAAF’s work and offer a frank conversation about economic barriers that making it difficult for individuals to seek care.
Speakers include:
Matthew J. Platkin, Attorney General, State of New Jersey
Hans Dekker, President, Community Foundation of New Jersey
Sheila Reynertson, Senior Program Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Emily Zahn, Board Member, NJ Abortion Access Fund
Kathleen DiGiulio, Board Member, NJ Abortion Access Fund
Cost: Free for CNJG Members only
Quadira Coles (she/her)
Quadira Coles is a legislative/policy professional based in New Jersey/New York, committed to advocating for systemic and material changes that create liberating spaces and experiences for Black people, especially young people. She serves as the President of the New Jersey Abortion Access Fund. Her work focuses on reproductive and sexuality health justice and ending youth criminalization with a framework in Black Feminism. Her start in advocacy started when she began working directly with system-impacted youth through direct service and then worked on political campaigns and training young women to become community organizers. She has her Masters in Public Administration from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Bachelors in Criminal Justice from Penn State University.
Emily Zahn (she/her)
Emily Zahn is the current Secretary of The New Jersey Abortion Access Fund. She has been a volunteer board member with NJAAF since 2022. With over ten years of experience in nonprofit organizing and fundraising, Emily has had the privilege of working for and volunteering with organizations including the National Institute for Reproductive Health, several Planned Parenthood affiliates, and California Women’s List. She currently works at ActBlue where she heads up their non-profit and PAC account management team. Emily is passionate about building community and connecting supporters to causes they care about in deep, meaningful ways. Emily holds a Master’s in Social Work from NYU and a BSW from Skidmore College.
This one-hour webinar will offer a high-level overview of recent trends and best practices for foundation governance. Attorneys from the Nonprofit and Tax-Exempt Organizations group of Dentons, the world’s largest global law firm, will present practical tips for governance and legal compliance, focused on small to mid-size foundations. Drawing from both national trends in the industry and the impact of the pandemic and social change, topics will include:
- Considerations for revising bylaws and conflict of interest policies;
- Foundation political activity, including lobbying and advocacy;
- Issues to consider when funding a project with a fiscal sponsor; and
- Updating grant agreements.
Speakers
| Jeffrey Fromknecht Counsel Dentons Cohen & Grigsby |
Hayley Haldeman Counsel Dentons Cohen & Grigsby |
This program is for members of the following philanthropy-serving organizations: Maryland Philanthropy Network, Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, Florida Philanthropic Network, Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania, Philanthropy Wisconsin, NY Funders Alliance, and North Carolina Grantmakers.
CNJG’s community foundation services (through the United Philanthropy Forum) breakdown into three categories:
1. a national listserv for CEOs
2. two in-person boot camp trainings
3. discount on the On-Line CF Express Training
National Listserv for Community Foundation CEOs
CNJG’s listserve for Community Foundation CEOs connects to a national listserv for the CEOs of community foundations. This active listserve allows community foundation CEOs to communicate easily via email with community foundation CEOs from across the country, to pose questions, engage in conversations and more. The service is being made available to our community foundations members as a benefit of your membership with CNJG and is operated by the Untied Philanthropy Forum, which is CNJG’s national network.
If you are interested in participating in this national community foundation listserve, please contact Craig Weinrich.
Community Foundation Boot Camps
The United Philanthropy Forum offers two or more Community Foundation Boot Camps a year that are made available to CNJG members at the member rate as a benefit of CNJG membership. The two-day Community Foundation Boot Camp program offers a comprehensive overview of the structure and operations of a community foundation. The program is an ideal in-depth introduction to community foundations for new community foundation staff, community foundation board members, or more experienced community foundation staff looking for a good refresher.
On-Line CF Express Training
The Forum is partnering with Kansas Association of Community Foundations (KACF) to offer a $400 discount on KACF’s On-Line CF Express Training. The online training and certificate program focuses on core essentials over a 15-module series that covers nearly every aspect of community foundation work: from asset development and quality grants programs design to fiduciary and policy matters. Plus, enjoy 24-hour-access to the easy-to-navigate short (5-15 min) modules in any order from the comfort of a home or an office, in private, or as a group training.
Watch the CF Express Training Promo Video and view a sample module (password: mod15) to learn more. To take advantage of the discount, sign-up at https://cfexpresstraining.com and enter discount code: Forum2018. You can also reference the following attachments for more details.
This program delves into the latest federal policies introduced at the national level and their specific implications for the state of New Jersey. This series will unpack how these policies affect various sectors such as immigration, healthcare, environment, education, housing, media and journalism, and arts and culture within New Jersey. Kevin Douglas, Senior Director of National Programs, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR), Amy Torres, Executive Director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ), Johanna Calle, Director at the Office of New Americans (ONA) at the New Jersey Department of Human Services, and Stephanie Greenwood, Senior Strategy Officer for Victoria Foundation will share how the latest federal policies are affecting immigration.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members; $75 for Non Member Grantmakers
This program is only open to staff and trustees from grantmaking organizations.
