Equitable and thriving communities throughout New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.
MISSION
As New York’s community foundation, we foster and engage in enduring and innovative philanthropy.
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Please contact us with questions or comments: (212) 686-0010 or info@thenytrust.org.
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ON THE COVER: (from L to R) Sophia Li at our Staten Island centennial event; photo by Casey Kelbaugh. A dancer at a GoVoteNYC event; photo by Karen Smul. A fifth-grader participates in a Studio in a School program; photo courtesy of Studio in a School.
Congrats ...
Emily Karol joined The Trust as our new director of development in Westchester, and Audra Lewton is The Trust’s new director of planned giving. Emily previously worked at International Development Enterprises and led communications for the Alliance for Quality Education. Audra most recently worked as a trusts and estates attorney, and before that was director of gift and estate planning and assistant general counsel at Barnard College.
Our Westchester office welcomed new advisory board members Adam Rude, CFP®, CIMA®, founding partner at Stratos Private Wealth, and Anjali Thavendran Chen, senior associate at Catalyst Collaboratives.
City & State’s 2024 Hudson Valley Power 100 list featured our Westchester Executive Director Laura Rossi.
Deputy Vice President for Grants Irfan Hasan was a panelist for a session titled “Protecting the Public’s Health: Opportunities for Cross Sector Collaboration” at Grantmakers in Health’s 2024 Health Policy Exchange.
Senior Program Officer Arturo Garcia-Costas received an award for Thought Leadership and Capacity Building from WE ACT for Environmental Justice at its recent gala.
Senior Program Officer Eve Stotland was honored with a Visionary Award from the New York Immigration Coalition. Eve also spoke on a panel titled “Public and Philanthropic Engagement Strategies” for the National Dignity for Families Fund’s New York City gathering in September.
The Women’s Diversity Network honored Long Island Program Director Sol Marie Alfonso-Jones at its September gala, and SEPA Mujer recognized her as Advocate of the Year at its October gala.
Hyperakt’s work on The Trust’s 2024 rebranding received a Bronze Award for Best Visual Identity by a Charity, NGO, or NFP at the 10th Annual Transform Awards North America celebration in October. Kudos to the team at Hyperakt, as well as Board Member Ann Unterberg, Board Chair Jamie Drake, Director of Marketing Amy Wolf, Senior Digital Media and Graphic Designer Mar Asayan, and former Vice President for Philanthropic Initiatives Kerry McCarthy.
How we've stood with immigrants
Shawn Morehead Vice President for Grants
Eve Stotland Senior Program Officer
When President Reagan signed the Immigration Control and Reform Act into law in 1986, more than 100,000 New Yorkers became eligible for lawful permanent residence. To help them navigate the new law, our predecessors at The Trust gathered foundation partners to form a funder collaborative called the Fund for New Citizens.
Over 37 years, the Fund has made $27 million in grants to strengthen immigrant-led organizations, challenge punitive immigration laws, promote proimmigrant policies, and support legal services. It will close this year after awarding its final grants in November.
One of the Fund’s proudest legacies is that it helped create the New York Immigration Coalition to unite smaller immigrant-serving nonprofits across the city. We have continued to support the Coalition, now comprising nearly 200 nonprofits statewide, including its work to expand access to health care, legal services, voting, and education for students learning English.
Responding to policy change
In 1996, Congress barred the Legal Services Corporation—the largest funder of civil legal aid in the U.S.—from funding legal aid for undocumented people. In response, the Fund redoubled its grantmaking for legal services and advocacy to support undocumented New Yorkers. We helped create the Immigrant
Representation Project at 26 Federal Plaza and worked with advocates and the city to add tens of millions of dollars in government funding for immigration legal services.
As the Fund’s co-chair from 2010 to 2019, Shawn led its rapid response when the Obama administration created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012, allowing certain undocumented young people who had arrived in the U.S. as children to obtain work authorization and temporary protection from deportation. The Fund’s grants helped thousands of young people apply for DACA, many of whom are now today’s teachers, health care workers, and community leaders.
Immigrant-led advocacy
When Eve joined The Trust in 2019, she worked with the Fund to seek grant proposals for immigrant-led, immigrantserving advocacy. We asked applicants to choose the issues, which let us learn about and respond to what they saw as the most important causes in their communities.
We funded emergency relief during the first Trump administration, when the federal government increased efforts to arrest and deport New Yorkers. During the pandemic, we funded efforts to get cash assistance to immigrant workers who were ineligible for unemployment benefits and federal stimulus aid.
