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In 2012-2013, CFLeads convened the Cultivating Community Engagement (CCE) Panel, made up of 34 philanthropic leaders, researchers, government officials and people from neighborhood and community groups who have worked closely with residents. After deliberating over the course of nearly a year, the Panel issued a Call to Action for more resident engagement by community foundations and made recommendations for important changes in community foundation practice. This call for more resident engagement resulted in the Panel’s updating of the Framework for Community Leadership by a Community Foundation.
In their most recent round of funding, the Dodge Foundation made two major, multimillion-dollar grants to projects focused on power building and economic resilience. These grants, to the Racial Justice Alignment Group of Black, Indigenous, and Brown leaders and the Paterson “One Square Mile” initiative from Montclair State University, strengthen our work towards a just and equitable New Jersey. In addition to these grants, we provided support to 27 additional organizations, representing our purposeful efforts to support partners and institutions contributing to the vibrancy of our state.
The Jewish Women’s Foundation of New Jersey (JWF-NJ), recently awarded $125,000 in grants to five local organizations that will put the money to work benefitting women and girls across the region.
“Each of these grants for 2024-25 represents our dedication to the Jewish value of ‘Tikkun Olam’ (repairing our world) and to fostering environments where all women can thrive,” Greenwood said.
The foundation said the round of grant funding is part of an ongoing effort to make a difference in the lives of women and girls by “addressing their unique challenges through philanthropy.”
This report from the TCC Group finds that the flexibility, nimbleness, and willingness to collaborate demonstrated by the philanthropic sector over the past year in response to a rapidly changing policy environment could serve as a model for the sector going forward.
Based on interviews with nearly thirty leaders of philanthropy-serving organizations (PSOs), this report found that in the first year of the Trump administration, PSOs and funder collaboratives were called on to keep funders well informed of policy changes. To that end, PSOs have played a critical role in enabling funder learning, dialogue, and action, and have helped accelerate important funder conversations in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion; the need to think beyond issue silos; and the foundational benefits of creating space for dialogue across political and ideological divides through nonpartisan civic engagement.
The report also notes that while some funders have remained cautious, taking a "wait and see" approach to how national political changes might affect their grantmaking priorities, a greater number have been moved by rapidly changing policies to consider aligning their "institutional voice" with other grantmakers to maximize their impact.
When Ras Baraka announced the formation of the NJ FAM Fund back in September, it came with a symbolic name — FAM stands for “40 Acres and a Mule” — and a hope that it could raise $100 million to serve as a private investment vehicle to help reduce social and economic disparities in Newark by investing in Black and Latinx businesses.
A few months later, the fund is operating in eight New Jersey cities and is quickly approaching $10 million — thanks in part to a “substantial” commitment from Bank of America that came this week.
Alberto Garofalo, president of Bank of America New Jersey, said the bank was thrilled to include the NJ FAM Fund among its many initiatives to help drive economic growth in underserved communities that too often were left behind in the past.
“A strong and vibrant business community benefits everyone,” Garafolo said. “Our equity investment in NJ FAM is intended to deploy capital to Black, Hispanic-Latino, other under-represented minority and women-led entrepreneurs so they can grow, expand job opportunities and make a positive impact in their community.”
M&T Bank has donated $75,000 in seed money to help the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers University launch a new fund to help Black entrepreneurs recover from the effects of the pandemic.
CUEED, based at the Rutgers Business School in Newark, will leverage the money from M&T to raise additional funding from other private and philanthropic sources. The center’s goal is to raise $250,000 to pilot its NJ BEST Patient Capital Fund, which will make low-cost, non-dilutive capital, recoverable grants of $25,000 to $50,000 available to selected Black-owned High-Impact Vital Enterprises — retail and service businesses essential to the viability of their communities.
Tom Comiskey, M&T Bank president for New Jersey, said the bank was excited to contribute to such a worthy aim.
“The pandemic has exacerbated challenges for Black entrepreneurs, making it increasingly difficult to secure capital for their businesses,” he said. “Essential to the foundation of New Jersey’s economy, M&T Bank is proud to support these business owners through the NJ BEST Patient Capital Fund.”
The Summit Foundation is proud to announce the awarding of over $185,000 in scholarships to more than 60 students in the Summit, NJ area this year, empowering them to pursue higher education.
Every year, the Foundation partners with generous donors to provide financial support that helps students cover not only tuition but the many other costs of college life, such as books, dorm supplies, and living expenses. This support allows students to attend schools of their choice, to live on campus, and to take on fewer student loans.
