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In the December issue of Governing magazine, a national trade publication, a featured article “But what did Cory Booker actually accomplish in Newark?” cites the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers and Jeremy Johnson, the Newark Philanthropic Liaison, in connection with the public-private partnership to establish the Newark Office of Reentry. Among the highlights, the article reports ‘Booker’s strategy for seeking help took many forms. It wasn’t just about selling the city to businesses. It also meant leveraging financial support from the philanthropic sector. To do so, the city hired a philanthropy liaison, Jeremy Johnson, whose position is paid for by an outside funder, the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers.
Newark is one of the only places in the country to designate someone on staff with the explicit role of engaging foundations for the funding of public projects. “You really need the leader of your city to believe that philanthropy can help and can work in tandem with government,” Johnson says.’ Newark Funders continue to be committed these goals, meeting with Newark mayoral candidates in December to discuss their ongoing efforts and the role of the Newark Philanthropic Liaison.
Times of mass mobilization like the uprisings for Black lives and global crises like the COVID pandemic broaden awareness of the work of organizations, collectives, and other groups of people working to transform harmful systems. Some of these groups turn to intermediaries—fiscal sponsors and donor intermediaries—to provide back-office support, grant funding, and other services to support their ongoing work and evolution.
This report explores the ways in which the ecosystem of funders and intermediaries can better support these groups—which we’re calling “constituent-led groups”—who do their work without formal 501c3 status and are often led by and supporting historically oppressed communities.
Today, many constituent-led groups, particularly those that are smaller and geographically isolated, struggle to find fiscal sponsors and other intermediaries that share their values and can provide services that are deeply rooted in racial equity. For a number of reasons, funders—who can’t otherwise support constituent-led groups—often prioritize partnering with intermediaries with a high capacity for scaling services and distributing resources and funds. Though equity values are important to funders in selecting intermediaries to partner with, many funders don’t know what equity-centered services look like or how to support intermediaries in deepening this work.
In this report, we share different ways fiscal sponsors and donor intermediaries have approached deepening equity in their work while meeting the volume of demand from constituent-led groups and funders. We also offer some pathways forward for funders seeking to strategically invest in intermediaries to strengthen their capacity in these areas so they might better serve constituent-led groups.
Join us for an informative session with Justin Scheid, New Jersey Field Office Director at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Field Office manages a range of important programs and special initiatives, including Opportunity Zones, EnVision Centers, Section 3 economic opportunities, Promise Zones, ConnectHome, and homelessness.
During this discussion, Justin Scheid will share updates on CARES Act Funding and other HUD related programs and resources critical to COVID recovery and relief. We’ll also discuss strategies for philanthropy to partner with HUD to leverage resources and maximize impact in local communities.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members. $50 for Non Member Grantmakers
Webinar Video
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) today announced plans to award grants totaling $17.5 million to 30 nonprofit organizations through Phase 3 of its successful Sustain & Serve NJ program. Sustain & Serve NJ provides eligible entities with grants to support the purchase of meals from New Jersey restaurants that have been negatively impacted by COVID-19 and the distribution of those meals at no cost to recipients. The additional $17.5 million in awards announced today brings total program funding to $52.5 million.
Sustain & Serve NJ launched during the pandemic as a $2 million pilot program to boost restaurants impacted by COVID and has grown into an over $50 million program that continues to bring much-needed food to people across New Jersey. Since February 2021, Sustain & Serve NJ has already supported the purchase of more than 3.5 million meals from over 400 restaurants in all 21 counties with grants totaling $35 million.
Phase 3 of Sustain & Serve NJ is funded by $10 million allocated by Governor Phil Murphy from the federal American Rescue Plan and approximately $7.5 million in State funding. Funding from this latest phase is expected to support the purchase of an additional 1.5 million meals.
“Sustain & Serve NJ has become a national model for addressing food insecurity, supporting small businesses that are the heartbeat of our downtowns, and providing funding to the nonprofit entities that deliver vital services,” said Acting Governor Sheila Y. Oliver. “Combatting hunger remains a top priority and it is more critical than ever that nonprofits have the resources they need to feed the people within their communities.”
Bank of America announced Wednesday that it has made more than $1.5 million in grants to 28 New Jersey nonprofits to help drive economic opportunity for individuals and families.
The grants focus on workforce development and education to help individuals chart a path to employment and better economic futures, as well as basic needs fundamental to building lifelong stability, such as access to food.
While New Jersey’s economy is recovering from the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state still trails the nation in terms of employment and job creation. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, New Jersey’s unemployment rate is 4.1%, compared with the national average of 3.6%.
Employment is a key driver of economic mobility in New Jersey.
Bank of America New Jersey President Alberto Garofalo said that is why the bank is focused on building pathways to employment by supporting a range of workforce development and educational opportunities that will help vulnerable individuals and families stabilize and advance.
“We’ve chosen to partner with nonprofits that address the most critical issues facing New Jersey, including workforce development, food insecurity and economic and social progress,” he said. “Our philanthropic investment in these organizations helps us deploy capital locally, where it will have the most impact and build sustainable communities.”
