Site Search

Date: Wednesday, June 18
Time: 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Location
The Palace at Somerset Park
 333 Davidson Ave, Somerset, NJ

CNJG’s 2025 Conference for the Social Sector—Stronger Together: Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, features recognized thought leaders, national and regional experts, and community leaders for a full day of connection, shared exploration, thoughtful discussion, and side-by-side learning with philanthropic and nonprofit colleagues.

This year's conference will examine how funders and nonprofits can work together to address and increase civic engagement, focusing on several key areas, including advocacy, local media, participatory budgeting, guaranteed income, public-private partnerships, the arts, and youth education through the lens of civic participation.

Civic engagement is about more than voting or elections. As our colleagues at Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement (PACE) define it:
“Civic engagement is the process of helping people be active participants in building and strengthening their communities, whether defined as a place or a shared identity or interest. It’s a spectrum of ways people can participate in self-governance, from interactions with government to voluntary associations, and everything in between.”

The opportunity for local communities to convene, learn together, and form partnerships can lead to meaningful action and increased public participation. Let’s explore how philanthropy can impact the social sector by buttressing these connections.

CNJG represents over 130 of NJ’s leading philanthropic organizations – foundations, corporations, and donors. Each year, we present a large-format meeting to include nonprofit partners to discuss big picture topics fostering learning and dialogue between funders and nonprofits.

Conference Photos

A CNJG corporate member asked for help with the scenario in which a corporate policy of not supporting religious organizations in their grantmaking, causes problems helping during a disaster in an urban or rural area, when the program that is delivering the disaster relief is based within a church. They want to work with those programs (a church serves as the program’s fiscal sponsor) who support efforts for hunger, homelessness, substance abuse recovery, racial equity, etc. as long as they do not discriminate and do no limit it to their own congregations. The request for policy samples to work around this religious organization hurdle as long as there is no discrimination or funding the actual church’s worship, was compelled by CNJG staff and is listed here.

A key objective of the Scaling What Works initiative has been to translate insight and learning from grantmaker intermediaries involved with the Social Innovation Fund and share them with the broader philanthropic community. The fifth guide in the Lessons Learned series presents the benefits and challenges of partnerships between local and national funders, and highlights key considerations for both kinds of funders to foster success in their collaboration.

Tax Exempt Organization Search helps users find information about a tax-exempt organization’s federal tax status and filings. You can find:

• Organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions (Pub 78 data).
• Automatically revoked organizations
• IRS determination letters dated on or after January 1, 2014
• Form 990-series returns
• Organizations that have filed a Form 990-N (e-Postcard)