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by Tai Cooper and Jeremy Johnson

“When I Become Mayor, We All Become Mayor”
When Ras J. Baraka won the mayoral election for New Jersey’s largest city last year, expectations were high. The former South Ward councilman, one-time principal of Central High School and son of the famed poet-activist Amiri Baraka championed a populist vision. During the campaign, he famously told residents, “When I become Mayor, we all become Mayor!”

In the days leading up to, and following the election, the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers recognized an opportunity to work intensively with the incoming mayor. CNJG had previously established a nonpartisan, City Hall-based Newark Philanthropic Liaison office, in collaboration with then Mayor Cory Booker in 2007.

Following the transition, Mayor Baraka and CNJG built exciting new bridges.

For example, the Mayor included the grantmakers’ recommendations for collaboration as an appendix to his strategic plan, The Blueprint for a New Newark.

“We felt this transition was a time for funders to ‘lean in,’” said Nina Stack, President of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers.   “The grantmaking community spent seven years organizing ourselves to work collectively with the City of Newark.  Under Mayor Baraka, we saw an opportunity to build on old investments and create new ones.”

Prioritizing Five Pillars
It’s impossible for philanthropy to be a panacea for all of Newark’s challenges.  But the Mayor’s team appreciated the value that philanthropic partners brought to the table. Fueled with support from CNJG members, including the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Newark Philanthropic Liaison office, in concert with the Mayor’s Chief Policy Advisor, set about to convene, connect, and leverage partnerships and resources for Mayor-identified pillars.

Among dozens of issues, the Mayor has cited five initiatives as worthy of philanthropic engagement and top of mind attention.  So far in 2015, $3 million in private support is helping seed strategies that show promise for Newark residents.

1. Public Safety

Mayor Baraka has long understood violence to be a public health issue.  He has won praise for a constant rhythm of neighborhood events, summits, and youth presentations to address violence.  Local funders have rallied around several prongs of the Mayor’s initiatives.   For example, CNJG members funded a cross-sector retreat to coalesce multiple public safety partners working in the city.  That retreat has led to the creation of the Safer Newark Council, committed to inter-connected solutions to reduce violent crime and improve perceptions of safety.

An accompanying funder-supported initiative is the Newark Community Street Team.  The team comprises 15 outreach workers in the South Ward Model Neighborhood Initiative.  They are assisting approximately 100 individuals to stabilize their lives and turn away from a life of crime, through mentoring, life skills, and case management.

2. Education – Communities Schools/Read and Believe

As a former principal, Mayor Baraka has been outspoken on the critical role of education in Newarkers’ lives.  His appointment of Dr. Lauren Wells as Chief Education Officer in the Office of Comprehensive Community Education has helped inaugurate long-term and short-term public-private efforts.

Dr. Wells has written how “community schools” help mitigate the impacts of poverty on students and provide an environment that can greatly improve schools.  Launching community schools will necessitate early support from the funding community. Encouraging discussions are underway among neighborhood residents, funders, and education leaders.

Read and Believe, a literacy-focused initiative, imagines a city that takes on literacy as a communal cause. The umbrella campaign includes, among several programs,My Very Own Library.  CNJG members, including the Foundation for Newark’s Future, as well as Rutgers, individual donors and Scholastic’s Summer Reading Challenge, enabled MVOL to serve 27,000 Newark Public School students in grades K-8 students.  Each child selected four free books to take home for summer break.

3. Centers of Hope

The Centers of Hope are nine community-based centers in all five of Newark’s wards that allow access to City services, wellness and enrichment opportunities where people live and work.  Four centers have opened thus far, some focusing on young women, special needs, entrepreneurship, and municipal ID access.  All offer a variety of after school, athletic, arts and culture, educational, environmental, healthy living, free WiFi and recreation programming to engage children and families.

