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Eastside High School in Paterson sits in the middle of a struggling neighborhood, in a city where 25% of the residents are living below the poverty line, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
Paterson’s poverty rate is more than twice the state average of 10%, which makes the school, built in 1926, a refuge — and now a resource.
On Thursday, Montclair State University president Jonathan Koppell came to Eastside with a $1 million grant and a vision: to make the school into a community hub, offering free meals, health care, and mental health counseling, not just to the 2,000 students, but to their families as well.
The initiative is called One Square Mile, and it is being seeded with a $1 million grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The program was developed by Koppell during his tenure as Dean of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions at Arizona State University, which worked with the Phoenix-area community of Maryvale to address poverty.
The Philadelphia 76ers, looking to make an even greater impact in the community in which they train, are making a donation of $120,000 to the Camden County Police Department, the largest private donation ever.
The donation, made through the Sixers Youth Foundation, will fund youth fitness initiatives throughout Camden city, as it will be used to enhance and expand several programs in the Camden County Police Department’s Village Initiative, including the open gym and resource nights, Camden officials said.
Camden County Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli was floored by the gesture — but noted it follows the effort the team has been making for some time.
“From the start, this agency has been focused on community engagement and facilitating a lifelong dialogue in order to become part of the fabric of the city,” he said. “This investment by the Sixers underscores the importance of the work we do with our residents on daily basis with a focus on our youth in Camden.
“I want to thank them for walking the walk and being an important part of our village here in Camden County.”
For 20 years, The Nicholson Foundation worked to advance meaningful change in safety net service systems in New Jersey. Its grantmaking journey is described in Changing Systems, Changing Lives: Reflecting on 20 Years. Through stories and related text, the book showed how a small family foundation could take six guiding themes and put them into action through grants and partner support. In the process, the Foundation collaborated to spur real systems change that benefitted individuals, families, and communities. A recent scholarly paper built on that work, helping to make the Foundation’s approach broadly accessible to researchers, academics, and philanthropists. “A Framework for Creating Systems Change,” by Drs. William Brown and Wynn Rosser published in The Foundation Review, presents a new model for systems change. Five of the model’s seven components reflect themes in Changing Systems, Changing Lives. The sixth component slightly shifts the emphasis of the Foundation’s “Engaging with Government” theme, and the seventh highlights the Foundation’s overall approach by including performance measurement as a distinct and separate component of the model.
Download or order a free hard copy of The Nicholson Foundation book, "Changing Systems, Changing Lives"
Read Brown W, Rosser W. "A Framework for Creating Systems Change". The Foundation Review, 2023;15(4):50-6.
This year, GivingTuesday, a global generosity movement, is Tuesday, November 28. While this annual traditional is best known for highlighting charitable organizations’ missions and elevating individual giving, how can corporate philanthropy leverage these types of giving days and partnerships to engage in and promote greater impact? We’ll hear from Woodrow Rosenbaum, Chief Data Officer, GivingTuesday, who will share the history and evolution of this special day, as well as giving trends from a national perspective.
As Chief Data Officer, Rosenbaum has been instrumental in shaping the global generosity movement and has spearheaded ground-breaking research and analysis of individual giving behaviors. He leads the GivingTuesday Data Commons, bringing together a coalition of more than 300 collaborators coordinated through eight working groups as well as data teams in 50 countries to understand the drivers and impacts of generosity to inspire more giving of all types. Woodrow brings expertise in moving markets and transforming audiences from passive participants to active and vocal ambassadors. He is founder and CEO of With Intent, an international consumer marketing agency, a member of the Generosity Commission Research Task Force, serves as board chair for Global Impact Canada, and is a Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.
Following the presentation and Q & A, we’ll have dedicated time for corporate funders to hear from one another, share programs and projects, and learn from one another. We encourage every attendee to participate in this discussion.
Webinar Video
With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, several states have either banned access to abortion care, or severely restricted access. As a result, states like New Jersey have seen a surge in individuals seeking care, further straining reproductive care providers. As New Jersey’s sole member of the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF), the New Jersey Access Abortion Fund advances abortion access and bodily autonomy by funding abortions for people traveling to, from, and within New Jersey. The very first portion of this briefing will be an update on the reproductive rights legal landscape from Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. After the AG departs, we will then introduce attendees to NJAAF’s work and offer a frank conversation about economic barriers that making it difficult for individuals to seek care.
Speakers include:
Matthew J. Platkin, Attorney General, State of New Jersey
Hans Dekker, President, Community Foundation of New Jersey
Sheila Reynertson, Senior Program Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Emily Zahn, Board Member, NJ Abortion Access Fund
Kathleen DiGiulio, Board Member, NJ Abortion Access Fund
Cost: Free for CNJG Members only
Quadira Coles (she/her)
Quadira Coles is a legislative/policy professional based in New Jersey/New York, committed to advocating for systemic and material changes that create liberating spaces and experiences for Black people, especially young people. She serves as the President of the New Jersey Abortion Access Fund. Her work focuses on reproductive and sexuality health justice and ending youth criminalization with a framework in Black Feminism. Her start in advocacy started when she began working directly with system-impacted youth through direct service and then worked on political campaigns and training young women to become community organizers. She has her Masters in Public Administration from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Bachelors in Criminal Justice from Penn State University.
Emily Zahn (she/her)
Emily Zahn is the current Secretary of The New Jersey Abortion Access Fund. She has been a volunteer board member with NJAAF since 2022. With over ten years of experience in nonprofit organizing and fundraising, Emily has had the privilege of working for and volunteering with organizations including the National Institute for Reproductive Health, several Planned Parenthood affiliates, and California Women’s List. She currently works at ActBlue where she heads up their non-profit and PAC account management team. Emily is passionate about building community and connecting supporters to causes they care about in deep, meaningful ways. Emily holds a Master’s in Social Work from NYU and a BSW from Skidmore College.