Kevin Douglas (he/him/his) joined GCIR in 2019 and is the Senior Director of National Programs. He leads GCIR’s public policy work, manages the Advancing Economic Justice Community of Practice, and shapes strategic programming and funder resources. Previously, he served as Co-Director of Policy and Advocacy for United Neighborhood Houses of New York, where he led campaigns securing hundreds of millions of dollars in public investment for community services. He was recognized as one of New York Nonprofit Media’s 40 Under 40 and a Next Generation Leader by the Human Services Council. He also co-founded the giving circle 100 New Yorkers Who Care and has served on several boards, including the New York Immigration Coalition. Kevin holds an MSW from the University of Pennsylvania.
Amy Torres (they/them or she/her) leads the charge for immigrant rights as the Executive Director of the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ). Since 2021, Torres has deepened NJAIJ's policy advocacy and grown its movement building programming. NJAIJ is now the largest immigration coalition in the state. Notable achievements include winning the East Coast's first statewide ban on immigration detention, New Jersey's inaugural language access law, and NJAIJ’s Advocacy Academy, a first of its kind training program that leverages case studies from successful New Jersey racial justice campaigns to empower the next generation of emerging organizers and activists. Prior to their role at NJAIJ, Torres led policy and advocacy efforts for the nation's largest AAPI social services organization. They have held positions from grasstops to grassroots in executive boards, academia, and local organizing. Torres credits their relentless pursuit of fairness, justice, and inclusion to their upbringing in a tight-knit immigrant family in West Texas. As a leader, Torres is anchored by the Filipinx value of 'kapwa' - a sense of self through others, and an unbreakable interconnection and responsibility to one’s community.
Johanna Calle is the Director at the Office of New Americans (ONA) at the New Jersey Department of Human Services. In this role, Ms. Calle works on identifying, developing, and executing policies and strategies to advance efforts to welcome and empower immigrant communities in the state. She will go over the work of the ONA and the work they are doing to support immigrant populations in our state, including overseeing programs around language access, refugee resettlement, and legal services.
Stephanie Greenwood serves as the Senior Strategy Officer for Victoria Foundation’s Economic Justice portfolio in Newark, NJ. She combines over twenty years of experience in public policy, advocacy, coalition-building, project management, and grants administration in the nonprofit, public, and philanthropic sectors. She brings a background in policy and resource mobilization for housing and environmental justice and a deep personal commitment to place-based, intersectional equity and justice to her work. She has the most fun working in big coalitions that are accountable to social movements and that push toward a healthy, just, regenerative economy that works for all of us. Before joining Victoria, she worked for the City of Newark for eight years with leadership roles in both housing and sustainability. Stephanie holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a Masters of Public Affairs from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members; $75 for Non Member Grantmakers
This program is only open to staff and trustees from grantmaking organizations.
Webinar Video
Programs in this Series:
March 13: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Immigration
March 20: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Health
March 27: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Environment
April 3: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Education
April 10: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Housing
April 17: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Media & Journalism
April 24: Making Sense of Federal Policy: Understanding What it Means for NJ: Arts
Resources
GRIC: Fighting for our Future: Immigrant Rights and our Multiracial Democracy Recommendations for Philanthropy in 2025
- Frequent moves are the most significant barrier to academic success, as they disrupt both students and teachers. Students on the move need extra time and attention to get caught up, requiring teachers to spend more time with those students.
- Students who are unable to find stable shelter have difficulty meeting state or district mandates regarding the number of days they must attend school to stay enrolled.
- Often, the slow transfer of student records, along with differing course requirements from school to school, complicates the accrual of sufficient credits for homeless students to be promoted and receive a high school diploma.
The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers’ 2023 – 2027 Strategic Plan reimagines the future for CNJG. As a result of the extensive strategy development process, the plan includes a renewed vision, mission, core values, and goals. The work is informed by previous efforts, and current issues and trends impacting philanthropy and society.
The 2023 - 2027 Strategic Plan is a roadmap for the next five years, built upon CNJG's past strategic plans and learnings. We look forward to executing this plan, the additional learnings and opportunities it will bring, and delivering on these goals to move us into the future.
For 20 years, The Nicholson Foundation worked to advance meaningful change in safety net service systems in New Jersey. Its grantmaking journey is described in Changing Systems, Changing Lives: Reflecting on 20 Years. Through stories and related text, the book showed how a small family foundation could take six guiding themes and put them into action through grants and partner support. In the process, the Foundation collaborated to spur real systems change that benefitted individuals, families, and communities. A recent scholarly paper built on that work, helping to make the Foundation’s approach broadly accessible to researchers, academics, and philanthropists. “A Framework for Creating Systems Change,” by Drs. William Brown and Wynn Rosser published in The Foundation Review, presents a new model for systems change. Five of the model’s seven components reflect themes in Changing Systems, Changing Lives. The sixth component slightly shifts the emphasis of the Foundation’s “Engaging with Government” theme, and the seventh highlights the Foundation’s overall approach by including performance measurement as a distinct and separate component of the model.