4. My Brother’s Keeper Newark

The Mayor’s My Brother’s Keeper Newark initiative is part of a nationwide, White House-led campaign to empower boys and men of color and strengthen the systems that ensure their success.  MBKN’s goals are dependent on cross-sector partnerships, data-mining, and a combination of policy and direct-service projects.  CNJG members have provided seed funding for the MBKN’s initial roundtables, forums, and on-ramping initiatives.  Most notable was a “Young Men of Color and Law Enforcement” forum at Central High School, designed to address issues that damage the relationship between African-American and Latino youth and law enforcement.  The White House has recognized MBKN as a leader among the national communities that are building greater supports for young men of color.

5. Summer Youth Employment Program and Postsecondary Access

One of the biggest success stories of the year was the dramatic increase in the number of teenagers employed in the Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program.  Newark went from 1,500 last summer to over 2,600 youth who got jobs.  The growth was prompted by a partnership between the Mayor’s office, funders, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC).  One thousand of the teens were enrolled in jobs that provided not only a paycheck but also learning opportunities for coding, urban landscaping, and an NCLC Summer Learning Institute on the campus of Essex County College.  Financial empowerment and banking support for these first time workers, made possible from the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, was an added bonus.

The New York Times recently praised Mayor Baraka for defying expectations. Working collaboratively with residents, institutions, and funders, the Mayor is driving the change that makes Newark a city we all can believe in.

Tai Cooper is Chief Policy Advisor to Mayor Ras J. Baraka.  Jeremy Johnson is the Newark Philanthropic Liaison, a position funded by the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers as a joint venture with the Mayor.

Sample board committee descriptions, including roles and responsibilities of committee members

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.

"Find people who will make you better."

—Michelle Obama

The day has arrived. It is my last day serving as President and CEO of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers. In a few days, I will step over to your side of the aisle in my role leading the Champlin Foundation.

As I said at that beautiful and overwhelmingly wonderful farewell gathering last week, it has been an extraordinary gift and a profound privilege to serve in this role these past 13-plus years. And I feel very good about leaving this precious network in the hands of the exceptional team of Pat Foo, Theresa Jacks, and Craig Weinrich, along with the very capable interim leadership of Jon Shure and Connie Ludwin.

I’ve been struggling with what to say in my farewell message to all of you, the spectacular membership of the Council. First and foremost, I want to express my thanks and gratitude.

Thank you for the deep and wide education I’ve received these past 13 years because of all you do and want to do better. I’ve often said the best thing about this job is that I get to learn a little bit about a lot of different things because the membership has such fascinating and intensely important interests. I have gratitude for the amazing relationships I’ve been able to have with some of the smartest, kindest, most thoughtful, and creative people imaginable.

I also am enormously grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given.

• My year in Lead New Jersey that really laid so much of the groundwork I needed for CNJG’s programming and affinity groups.
• My two-month sabbatical that led directly to our Race, Racism and Ramifications for Philanthropy learning journey.
• The privilege to serve on the board and then chair our national network, the United Philanthropy Forum.
• And, the ability to help the Council make a meaningful difference in our field and our state through initiatives like Facing Our Future, the Disaster Philanthropy Playbook and our post-Sandy work, as well as creation of CNJG’s Guiding Beliefs and Principles.

Here is what is at the heart of all of it though: When a funder joins the Council it means they recognize they cannot do their best work in a vacuum or in isolation. They realize the need to find people who will make them better, just as I reference in Michelle Obama's  quote above. They want to be smarter, work more thoughtfully, be truly effective. The Council is at its best when our members come together to learn, share ideas and strategies, collaborate, and be open to innovation. When I was given the gift of leading the Council, my mother would ask me to explain again what it was I would be doing. My response to her became my consistent little “elevator speech" for years to come. “My organization helps those that make grants be the best grantmakers they can be.”

As you all know well, working as a funder can get pretty heady. How does the joke go? Congratulations, you got a foundation job. You’ve now told your last bad joke. The power imbalance is so extreme.