Novartis benchmarked Employee Crisis Programs, and asked fellow corporate funders via the corporate funders listserve to answer the questions below.
- If you have an Employee Crisis Program, what is the name
- Do you manage the program internally or thru a 3rd party? If you use a 3rd party, can you share their name/website and any good/bad experiences.
- Do you only support disasters or other hardships as well?
- What is the average percentage of your employees that apply for aid?
- What is your minimum and maximum funding?
- What is the average amount of aid?
- Do you provide aid directly to the employee and/or vendors?
- Do you allow employees to donate to your fund? If so, how do you promote awareness and what is the employee donation participation rate? Do you match these donations?
- Where does the program reside (CSR, Foundation, HR)?
- Please share guidelines and applications, if possible.
- Please share any other insights.
The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers’ offers listserve services as a benefit of CNJG membership.
CNJG’s listserves facilitate ongoing group e-mail discussions among subscribed members. Members can share information and expertise, ask questions, and gather opinions of colleagues across the network. Listserves also enable members to get the most up-to-date information on related programs being offered throughout the field.
CNJG initially assigns new members to relevant listserves based on your submitted member profile. Contact Craig Weinrich to join any other listserve that interests you. You can unsubscribe from a listserve at any time by using the link found at the bottom of each email sent via the listserve.
In May 2024, our listserve provider updated its email engine, and now the automatic de-duping feature is no longer available, so sending an email to more than one listserve results in multiple emails to the recipient.
If you send an email to a listserve, and it bounces back to you, you are not on that listserve. Please contact Craig to add you to that listserve.
The listserves available are:
Camden Funders - [email protected]
Bergen Funders - [email protected]
Community Foundation CEO’s - [email protected]
CNJG Member CEO's - [email protected]
CNJG Member CFO’s and Finance Managers - [email protected]
CNJG Member Communications Staff - [email protected]
Corporate Funders - [email protected]
COVID-19 Funders - [email protected]
Culture Funders - [email protected]
Disaster Response Funders - [email protected]
Education Funders - [email protected]
Emerging Leaders in Philanthropy - [email protected]
Environmental Funders - [email protected]
Family Funders - [email protected]
Food Funders - [email protected]
Health Funders - [email protected]
Monmouth & Ocean Roundtable of Funders - [email protected]
Newark Funders - [email protected]
New Jersey Census Funders - [email protected]
Paterson Funders - [email protected]
Racial Equity Funders - [email protected]
STEAM Funders - [email protected]
South Jersey Funders - [email protected]
Strong & Thriving Communities - [email protected]
Trenton Area Funders - [email protected]
There are some restrictions for joining listserves:
· only CEOs (or equivalent) can join the CEO listserve;
· only CEOs (or equivalent) of a Community Foundation can join the Community Foundation CEO listserve;
· only CFOs (or equivalent) can join the Financial listserve
· only family foundation staff and trustees can join the Family Funders listserve;
· only corporate giving professionals can join the corporate listserve
Please refer to the Listserves’ Membership Policies below for information on using the listserves.
By now you’ve heard the sad news. One of New Jersey’s most recognized, accomplished, and beloved leaders in the philanthropic sector passed away on Sunday, January 28.
Jeffrey Vega, President and CEO, Princeton Area Community Foundation, CNJG Board Chair from 2021 to 2023, and Board Trustee from 2016 to 2023, succumbed to an especially rare and aggressive form of cancer.
Jeff joined the CNJG Board of Trustees in 2016. As Board Chair, he led and guided CNJG through the pandemic years, a leadership transition, and strategic planning process. His legacy of leadership includes the 2023 - 2025 Strategic Plan, the creation of a Racial Equity Taskforce, now a committee of the Board, strengthening and improving our governance practices and policies, our first policy agenda, and adoption of the New Jersey Principles for Philanthropy, our equity principles.
It was with great pleasure that we celebrated Jeff at the Annual Meeting & Holiday Gathering on December 14, as he rotated off the Board, and presented him with a framed gift highlighting and praising his leadership and work with the Council. Jeff shared with me that the event was one of the best days of his life. He told me how grateful he was for the love and friendship he felt in the room. Angie, his wife, accompanied him to the gathering, and recorded the business portion of the meeting. Jeff said, when he and Angie went home, they watched the event with Nico, his son. Jeff was truly happy and touched. It meant so much to him. I’m grateful that we were able to give him that special day.
The CNJG Board and team are discussing how we can honor Jeff. Once we have a better idea, we’ll share with you. In the meantime, the Princeton Area Community Foundation has created a beautiful tribute – Remembering Jeffrey M. Vega.
On a more personal note, it was an absolute joy to work so closely with Jeff in his role as Board Chair. When Jeff and I were planning the Board agendas and Board discussions, he always wanted to focus on the positive. He always wanted Board members to walk away feeling uplifted, valued, and inspired. He spoke many times about how much he appreciated his Board colleagues, and all the CNJG members. There was a certain kind of harmony that surrounded Jeff. One felt enveloped in that harmony in talking and sharing space with Jeff.
Like all of us, I can’t believe he’s gone, and I miss him. We all miss him. Rest in peace, dear friend, and colleague. Thank you for inspiring us, Jeff. You truly made a difference in the lives of so many. I can truly say that I am a better person for just knowing you. I’ve heard countless others say the same. Your legacy lives on.
Warmly,
Theresa Jacks, President and CEO
Council of New Jersey Grantmakers