On a personal note, we were moved by the warmth and hospitality with which grantees often would greet us during site visits, reflecting the care they extend to the communities they serve. We’re also grateful to our incredible donors and foundation colleagues, without whom we could not have funded this work.
The Trust continues to support many former Fund for New Citizens’ grantees. We’re carrying the Fund’s lessons into our new collaborative, the Funds for the Newest New Yorkers, which we’re hosting in partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation to coordinate citywide efforts to support our migrant neighbors.
We’re looking forward to all we’ll learn and accomplish, together. n
(From L to R) Eve Stotland and Shawn Morehead. Photos by Casey Kelbaugh
Stem cells grow hope
Researching solutions for age-related vision loss
Imagine looking at a friend’s face and seeing only their ears or shoulders, watching TV and seeing only the screen’s frame, or driving while everything in your direct line of vision is blurred. Progressive loss of central vision looms over those diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss for people over 60 in the U.S.
There are two types of the disease: Wet macular degeneration, which is rare and causes faster vision loss, can be slowed—or even halted— through treatment. Dry macular degeneration is far more common and much harder to treat. There is no cure for macular degeneration, and the very few treatment options that currently exist can only slow the disease’s progression—none restore vision.
and funded the mapping of the leprosy genome. Researchers who published studies with Trust funding have gone on to win competitive government and private foundation grants, enhancing the impact of our initial investment.
... we are thrilled to pioneer our therapy in New York City, ultimately to benefit patients everywhere.”
- Jennifer J. Raab President and CEO New York Stem Cell Foundation “
The New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) is working to change this. A recent Trust grant to NYSCF is supporting a clinical trial of one of the firstever human grafts of stem cells in patients with dry age-related macular degeneration.
Stem cells have the ability to turn into any type of cell in the body, making them ideal
for treating diseases where a population of cells decay over time, as happens with dry agerelated macular degeneration. The clinical trial offers hope to slow—or potentially reverse—the progression of this disease, which affects almost 20 million adults across the country.
“The New York Community Trust’s visionary support is enabling NYSCF to launch one of the world’s first clinical trials using a patient’s own stem cells to replace their cells damaged by a disease—in this case, to treat dry age-related macular degeneration,” said Jennifer J. Raab, president and chief executive officer of NYSCF. “As one of the very few laboratories able to do this, fueled by philanthropy, we are thrilled to pioneer our therapy in New York City, ultimately to benefit patients everywhere.”
The Trust has a long history of providing early funding for groundbreaking medical research. It made one of the first grants for AIDS research
As one of NYSCF’s first funders, The Trust has supported breakthroughs in using stem cells to generate fully beating heart tissue, researching treatments for Parkinson’s disease, and creating New York’s first ethnically diverse stem cell biobank to inform medical research that benefits people from a wider range of backgrounds.
“The donors whose generosity we wove together to make this grant possible cared about vision loss, older adults, and biomedical research,” said Irfan Hasan, deputy vice president for grants at The Trust. “The diverse legacies of various Trust donors are now meeting in a petri dish to potentially change the lives of millions.” n
A researcher at work in the New York Stem Cell Foundation’s Manhattan laboratories.
Photo by Ari Mintz
Harlem farms prepare teens for success
Kadi Barry Counselor-in-Training Harlem Grown
Kadi Barry is a high-school senior at Harlem Village Academy and a counselor-in-training at Harlem Grown, a nonprofit that introduces young people to urban farming at its 14 soil-based and hydroponic farms in Harlem. Participants also help distribute the harvest to Harlem residents and food programs, at no cost.
Approximately one in four adults in New York do not have consistent access to affordable, healthy food, but urban agriculture is helping to change this.
With funding from The Trust, Harlem Grown offers young people paid internship opportunities, like its counselor-in-training program, and afterschool and summer programs that combine academics and farming.
“I was so surprised when I found out there were farms in Harlem, and it was really interesting to learn more and think more about where our food comes from.”
“Iwas excited to be a counselor-in-training with Harlem Grown because of the opportunity to work with and educate kids. I want to go to medical school and become a doctor, and I think it’s important to learn how to connect with kids before beginning my studies.
Making kids feel comfortable and heard is so important for a doctor. I gained a lot of practical experience working with children. One of the biggest lessons I’ll take to college from the internship is that if you don’t show respect to someone, whether it’s an adult or child, they won’t show respect to you.
Through the program I also took financial literacy workshops, where I learned about budgeting and using credit cards, and résumé workshops, which were so helpful for applying to college.