What I’ve learned is that the best funders are the ones that really listen, not talk at their grantees about what they ought to be doing. Respect, faith, and appreciation for the people working in nonprofit charities is the hallmark of their approach. The best funders are the ones that show up as planned, on time for meetings and site visits, that don’t make an applicant jump through endless hoops for a grant -- especially a small grant.

The funders I’ve come to admire most are those that seek to understand a charity’s work and trust the expertise and wisdom of its executive leadership. These funders don’t micro-manage, mansplain, second-guess, or over burden. These funders recognize the power dynamic at play yet seek candid, colleague-to-colleague conversations and problem-solving with nonprofit leaders. They power-up nonprofit colleagues instead of powering over them.

These are just some of the marvelous lessons you’ve shared with me over the years, and I’m grateful to have them as I head into the role of a grantmaker for the largest private foundation in a small but mighty state.

With bountiful thanks and appreciation,

Nina Stack, President
Council of New Jersey Grantmakers

CNJG is helping track philanthropy’s response to the coronavirus pandemic by continuing our “Get on the Map” Campaign partnership with Candid who has launched a new coronavirus map in response to funders requests.

It is critical to be transparent and share this information with other funders to help inform your philanthropy in the coming weeks and months. The information gathered will be publicly available and updated daily at candid.org/coronavirus. Knowing where money is going and how, and having the latest information from organizations, facilitates thoughtful collaboration and decision-making in times of crisis.

You can see a list of grants meant to benefit New Jersey, or
A link to highlight grantmaking by funders in New Jersey.

You can also use different filters to, for example, see grantmaking by funders in Bergen County.

They are also working on making their response funds page filterable by geographic area served. A list of the current New Jersey response funds is available here.

As you can see from any of these “live” maps, the information they have collected is not complete, and this is where we need YOUR help!

Please visit our Share Your Giving Data webpage for information about how to share your data.

If you have any questions on how to submit your data, about the map, or how to include your response fund, please contact Craig Weinrich, CNJG’s Director of Member Services. Thank you in advance for your assistance in getting a more complete picture of New Jersey’s philanthropic response to COVID-19.

CNJG provides this information free to the philanthropic community. If you are not a CNJG member, please join so you can take full advantage of the many benefits of membership and help underwrite the cost of services like this.

This weekly funder briefing webinar series welcomed New Jersey-based grantmakers along with national funders and provided an opportunity for grantmakers to hear from a wide range of nonprofit experts. This series started on March 13, 2025, less than a month after the first executive order was issued and continued through April 24, 2025. The written summaries of each recording are listed below.

The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers joins the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation’s Funders Census Initiative, the United Philanthropy Forum, and philanthropy-serving organizations around the country in asking our members to commit to supporting and encouraging a fair and accurate census.

“Census Day,” April 1, 2020, is here and the time to act is now.

More than $800 billion annually in federal assistance to states, localities and families is distributed based on census data; yet historically, the census has missed disproportionate numbers of people of color, young children and the rural and urban poor, leading to inequality in political power and inaccessibility to public funding and private investment for these communities. Going into 2020, additional communities, including immigrants, refugees, unmarried women and the LGBTQ community are at risk of being missed.

Of that $800 billion, $17.56 billion distributed to our state is based on census data. Furthermore, in the 2010 census, return rates for New Jersey’s cities were very low: 55% in Newark, 50% in Irvington, 55% in Orange, 55% in Atlantic City, 56% in New Brunswick, 59% in Trenton, 60% in Paterson, and 61% in Camden. These communities are among those labeled Hard-to-Count (HTC). Being hard-to-count can lead to unequal political representation and unequal access to vital public and private resources for these groups and their communities. Our state has so much at stake, and we need to ensure a full, fair and accurate census. Without accurate census data, the communities you care about could see less investment in their vital public and private resources.

The Fund for New Jersey has created a website, which includes interactive maps to find Hard to Count areas, resources, and news. The Fund reminds us that almost everything we know about our communities comes from information collected during the census and its related surveys. Read The Fund for New Jersey’s policy paper, Toward a Fair and Accurate Census 2020 and a Timeline for Philanthropy, and download their checklist for outlining a number of ways philanthropy can support Census 2020.

