Making your giving matter more... since 1924 April 2012 NEWSLETTER
GRANTS
You know that good feeling you get when you help make things better? This newsletter looks at grants that were made possible in large part by generous New Yorkers who wanted to make a difference—and set up endowed funds with us. To find out how you can leave your own legacy, contact our general counsel, Jane Wilton at (212) 686–2563 or janewilton@nyct-cfi.org.
Domestic Energy:
Getting it right this time TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 A Fix for New York Smiles 4 Being a Good Dad Even When You’re a Teen 5 85,000 Sq. Ft. of Art Making 6 Other Grants
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ou’ve probably heard the horror stories from Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Texas about poisoned wells, sickened communities, and flammable tap water caused by horizontal hydraulic fracturing. This type of natural gas extraction, commonly known as fracking, involves pumping millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals underground at high pressure to fracture shale formations. It’s a controversial issue. We are, after all, watching the price of oil rise as turmoil in the Middle East underscores the dangers of relying on foreign oil. Natural gas is a potentially enormous source of domestic energy. And one of the largest reserves in the country is the Marcellus shale formation that underlies half of New York State. Environmental Advocates of New York and other groups have mobilized thousands of concerned New Yorkers. You can get involved with the New York Water Rangers Campaign at CleanWaterNotDirtyDrilling.org.
Other Hydrofracking Grants These grants are made possible by the Henry Phillip Kraft Family Memorial Fund, set up in The Trust to protect and conserve the environment. Earthworks, $150,000 (two years) to advocate the passage of the federal Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC Act), which would require drilling companies to fully disclose the chemicals used in fracking. The group is also working to end fracking’s exemptions from the Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water acts.
Energy companies and their lobbyists are working hard to fast-track approval of fracking permits that would allow them to tap the Marcellus. But are we ready? Tireless advocates and concerned citizens have organized a formidable opposition that has convinced Governor Cuomo, legislators, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to slow the rush to drill and consider the science and risks before allowing any widespread hydrofracking in New York soil. Since 2007, The Trust has stood behind these efforts (see sidebar) and recently made two grants addressing the issue from inside and outside the corporate boardroom.
Stronger safeguards for New York
Three grants of $190,000 have helped Environmental Advocates of New York slow the rush to drill in New York State through advocacy, organizing, and education of policymakers, the media, and the public. New York Water Rangers, a campaign of Environmental Advocates and 11 other groups, collected thousands of the 73,000 public comments submitted to DEC on preliminary drafts of its environmental impact statement. Many of the comments pointed out the inadequacies of current laws and regulatory infrastructure to safeguard public health and the environment; the review of these comments alone will take DEC several months. A recent $75,000 grant to Environmental Advocates is supporting its campaign, which includes educating State legislators about the need for two bills it helped develop. The first bill would include fracking waste in the State’s hazardous waste laws and the second, the Home Rule Bill, would
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Health and Environmental Funders Network, $5,000 to create a funders’ working group to study and respond to fracking nationally. New York State Gas Drilling Protection Project, $400,000 (three years) for an effort of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthjustice, Riverkeeper, and Catskill Mountainkeeper to monitor the State’s environmental impact process, collect public comments, and organize public support for stronger regulation of the industry.
clarify the role of local government in regulating fracking. Because of this leadership, the group’s executive director Robert Moore was appointed to the State’s hydrofracking advisory panel.
Closing the loopholes
The millions of gallons of water needed by each frack job are hauled to the well pad with hundreds of airpolluting and road-damaging tanker trucks. The water is then mixed with chemicals and other materials and pumped deep underground. Chemicals such as benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde have contaminated aquifers. In other states, unknowing families drank and showered in this water and suffered a range of ailments, including permanent brain damage. Under current law, the oil and gas industry enjoys a blanket loophole that allows drillers to avoid hazardous waste laws, even when their wastes are hazardous. In practice, this means these wastes could be disposed of at municipal sewage plants ill-prepared to remove drilling-related toxins, be spread on roadways as de-icer, and even dumped in local landfills. “Requiring drillers to test, track, treat, and properly dispose of hazardous waste would finally bring the gas
industry in line with every other industry in New York,” says Erica Ringewald, communications director for Environmental Advocates. “Whether you’re an upstate resident concerned about truck traffic and the loss of community character, or a Manhattanite worried about the safety of the City’s drinking water, now is the time to act,” says Robert Moore. “At this moment, Governor Cuomo and other leaders are deciding how, where, when—and most importantly if—fracking will be permitted.”
