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oday New Jersey Community Capital, a leading national community development financial institution, committed $50,000 to nonprofits chosen by mayors and a county leader who are deeply committed to furthering formative economic impact efforts in their respective communities. Each leader will have $10,000 to award to a local nonprofit doing groundbreaking work. NJCC awards the grants at the close of Black History Month annually to mark the commemoration's focus on creating economic equity for divested populations.

This year, NJCC's grants will go to nonprofits chosen by the mayors of Dallas, Texas, New York City, New York and Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey, and the economic opportunity director of Los Angeles County. Supporting nonprofits in urban communities throughout the nation is in keeping with NJCC's goal to foster sustainable economic development and wealth creation in overlooked communities from coast to coast.

"These grants achieve several of our objectives," NJCC President and CEO Bernel Hall said. "First, it champions the principles behind Black History Month and underscores NJCC's dedication to creating social and economic parity. By contributing to initiatives important to the leaders of these municipalities, we are supporting their efforts to create thriving, equitable communities.

"Our second objective is to support projects that can benefit from our unique, expansive initiatives. We've been extremely effective because our programs are both entrepreneurial and augmentative," explained Hall. This is especially relevant today given our nation's dire need for more affordable housing, small business expansion and high-quality school systems."

The Silicon Valley Out-of-School-Time Collaborative invested in a cohort of regional nonprofit organizations to sustain and strengthen their ability to serve more students with stronger academic and social-emotional programming. Partners in the collaborative included three family foundations that together made an initial $1.6 million pooled investment over three years, and eight nonprofits that collectively served more than 7,000 low-income middle and high school students outside normal school hours. From the start of the partnership, funders and grantees held regular meetings focused on shared learning, trust building and dialogue. A midcourse evaluation of the collaborative showed that grantees were stronger, programs were better and are reaching more students, and funders had adopted new, collaborative grantmaking practices. The funders invested another $900,000 into a second phase of the work and committed to more flexibility –– letting grantees drive the group’s planning and learning efforts, and manage consultants, budgeting and group communications. Grantees also opted to redirect the focus of the collaborative from capacity building to program development and evaluation, with the added goal of sharing effective afterschool and summer program models with others, both inside and outside the region.