The 2020 Census is facing unprecedented challenges, including years of underfunding, a climate of fear, and the challenges of the first “high tech” census.

Ways to Help

1. Review the Funder Menu of Options created in partnership by United Philanthropy Forum and the Funders Census Initiative (FCI 2020) to help funders identify what they can to do.
2. Join the Funders Census Initiative Working Group. As a working group member, you’ll have access to the core listserv for funders to connect on their work at the national, state and local levels. There is no cost, and you don’t need to be a FCCP member to join.
3. Sign up to get ongoing updates from the Census Bureau, including America Counts: Stories Behind the Numbers, the latest news, Tip sheets, and Stats for Stories. You can also partner with our Census Regional Office.
4. Talk to your grantees about the importance of a full and accurate 2020 Census, and what it means for their community and their work. Encourage them to get involved by sending them this message, and sharing this write up for use in their e-communications.
5. Advocate for a fair and accurate census, and for the resources to support a complete count in your community and statewide.
6. Share information on your website; via mailings, e-blasts and social media; and at your board and staff meetings to inform people why the census matters to your community and your grantees.
7. Join the Census 2020 NJ Coalition, a statewide outreach and awareness campaign to coordinate nonprofit and community-based efforts to ensure an accurate 2020 Census count in New Jersey. The Coalition is working together with the State of New Jersey Complete Count Commission and the U.S. Census Bureau to make sure the public has clear, accurate information about the importance of the upcoming Census.
8. Keep the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers up to date on what you are doing. Please contact Theresa Jacks, Deputy Director for more information.  

It is difficult to overstate the importance of a fair census count. When census information is not accurate, it threatens to muffle the voices of undercounted groups and regions, and undermine the basic political equality that is central to our democracy. Institutions across the country, including local and state governments, businesses, nonprofits and foundations, routinely rely on data from the census to allocate funding, define where services are delivered, and promote economic development. Thank you for your commitment to making sure that everyone counts!

Websites to Visit

• The Census Project
  A broad-based network of national, state, and local organizations that supports a fair and accurate 2020 Census and comprehensive American Community Survey (ACS — the modern version of the census “long form”). Participating stakeholders represent a diverse range of American sectors that rely on objective data for decision-making and promote civic engagement: business and industry; civil rights advocates; state and local governments; social service agencies; researchers and scientific associations; planners; foundations; and nonprofits focused on housing, child and family welfare, education, transportation, and other vital services.
• Funders Census Initiative
  A project of the Funders Committee for Civic Participation, a philanthropy-serving organization spearheading Census-related work and information for funders.
• United Philanthropy Forum
  The largest network serving philanthropy in America, consisting of regional and national philanthropy-serving organizations (PSOs). Through the Census 2020 Project, the Forum is working with members to mobilize regional funders to advocate for policy improvements for the 2020 census, and to raise awareness and understanding of the importance of a fair and accurate census count to philanthropy. CNJG is a member of the Forum.
• United States Census Bureau
  The Bureau's mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy and is the federal government’s largest statistical agency. The Decennial Census is the once-a-decade population and housing count of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas as required by the U.S. Constitution. The results of the decennial census determine the number of seats for each state in the U.S. House of Representatives and are used to draw congressional and state legislative districts and to distribute more than $675 billion in federal funds each year.
• NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development
  NJ's governmental department that works with the Census Bureau to conduct the census in New Jersey.
• Advocates for Children of New Jersey – Census 2020 NJ
• The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights – 2020 Census

Resources to Use

• 2017 CNJG Conference – Luncheon Keynote: The Linchpin – Why the 2020 Census Matters
• Mapping Hard to Count (HTC) Communities for a Fair and Accurate 2020 Census
• The Census Project: Fact Sheets and Reports
• The Census Project: Monthly Updates
• The Census Project: Recent Media
• Census.gov: Community Outreach Toolkit
• NJ Complete Count Commission
• 2020 Census Operational Timeline
• Response Outreach Area Mapper
• Census Solutions Workshop Toolkit
• Map Showing Contact Strategies for Hard to Count Communities
• 2020 Census Complete Count Committees
• Get Out the Count Toolkit