Harold, an 88-year-old World War II veteran, lives alone in Manhattan. Relying on a small fixed income, he had not seen a dentist in 10 years. Eating had become difficult and painful and he was limited to soft foods. Volunteer Dr. Greta Richter restored his ability to chew by extracting several decaying teeth and fitting him with dentures.
Reducing risk—and liability
When you’re dealing with flammables, toxic chemicals, and drinking water for millions, the potential for disaster is great. The Trust recently made a grant of $50,000 to the Investor Environmental Health Network to educate investors about risks associated with fracking and mobilize them to push energy companies to use safer and less toxic methods of drilling. “We are sending the message to energy companies that they must rein in risk to continue to attract investment. We have issued guidelines for more responsible fracking that prescribe steps to increase water recycling, improve wastewater disposal, and reduce the use of toxic chemicals,” says Richard Liroff, executive director of the Network. “Companies can also save money recycling the massive amounts of water it takes to frack a well, while using less fresh water and diesel fuel to truck it in. Fewer and less toxic chemicals can be used, but companies need to demand these changes from their subcontractors and chemical suppliers.” These improvements reduce risk of liability for clean-up, personal injury, and damage to the company’s reputation, while making them more attractive to investors. “There are many risks associated with fracking and any one of them could put the drinking water for millions, local food supply, and the health of families in jeopardy,” says Pat Jenny, program director at The Trust. “The Trust will continue to push for stronger regulation, adequate oversight, and adoption of cleaner, safer drilling practices that greatly reduce or eliminate these risks before more fracking permits are granted in our state.”
A Fix for New York Smiles A smile is priceless, but for too many New Yorkers, a healthy one is prohibitively expensive. The chronic pain and embarrassment of not having a functional set of teeth can affect nutrition, job opportunities, and confidence, and lead to serious health problems. But dental care is rarely covered by insurance—public or private—and so people go for years without needed repairs. “Medicare does not cover dental care, even though elders have higher levels of tooth and gum disease than younger adults,” says Irfan Hasan, program officer at The Trust. “And Medicaid is taken by only a quarter of the dentists in New York.” Since 2007, Dental Lifeline Network New York has been running a program to help elderly and disabled patients in need of serious dental work. Often providing $5,000 to $10,000 of free care to each patient, Network dentists fix bridges, drill root canals, put in implants, and make people smile—after the Novocain wears off. Replacement teeth and other materials are donated by manufacturers recruited through the Network. “I believe that to be a true professional, one should be giving back to society,” says former president of the New York Academy of Dentistry, Tom Connolly. “I have found this to be one of the most rewarding ways to do that. I treat periodontal disease and provide dental implants. My oldest daughter is also a periodontist and
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“It was sort of like job training but the classes didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s called Back to Work, but I have never had a job.”
— 18-year-old participant
volunteers with the program.” In addition to getting his family involved, Dr. Connolly has recruited colleagues to volunteer and encourages everyone to tell their dentists about the program.
educational barriers. A $40,000 grant is supporting RAP’s Teen Fatherhood Initiative to improve how the City helps teen fathers get academic and trade skills so they can support their kids.
The program’s coordinator, Caroline Montero, helps recruit dentists, determines the needs of patients, and refers them for treatment. “We are all about trying to get our clients as much care as possible. Many of them feel like they won the dental lotto.”
How can I go back to work if I’ve never had a job?