The New Jersey Council for the Humanities (NJCH) is pleased to announce that we have awarded $402,514 in grant funding to 33 organizations across the state for Spring 2022. These awards cap off a banner grant cycle which saw the largest-ever response to an NJCH call for applications, with 83 Letters of Intent submitted earlier this year. The high demand for funding reflects both the robust activity of the cultural sector and the need for ongoing support in that sector, as we emerge from the COVID-related challenges of the last few years.
The grantees’ projects reflect the creativity, excellence, and lifelong learning that public humanities programming contributes to New Jersey’s cultural and civic life. NJCH’s awards include Incubation Grants, which help organizations plan, research, develop, and prototype public humanities projects and events; Action Grants, which help organizations implement a wide array of humanities-based projects, including public programs, exhibitions, installations, tours, and discussion groups; and Seed Funding, a brand-new award type that recognizes promising applicants from the Action and Incubation award pools and supports them in building greater capacity to do high-impact public humanities projects.
“From telling underrepresented stories to exploring new modes of audience engagement as we emerge from the pandemic, the new grantees’ projects speak to the astonishing breadth and depth of public humanities work in the state,” said NJCH Executive Director Carin Berkowitz. “NJCH’s grantmaking not only highlights those who are already doing exemplary work in the field, but also supports those organizations and communities that traditionally have less access to the public humanities. This approach ensures that New Jersey’s cultural sector will continue to thrive—now and well into the future.”
The Disability & Philanthropy Forum invites you to register for the 2024 Disability & Philanthropy Webinar Series. All of our 2024 webinars will be open to the public. This collective learning journey will focus on why a disability lens is essential to addressing key social justice issues. Each webinar will engage philanthropic leaders in conversation with disability advocates about how we can move toward a more equitable, inclusive future for all.
Disability Rights Activism and Organizing: April 11 - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
Grantmaking for Disability: LGBTQIA+ Funding: May 9 - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
Disability Pride, Joy, and Visions for the Future: July 11 - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
Disability and the Care Economy: September 19 - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
Disability-Inclusive Hiring: October 10 - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
Disability in Indigenous Communities: November 14 - 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. ET
All webinars are open to the public, so feel free to share with anyone you know that's interested in learning about disability inclusion, rights, and justice.
CART will be provided. If you require another accommodation to fully participate in the webinar, please note it in your registration, or contact us at [email protected].
At a time when nonprofits and philanthropy were needed the most, the pandemic forced most social sector organizations to go fully or partially remote. As we enter 2021, it seems that many organizations will continue to operate virtually for some time, and others are even considering what it would be like to make this transition permanently.
During this informative webinar session, Christine Michelle Duffy, Director of the New Jersey Program at Pro Bono Partnership, and Christopher Petermann, Partner at PKF O’Connor Davies, will share practical suggestions, policies, and procedures that nonprofits and foundations should consider when some or all of their workforce is working remotely. We’ll also discuss the major challenges that nonprofits have faced when adapting to this new virtual world, and how philanthropy can help its grantee partners moving forward.
Anyone interested in providing a remote work option for employees, going fully virtual for the long-term, or supporting nonprofit operations in the current context will want to attend this webinar.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members; $50 for Nonmember Grantmakers
Webinar Video
CNJG is pleased to offer a new member benefit: ValuesAdvisor. Many foundations now recognize that the investments made from their corpus have the power to support their mission, but don’t know how to take the first step: finding a trusted financial advisor with the right expertise. We now offer you free access to ValuesAdvisor, a nonprofit, online, searchable database of peer-recommended financial advisors who have the expertise you need. You can learn more about the platform by watching this short, 3 minute video. In this webinar with ValuesAdvisor Co-Founder Kate Simpson, you will learn about how the platform can be used to further your mission (climate, DEI, place based, etc.).
This webinar pairs nicely with CNJG’s Impact Investing Bootcamp series.
COST: Free for CNJG Members
Webinar Video
Learn how to meet ongoing critical needs, support resiliency, and prepare for COVID-19 recovery.
COVID-19 is not your “typical” disaster. There are still many unknowns about the pandemic’s full impact and how long restrictions on business and nonprofit services will last. Unlike with storms and other weather events, response and recovery phases overlapping, and New Jersey could even face concurrent disasters during hurricane season.
In a departure from weather events and other natural disasters, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy now recommends “frontloading” funding for COVID-19 – putting all possible resources into immediate relief, rather than holding back -- and planning for one or more upticks in virus cases, and even a second wave. Additionally, CDP says, partnering with government will be more important than ever to fill gaps in need and reach the hardest hit communities. So far, philanthropy has been adaptive during the COVID-19 pandemic, responding rapidly to the urgent needs of new and existing grantee partners. But, where do we go from here?
Hear from Sally Ray, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and Keith Adams, Executive Director of New Jersey Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD).
Topics will include:
• Responding to pressing needs of food insecurity, housing, and job loss.
• Funding strategies to plan for additional upticks and support an equitable recovery.
• How the sector can build local organizations’ capacity to persevere through uncertainty and tackle the ever-growing demand for services.
Cost: Free for CNJG Members $50 for Non Member Grantmakers
Webinar Video