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How the government can partner with impact investors to unleash new capital, talent and energy for maximum impact.

Kessler Foundation approved approximately $2 million in grants in 2021 to support initiatives that promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace. The Foundation allocated funding for three categories: Foundation-Directed Grants, Community Employment Grants, and Special Initiative Grants. Since 2005, the Foundation's Center for Grantmaking has awarded more than $50 million to nonprofit programs that expand employment opportunities for people with disabilities striving to work, adding diversity to American workplaces, and boosting productivity.

Kessler grantmaking has lead to improved job skills and paid employment for thousands of individuals with disabilities.

The Foundation's contributions have led to improved job skills and paid employment for thousands of individuals with disabilities, according to Elaine E. Katz, MS, CCC-SLP, senior vice president for grants and communications at Kessler Foundation. "Our grants support inventive initiatives that open new pathways to increasing inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace," she added.

The National Center for Family Philanthropy and Youth Philanthropy Connect, a program of the Frieda C. Fox Foundation, have joined together to bring new resources to the field of philanthropy focused on engaging the next generation of donors and family members. Igniting the Spark: Creating Effective Next Gen Boards is the first publication of its kind, offering a comprehensive overview of the growing practice among family foundations and donor advised fund holders of using next generation boards.

The issue brief outlines creative options for involving children as young as 8 in family philanthropy.  It is supplemented by case studies of seven foundations using next gen boards and other approaches for engaging youth in philanthropy.  Throughout both resources, the voices of next gen donors describe what works — and what doesn’t — providing family members and staff with guidance and insights new to the field.

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.

BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a leading global medical technology company, today announced a $1 million commitment over five years to UNICEF USA in support of UNICEF's work to uphold the rights of all children and help every child survive and thrive. The cash donation will be used to support UNICEF's efforts to eliminate Maternal and Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) in at-risk countries around the world. In 1997, BD was the first U.S.-based corporation to establish a maternal and newborn tetanus program with UNICEF.

With the support of BD, UNICEF is working to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus worldwide by seeking to vaccinate all women and girls of childbearing age, by promoting clean childbirth delivery practices such as clean umbilical cord cutting methods and by utilizing surveillance to enhance health professionals' understanding of the circumstances under which tetanus can be transmitted. Between 2000 and 2018, newborn deaths from MNT have declined by 88 percent.1

As the first and longest-serving corporate partner in UNICEF USA's campaign to eliminate MNT, BD has now provided or committed more than $10.8 million in cash and product donations to the organization, including 55 million BD SoloShot™ Auto-Disable Syringes and BD Uniject™ Non-Reusable Devices.

"The initiative to help eliminate MNT was the first philanthropic program established by BD," said Tom Polen, CEO and president, BD. "Over the past 24 years, the MNT initiative has grown into an international public-private partnership that includes governments, global humanitarian organizations, non-profits and corporate partners, all with one mission to prevent unnecessary deaths from maternal and neonatal tetanus. This $1 million commitment continues our collective efforts to expand access to health care among the vulnerable populations who need it most and is part of our broader purpose – advancing the world of health."

The New Jersey Council for the Humanities has awarded 18 grants totaling $216,319 in its most recent grant round. These funds will support a diverse array of projects in nine counties across the Garden State, highlighting NJCH’s ongoing commitment to fostering the public humanities.

Of the 18 awarded projects, five had their beginnings in prior NJCH grants or programs.

Two organizations, the AIDS Resource Foundation for Children and the Hispanic Family Center of Southern NJ, received funding for projects that expand upon the Dear Rosa Project, an oral history initiative amplifying the voices of women living with HIV/AIDS that was funded by a prior NJCH grant. Additionally, Clinton Hill Community Action and Raíces Cultural both received funding to extend projects initially developed in NJCH’s Community History Program. And Truehart Productions received funding to produce a new episode of the PBS documentary series “The Price of Freedom,” which previously received developmental funding from an NJCH incubation grant.

“We are thrilled to see the continued impact and evolution of projects that have received our support in the past. Their success demonstrates the profound influence of our programs on the public humanities in New Jersey,” NJCH Executive Director Carin Berkowitz said. “The diverse and dynamic projects funded in this round will significantly contribute to the understanding and appreciation of our state’s rich cultural heritage.”

Strategic asset allocation is arguably one of the most important, yet least advanced, aspects of investing. The Investment Strategy Group (ISG) in the Goldman Sachs Investment Management Division has developed a new approach to strategic asset allocation, which leverages the idea that long-term investment returns derive from multiple distinct sources called “return-generating factors.” This multi-factor approach is designed to help investors better understand the key sources of long-term return across asset classes and to increase the precision of long-term risk and return estimates. It also provides investors with a new way to think about portfolio diversification, allowing them to focus not only on diversification across asset classes but also
on diversification across the underlying sources of return.