The results are life-changing. Katie Jackson of Brooklyn couldn’t chew without pain and wasn’t eating well. After treatment, she felt like a new woman. “I love my new smile; I can open my mouth and speak without embarrassment,” she said after getting treatment. “Now when I play with my grandchildren I can smile without any hesitation.” Last year, 70 volunteer dentists treated 92 disabled and 118 elderly patients. This year, with a $40,000 grant, the Network will treat even more.
Being a Good Dad Even When You’re a Teen Too many children grow up without a father. Many of the City’s 30,000 teen dads grew up with only their mom, grandmother, or in foster care and don’t want their own kids to go through what they did. One teen interviewed by the Resilience Advocacy Project (RAP) said, “I’m not currently with my child’s mother . . . but we speak to each other on a daily basis. We still go out as a family because that’s the right thing to do. It helps my son realize that even though he doesn’t see me every single day, I am still around and I still love him.” A 2005 Ford Foundation study showed that teenage dads are more likely than older, non-custodial fathers to support the mothers of their children and be there for their young sons and daughters. But often, their ability to parent effectively is stymied by systemic and
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The public assistance program of the City’s Human Resource Administration (HRA) is not set up for teen dads who don’t have a high-school diploma, job experience, or parenting skills, and yet are responsible for child support. State law allows young recipients of public assistance to go to GED-prep classes and other vocational programs to fulfill their work requirement. But in practice, HRA has been pushing youth seeking public assistance into their Back to Work program, designed for adults. One 18-year-old participant says, “It was sort of like job training but the classes didn’t make a lot of sense to me. It’s called Back to Work, but I have never had a job.” “When young people fail to get a job in the first month of Back to Work (which most do, since they have little work experience, training, or education), they are placed in dead-end jobs. Not only do these jobs teach few skills, but they also prevent young people from getting an education and preparing for the future,” says Brooke Richie-Babbage, founder and director of RAP. “Back to Work is full time, so young dads can’t be enrolled in other, more enriching, programs.”
Giving teen dads the mic
As a result of a report issued by RAP and the Community Service Society, which interviewed out-ofschool and out-of-work young people, the City Council has drafted three pieces of legislation that would require HRA to be more helpful and accountable to young dads. Trust funding will help RAP work with the City to develop these laws. To give voice to young fathers in this process, RAP will produce four videos to show to policymakers and the public. The grant will also help RAP run legal rights and self-advocacy workshops and create online resources to help young dads representing themselves in child support hearings.
Impact of Arts on the City While only a small fraction make it big, artists’ contributions to the City are enormous. Arts and culture are responsible for: • $20 billion in annual economic activity • 160,000 jobs • $8 billion in wages
Eighty-five thousand square feet of space in Sunset Park’s Brooklyn Army Terminal (above) and on Governor’s Island will be transformed into hundreds of art studios available at below-market rates.
• $900 million in City tax revenue • Half of the City’s 50 million tourists
85,000 Sq. Ft. of Art Making The City’s heartburn-inducing rents give our creative class double the agita because they also need extra space to make art. The market rate of $400 per month for a small art studio is a burden on many visual artists, one that keeps them at their day jobs for too much of the work week. Below-market artist studios have long waiting lists and art residency programs report thousands of applicants vying for a handful of slots. New York City is an international destination for creative talent. But for decades, the cultural community has voiced concerns about the scarcity of affordable space to make art. If we want to maintain our bragging rights as a cultural capital of the world, we must work harder to help artists do what they do best. Thanks to an effort initiated by Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) commissioner Kate Levin, hundreds of affordable studios and rehearsal spaces for artists of all disciplines will be created from large vacant City-owned spaces. With a $216,000 grant from The Trust and support from the City and other foundations, Spaceworks, a new nonprofit hatched
by the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, will manage the rehabilitation, leasing, and management of new artist studios in the Brooklyn Army Terminal in Sunset Park and on Governor’s Island. “We are excited to construct affordable spaces tailored to the needs of New York City’s creative community,” says Andrew Burmeister, assistant commissioner for capital projects at DCA. “This will change the way artists work in the City.” Three hundred studios will be carved out of 85,000 sq. ft. of vacant space owned by the City, and will be rented to artists at half to three-quarters of market rate. In addition, Spaceworks plans to expand the program into other underused spaces in City libraries and public housing, and hopes that it will be replicated in other cities. But before the art supplies come out, a lot has to be done. Trust support will help Spaceworks design management and IT systems, coordinate the renovations, develop tenant selection criteria, and market the space to the City’s artists. “The Trust has funded similar efforts, including Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Swing Space and Artspace’s conversion of P.S. 109 into an affordable live/work community for artists in East Harlem, but it’s thrilling to be part of something on this scale,” says Kerry McCarthy, program officer at the Trust. “There’s also something quite poignant and moving in seeing what was the largest military supply base in the U.S., the Brooklyn Army Terminal, become a home away from home for a large concentration of artists.”