Webinars to Watch

• What Funders Need to Know About Census 2020 Operations
• Johnson Center Podcast: This One Counts
• Brennan Center for Justice: The 2020 Census: What's at Stake
• Census Day 2019 Press Briefing (4/1/2019)
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented by Color of Change
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented by National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented by Asian Americans Advancing Justice
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented on Messaging Studies with the Census Bureau
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented by National Congress of American Indians
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented by the Arab American Institute and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
• FCI Briefing Series: Census 2020 Messaging Testing Results – presented by San Joaquin Valley Health Fund: Census Research Project

Articles to Read

• CityLab: Ex-Census Director: Citizenship Question Is 'a Tremendous Risk' (2/27/2018)
• ProPublica: The Trump Appointee Behind the Move to Add a Citizenship Question to the Census (3/7/2018)
• FiveThirtyEight: A Million Children Didn’t Show Up In The 2010 Census. How Many Will Be Missing In 2020? (3/19/2018)
• Governing: A Census Citizenship Question Wouldn't Just Impact Blue States (3/28/2018)
• ScienceMag: 2020 census gets huge budget boost, but addition of citizenship question worries critics (3/27/2018)
• Governing: A Census Citizenship Question Wouldn't Just Impact Blue States (3/28/2018)
• TheIntercept: COUNT DOWN: How the Trump Administration Is Botching Its Only Trial Run for the 2020 Census (3/31/2018)
• ScienceMag: Trump officials claim they can avoid 2020 census problems caused by controversial citizenship question (4/13/2018)
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Foundations Push Census Turnout in Worrisome Times (5/7/2018)
• ScienceMag: More money, more worries: 2020 census plans continue to generate controversy (5/15/2018)
• The Census Project: Senate Appropriators Strongly Urged to Support House Level of Funding for 2020 Census in FY19 Appropriations (6/5/2018)
• The NonpPofit Times: Nonprofits Already Eyeing 2020 Census, $800 Billion At Stake 6/6/2018)
• NPR: Documents Shed Light On Decision To Add Census Citizenship Question (6/10/2018)
• The Census Project: June 2018 Census Project Update (7/10/2018)
• City Lab: A Visual History of the U.S. Census (7/29/2018)
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Every Person Counts: Why the Census Must Be Rescued (7/31/2018) - Subscription access
• Inside Philanthropy: Census 2020: How Is Philanthropy Responding to the Citizenship Question? (8/2/2018)
• The New York Times: Why the Government Wants to Know Your Citizenship Status (8/4/2018)
• Insider NJ: Rice Bill to Create NJ Complete Count Commission for 2020 Census Signed into Law (8/25/2018)
• Pacific Standard Magazine: Census Bureau Economists Provide More Evidence Against the Citizenship Question (8/31/2018)
• NJ Spotlight: State's Complete Count Commission Knows NJ Can't Afford a Sloppy Census (9/6/2018)
• NorthJersey.com: Paterson looks to ease immigrants’ fears that could depress its Census count. (9/19/2018)
• Governing: With 2020 Census Looming, Governments Face Many Unknowns (11/2018)
• City Lab: Would Top Census Officials Hand Over Citizenship Status Data? (11/20/2018)
• The Washington Post: Senate confirms new Census Bureau director as 2020 survey approaches (1/3/2019)
• NPR: Senate Confirms Trump's Census Bureau Director Nominee Steven Dillingham (1/9/2019)
• Press of Atlantic City: Census Complete Count Commission holds first meeting (1/10/2019)
• NPR: Judge Orders Trump Administration To Remove 2020 Census Citizenship Question (1/15/2019)
• GW Institute of Public Policy: Counting for Dollars 2020: The Role of the Decennial Census in the Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds (2/13/2019)
• The Census Project: Census Experts Commend Updated Study Showing Almost $9 Trillion Next Decade from Feds to States Depends on 2020 Census (3/8/2019)