Download or order a free hard copy of The Nicholson Foundation book, "Changing Systems, Changing Lives"
Read Brown W, Rosser W. "A Framework for Creating Systems Change". The Foundation Review, 2023;15(4):50-6.
The Office of the Governor has taken extraordinary steps to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus and protect the health and well-being of New Jerseyans. Among the Governor’s executive orders includes the creation of the State Coronavirus Task Force, closing schools and issuing a shelter-in-place directive. While these orders are paramount and designed to ensure the overall health of our state’s residents, they are impacting our communities. This includes the need for services such as emergency childcare, tax relief, extra SNAP benefits, additional resources for unemployed workers and small businesses, housing and rental assistance, and increased support for healthcare workers.
Join Deborah Cornavaca, Deputy Chief of Staff for Outreach to Governor Murphy, for an overview of how the administration is addressing a range of numerous and complex issues related to mitigation, protecting our state’s most vulnerable, and working with partners on-the-ground. This discussion will help us understand the range of unmet needs and other services that will be filled by nonprofits, identify possible opportunities for the philanthropic community to collaborate with state government, and how the overall social sector might better utilize resources and tools during these unprecedented times.
Learn how funders and grantees can help fill gaps, keep people informed as trusted community partners, and share insights on the most critical needs facing the state.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members and Nonmember Grantmakers
This program is open to Grantmakers only.
Webinar Video
More than 20 years ago, the Garden State’s philanthropic community began meeting informally to discuss issues of importance to grantmakers. In the late 1980s, fueled by the observation that philanthropy is more effective when grantmakers have a forum to communicate, exchange information, and take part in continuing education, CNJG was born.
By 1998, CNJG was an independent 501(c)(3) organization with a full-time executive director and approximately 80 members. In the years since, membership has grown to include more than 130 foundations, corporate giving programs, government and other public grantmaking organizations. Informal gatherings of likeminded individuals and organizations have been replaced by robust, highly valued seminars, convenings, workshops and conferences.
Extending Philanthropy's Contribution
Over the years, CNJG also actively engaged in a number of landmark initiatives including commissioning the first study of giving in the Garden State, NJ Gives, the first study of nonprofit health insurance provider conversions to for profit corporations, New Jersey Together (a major funder collaborative centered on youth development), a landmark effort looking at the systemic, long term fiscal challenges facing all levels of government in New Jersey entitled Facing Our Future, the creation of the Community Foundation of South Jersey, and creation of the Newark Philanthropic Liaison position within our state’s largest city administration.
View our CNJG Through the Years pictorial.
Americares has announced a $2 million grant from Johnson & Johnson to launch a three-year program aimed at strengthening the resilience of more than 100 safety-net health clinics in areas where climate change disproportionately affects the health of vulnerable communities.
The Climate Health Equity for Community Clinics Program is a collaborative effort between Americares, the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Johnson & Johnson, and healthcare providers at participating free clinics and community health centers, which will design tailored interventions that meet the needs of under-resourced and overworked staff. By improving clinic operations and health resilience, the program aims to protect patients’ health during heat waves, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and other climate-related emergencies.
According to Americares, more than 90 percent of free clinic and community health center patients qualify as low income, and more than half identify as racial and ethnic minorities. The World Health Organization has declared climate change the single biggest threat to humanity—putting clean air, safe drinking water, secure housing, and food supplies at risk—and projects climate change will cause an additional 250,000 global deaths annually from 2030 to 2050, largely due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress.
Learn how your grantmaking organization can support local news that serves New Jersey communities by providing trusted information, while promoting equity and justice.
Local news plays a critical role in providing residents with reliable, high-quality, and accessible local news to stay informed about policy changes and other community responses, how to stay safe and get help, and share their concerns and needs. As we continue to face COVID-19 during an election year, it is more important than ever that we support local news that centers the concerns, voices, and information needs of residents.
During this briefing we’ll discuss COVID-19’s impact on the local news and information ecosystem and how media collaborations are filling COVID-19 information gaps in U.S. cities, including New Jersey. We’ll also explore how investments in journalism, including supporting BIPOC media, helps ensure more voices are heard and advances a more just and equitable democracy.
Join us for an engaging conversation on the importance of local journalism in building connected, informed, and engaged communities during times of crisis.
Cost: Free for CNJG Grantmakers. $50 for Nonmember Grantmakers
Webinar Video