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Other Grants Better Discipline and Fewer Arrests
National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, $95,000 to train educators to use positive disciplinary approaches to improve the learning environment in low-performing high schools. New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, $40,000 to reduce the number of students arrested for minor offenses in City schools. Next Generation of Productive New Yorkers
Alliance for Quality Education, $75,000 for advocacy and lobbying to allocate money in the State education budget to high-need schools. Internationals Network for Public Schools, $80,000 to train teachers to teach classes of immigrant students from a variety of countries who are not yet proficient in English. Need a Lawyer, but Can’t Afford One?
CUNY School of Law Foundation, $95,000 to mobilize volunteer lawyers to provide legal help to poor Manhattan and Brooklyn residents in eviction cases. Legal Action Center of the City of New York, $75,000 to help New Yorkers with criminal records who need jobs and housing. Pro Bono Net, $100,000 to work with MFY Legal Services to create interactive online forms and other resources to help volunteer attorneys and unrepresented defendants in the thousands of consumer debt cases now clogging civil courts. Support for Artists
Bang on a Can, $35,000 for a website that markets and brings together composers and performers of experimental music. The Field, $75,000 to provide performing artists with fiscal sponsorship and career development services. Queens College, CUNY, Selma and Max Kupferberg Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, $50,000 to start a dance and rehearsal space rental program at Queens College, LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, Kingsborough Community College, and City College. Roulette Intermedium, $50,000 to promote and manage short-term rentals of its new Brooklyn facility to increase earned income. Because Having Cancer is Hard Enough
Cancer Care, $800,000 for financial aid and education about benefits for poor, minority, and undocumented cancer patients. God’s Love We Deliver, $100,000 to provide meals and nutrition education to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation. New York Legal Assistance Group, $100,000 to help people with cancer appeal insurance denials and resolve debt and other financial problems.
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Residents of the Wagner Houses in East Harlem present their neighborhood’s priority for inclusion in the City budget through a participatory budget process run by Community Voices Heard.
One-Stop Help for Families with Problems
Administration for Children’s Services, $265,000 to coordinate and improve services for youth and families affected by substance abuse and mental illness. SCAN-New York Volunteer Parent-Aides Association, $175,000 to coordinate health, mental health, legal, housing, employment, education, and counseling services for families in East Harlem. Efficient and Cost-effective Health Care? It Can Be Done.
Community Health Care Association of New York State, $150,000 to recruit and train clinicians, frontline staff, and administrators for community health centers. Coordinated Behavioral Care, $175,000 to manage care for people with health, mental health, and substance-abuse problems. United Hospital Fund of New York, $150,000 to implement and evaluate innovative approaches to delivering effective, patient-centered, cost-efficient health care. Joan and Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University, $100,000 to train hospital staff to communicate with families and patients about end-of-life care. Locked Up and Far Away from Home
Juvenile Justice Advocacy and Action Project, $125,000 and Public Interest Projects, $125,000 for advocacy to protect current State funding of community alternatives to juvenile detention, advocacy for independent oversight of juvenile prisons, and a campaign to keep juvenile offenders in facilities close to home. Upping the Odds for Young People Who Need Skills
Legal Momentum, $75,000 to increase the number of high school girls in programs that train them for well-paying jobs in construction, maintenance, natural resources, and other maledominated fields.