• Nonprofit Quarterly: 3rd Judge Rejects Census Citizenship Question as US Supreme Court Date Looms (3/8/2019)
• NJ TV Online: NJ commission works toward ‘complete count’ for 2020 census (3/22/2019)
• NPR: What You Need To Know About The 2020 Census (3/31/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: NJ Urged to Put More Money and Speed into 2020 Census Preparations (4/1/2019)
• Inside Philanthropy: Census 2020: Inside Efforts to Make Sure Rural Communities Count (4/4/2019)
• Governing: In the Trump Era, Muslim Immigrants Distrust the Census (4/8/2019)
• Brookings : A year before the 2020 census, experts share four key insights (4/23/2019)
• NextCity: How Cities Plan to Save the Census (4/26/2019)
• Nonprofit Quarterly: Who Will Be Counted in the US Census? (4/29/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: Is NJ Prepared to Spend $9M - $1 per Person - to Ensure Accurate Census Count? (4/30/2019)
• Nonprofit Quarterly: Legal Advocates Speak Out about the Dangers of Weaponizing the Census (5/1/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: Census 2020: Innovation Could Boost Participation - But it Won't Come Cheap (6/11/2019)
• Science: In killing citizenship question, Trump adopts Census Bureau’s preferred solution to a thorny problem (7/11/2019)
• Governing: Citizenship Question Permanently Blocked From 2020 Census (7/17/2019)
• Federal Times: Why the 2020 census will have fewer personnel and offices (7/19/2019)
• CNBC: Experts are worried the census will once again undercount kids younger than 5 (7/29/2019)
• American Library Association: Libraries and the 2020 Census (8/1/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: Relief that $125M for upgrades to NJ libraries finally on the horizon (8/6/2019)
• NJ.gov: The State of New Jersey announces a grant program to support efforts to make sure that everyone in New Jersey is counted (9/6/2019)
• Nextgov: Census is Asking the Public to Help Fight Misinformation Ahead of 2020 (9/11/2019)
• US News: How Cities Can Make the 2020 Census a Success (9/12/2019)
• Federal News Network: Census Bureau stands up ‘fusion center’ to combat misinformation during 2020 count (9/12/2019)
• NPR: Census Bureau Fights To Prevent Spread Of Misinformation (9/13/2019)
• Reddit: Everything you wanted to know about the 2020 census (but didn't know who to ask) (10/13/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: Efforts Underway to Maximize Census Count in New Jersey (10/18/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: Census Bureau Needs 45K Temporary Workers in NJ for 2020 Count (10/23/2019)
• NJ Spotlight: Working to Overcome Census Limitations to Make New Jersey’s Count Count (12/12/2019)

Despite a field replete with research, analysis, recommended policies and practices — not to mention an abundance of educational programs and frameworks for grantmaking to diverse communities — philanthropic leaders have been slow to advance these values in their foundations. Philanthropy Northwest (PNW) wondered: what is getting in the way? Why are good intentions, buttressed with theory and practical advice, not achieving better results on measures of diversity, equity and inclusion?

With the support of the D5 Coalition, PNW began a year-long study to explore these questions. The study was divided into two parts. They began with personal interviews of 23 philanthropic leaders in the Pacific Northwest. In order to better understand how these organizations incorporated diversity, equity, and inclusion into their work and workplaces, they collected baseline information about their staff composition, leadership styles, and organizational practices/policies.

This report details their findings. It includes an in-depth look at the peer cohort model, in which ten foundation leaders met regularly to discuss these issues and support each other in advancing their own leadership. It also includes practical lessons about shifting organizational cultures towards greater diversity, equity and inclusion — lessons drawn directly from the experiences of peer cohort leaders.

PNW presented this work in a webinar hosted by the D5 Coalition. The webinar recording and slides are below.