“Before I even applied to colleges, I remember how afraid I was of not being able to afford an education after high school,” shared April Sanchez, a rising senior at Gettysburg College and recipient of the Elevating Summit Students Scholarship. “Never did I imagine how many resources there were for people like me. With pride, I say today that because of foundations like these, I have traded my fears for hope and gratitude... Not only am I a better friend, daughter, student, employee, and overall person, but I am also an even more hopeful and driven person than I was before.”
Hurricane Helene was a monster storm, one of the biggest on record to hit the U.S. It made landfall as a Category 4 storm near Perry, Florida on Sept. 26, bringing devastating, widespread impacts across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and beyond.
While Helene’s full impacts won’t be known for days, CDP recognizes that the storm hit communities affected by other hurricanes, as recently as Hurricane Debby last month. When communities get hit repeatedly, they can’t fully recover before the next blow. This diminishes resilience and increases the need for funders to enhance available resources.
By the end of this webinar, donors will:
Understand the most urgent and ongoing needs in affected communities.
Learn how chronic and repetitive disasters create additional needs.
Be aware of ways they can invest funds to support community needs.
Free for all funders
Philanthropy can be defined in many ways. The word comes from the Greek, meaning "love for humanity." Modern definitions include the concept of voluntary giving by an individual or group to promote the common good and improve the quality of life.
Here in the United States, the term "philanthropy" is also used to describe the granting of money to nonprofit organizations by foundations and corporations. This type of giving is often called organized philanthropy or grantmaking.
This popular, fast-paced video offers a realistic — and often humorous — glimpse of how the public views philanthropy, using a series of "people in the street" interviews shot in the Twin Cities plus interviews with local donors. Discover the true, and often not so true, meaning of philanthropy.
Co-produced by the Minnesota Council on Foundations, The Minneapolis Foundation and the Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation.
At the October Grantmakers for Education Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., the Newark Funders Education Committee presented a workshop called “How Not to Read the Prize” to a standing-room-only audience of national, regional, and local foundations.
They did so not to dispute the findings in Dale Russakoff’s book, “The Prize,” but rather to expound upon the progress and challenges that have occurred during the period since Mark Zuckerberg’s $100-million-dollar gift was announced in September 2010 and to paint a fuller, more nuanced picture.
The process of putting together the panel was a learning experience for all of us who participated. It helped us to clarify our own thinking about what the gift enabled Newark to accomplish, how we as local funders have come to work together more effectively, and how we might advise national foundations interested in place-based impact to engage with the community and with local funders.
In September 2010, Mark Zuckerberg announced a $100 million gift, to be matched dollar for dollar, to transform education in Newark in five years. The Foundation for Newark’s Future was created as a local foundation that would manage a then-undetermined portion of the gift.
The Prize, by Dale Russakoff, documents the first five few years of this reform effort. As Russakoff illustrates, there were strong personalities involved in the reform effort who had or have now moved to new positions. Also, this was the donor’s first foray into philanthropy and despite efforts at community engagement, many community leaders and activists felt that district and state leaders and national foundation representatives did not invite or respect authentic community participation in its decisions. The book and subsequent book tour largely focused on these themes.
The narrative in philanthropy is that “this bold effort largely failed.” With the benefit of time, we would write a different narrative: there were missteps along the way, and some philanthropic overreach, but Newark is moving forward, education outcomes are improving, and some of the work that was started because of this initiative has had sustained positive impact. Most importantly, there is a robust education dialogue in the city that has moved from vigorous disagreement to an agreement to collaborate even when we disagree. So, the hashtag for this work seven years on might be: #notfinishedyet or #needapart2.
In the 12 years since the original Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens guide was published the country’s political, economic, and cultural landscapes have undergone multiple, dramatic changes. Public engagement and organizing against racism has risen to historic levels and we've seen racial justice concepts take root in such mainstream contexts as Washington Post articles on White privilege and wider use of the phrase “systemic racism.” And funders have worked hard to keep up. In response to these conditions, PRE has produced an updated guide. The daily practice of using a racial equity lens in social change as well as in grantmaking has established a baseline understanding of structural racism and has led to new insights, definitions, and nuances.
Asset Funders Network’s latest report, in collaboration with the Closing the Women’s Wealth Gap (CWWG) and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development reveals the current economic reality for millennial women and the primary drivers contributing to their wealth inequities. It illustrates how despite important gains in college attendance rates and career opportunities, millennial women’s wealth lags behind that of men. The median wealth holdings of single millennial men is still 162% greater than single millennial women.
While the report confirms that more research is needed to understand the full complexity of issues facing millennial women, this new brief demonstrates how there is a unique opportunity for philanthropy to support and pioneer groundbreaking work that can lead to a more economically just and inclusive society.