A grant to Enterprise Community Partners is helping ramp up green retrofitting of affordable housing throughout the City. Above, Enterprise helped get hundreds of energy-efficient windows installed in Selfhelp’s Elder Avenue apartments in Queens.
Experimental musicians who attended Bang on a Can’s Banglewood summer residency program will continue to network through the new CanLand website.
Working in Support of Education, $68,000 to expand a high school competition that awards cash prizes to students with strong proposals for fixing problems in their communities.
Animals and Their Homes
Year Up, $80,000 to strengthen a program that places unemployed City youth in paid apprenticeships and helps them create career plans and enroll in college. Money Where Communities Need it Most
Center for Large Landscape Conservation, $80,000 to provide scientific information about climate change and disease patterns to public officials and environmentalists working to develop wildlife corridors and policies that protect animals in the Yellowstone region.
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, $50,000 to protect the interests of poor people in federal and State budget negotiations.
Rainforest Alliance, $100,000 to help pineapple growers in Costa Rica improve productivity, increase their competitiveness, and protect habitat.
Citizens Committee for New York City, $100,000 for awards to volunteer-led “Love Your Block” neighborhood improvement projects that work with City agencies.
Development That’s Better for People and Open Space
Community Voices Heard, $70,000 to coordinate a project in four City Council districts in which residents propose local improvement projects as ballot initiatives to be voted on for inclusion in the City budget. Coming Together
One NYC One Nation Fund, $100,000 for a collaborative fund that makes grants to increase the participation of immigrants in civic life and promote cooperation among diverse communities. Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, $45,000 to help City nonprofits and advocacy organizations working in Albany be more effective through shared technology and other resources.
American Bird Conservancy, $50,000 to protect birds, wildlife, and people through a campaign to eliminate lead, a known neurotoxin, from hunters’ bullets and fishermen’s gear.
Empire State Future, $75,000 for advocacy and implementation of sustainable growth policies throughout the State. Smart Growth America, $100,000 to create a network of private developers who will advocate for smart growth policies. Better Chemical and Energy Policies
Environmental Health Fund, $100,000 to build public support for and advocate the passage of the Safe Chemicals Act and other chemical policy reforms. Forest Ethics, $75,000 to convince companies to stop using dirty fuel from the Canadian tar sands.
Affordable Housing
International POPs Elimination Network, $100,000 to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals through the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty.
Enterprise Community Partners, $100,000 to make affordable housing more energy efficient.
Urban Green Council, $60,000 to advocate for the adoption of green building codes in the City.
MHANY Management, $50,000 to rehabilitate and stabilize management of rent-regulated Brooklyn apartment buildings in foreclosure.
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April 2012 NEWSLETTER
Inside: A Fix for New York Smiles, Being a Good Dad Even When You’re a Teen, 85,000 Sq. Ft. of Art Making, and More...
GRANTS
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The grants described in this issue were approved by The New York Community Trust’s governing body at its February 2012 meeting. For grantee contact information, or for more information about the grants, please call The Trust’s receptionist at 212.686.0010, ext. 0. This issue and past newsletters can be found at www.nycommunitytrust.org. If you’d prefer to receive our newsletter by e-mail, write to newsletter@nyct-cfi.org.
Trust funding will help Working in Support of Education expand a community service program that awards cash prizes to high school students with great proposals for fixing problems in their communities. Above are the 2011 finalists.
Most of the grants in our newsletter are made possible through the generosity of past donors who established permanent, charitable funds with us during their lifetimes or through their wills. To learn more about setting up a fund, please contact our general counsel, Jane Wilton, at 212.686.2563.