I also think it’s crucial for kids to learn about healthy eating habits and nutrition and have access to fresh produce from a young age. But that’s not always seen as important in our community, so it felt really good to be part of that change.
I was so surprised when I found out there were farms in Harlem, and it was really interesting to learn more and think more about where our food comes from. Once a week we operated a farmstand and gave out free produce and lunches to the community. The families and individuals who visited our farm stand were so surprised and appreciative that the produce was all free.
Lots of families also signed up for the free Saturday Farm Sessions, where they can learn more about community agriculture and cooking with our produce. I think that’s really special. It made me so happy to give back to my community and encourage others to learn about the benefits of urban agriculture and healthy eating.” n
Kadi Barry at a Harlem Grown farm on West 127th Street.
Photo courtesy of grantee
What’s your vision?
We're inviting New Yorkers to share their vision for our region's future. Here are just a few of the responses we’ve received. It’s not too late to submit your own! Visit qrco.de/myvision.
“My vision for my community would be to fix the deep economic and racial inequities that exist in Westchester. I would like to see an investment in quality affordable housing, better roads, and the development of community spaces, and more money allocated for education, especially in Yonkers and Mount Vernon.”
—Noel Casey
“Public spaces in every neighborhood that are safe, maintained, and programmed.”
—Anonymous
“We must give immigrants and newcomers to NYC the means to lift themselves up as my grandparents, along with so many others, did more than a century ago. Supporting immigrants is the strength of our city and the U.S., and it must be our job to foster this support.”
—Anonymous
“Communities have been excluded because of race from the benefits of this society and have seen the social and economic fabric of their neighborhoods damaged by mass incarceration. My vision is for these families to have the opportunity to reunite and to build resources to care for their health and well-being. ‘Public safety’ would be replaced by public health. Elders would be released from prison at an age when they’d be able to function fully to benefit their families and communities.”
—Anonymous
“On the North and South forks of Long Island, we urgently need environmental conservation and affordable housing that preserves the character of our communities. When land or homes go on the market, they are increasingly likely to be purchased by wealthy second-home owners, investors who want seasonal or short-term rentals, or developers who want to build hotels. We are losing our forests, working farms, and housing for year-round residents.”
—Cate Creedon
“New Yorkers, especially low-income New Yorkers, need more help with basic needs, like food, to ensure they have the physical and mental strength to do all the things necessary to live to their fullest potential.”
—Ryan Meter
Hearing from local changemakers
Our centennial celebrations brought together the nonprofits, neighbors, and leaders who partner with The Trust to help NYC, Long Island, and Westchester thrive. We hope you enjoy these moments captured by photographer Casey Kelbaugh.
Artists, activists, donors, and Brooklynites gathered at our centennial event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music to discuss how we can help artists and the arts survive and thrive in New York's neighborhoods.
In Queens, we held an event at the Museum of the Moving Image focused on how to build a more accessible region for older New Yorkers and people with disabilities. (From L to R) Rachel Pardoe moderated this discussion with panelists Wayde Harrison, Darcy Connors, and Eman Rimawi-Doster.
See more photos!
You can find photos from all of our centennial events by scanning this QR code or visiting qrco.de/centennialphotos.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa L. Gibson (center) delivered a government proclamation in honor of our centennial. With Trust President Amy Freitag (left) and Board Chair Jamie Drake (right).
Latin Jazz maestro Bobby Sanabria and his ¡Quarteto Aché! got the crowd dancing at our Bronx centennial event focused on creating a fair and supportive justice system for young New Yorkers.
Community wins: Our 2024 Impact Report
Our incredible grantees often score major wins that change policy, promote equity, advance justice, and help our region thrive. We’re excited to share some recent examples, made possible by generous donors who created charitable legacies at The Trust for the good of future New Yorkers.
Decades later, our donors’ heartfelt, visionary gifts continue to make life-changing work possible. Stewarded by our expert grantmaking staff, this generosity helps nonprofits offer bold and thoughtful solutions to pressing challenges, securing rights and opportunity for all New Yorkers.
Thank you to our donors, supporters, and nonprofit colleagues for your role in these victories. Together, we can help ensure brighter futures for generations to come.
Visual and performing arts education delivered virtually
During the height of the pandemic, as New York City faced the myriad challenges of transitioning the nation’s largest school district to remote learning, Carnegie Hall, Roundabout Theatre, Studio in a School, and the 92nd Street Y helped public schools provide virtual dance, music, theater, and visual arts programming to more than half a million students and developed resources and trainings that continue to support teachers citywide.
The Trust’s DeWitt Wallace Fund for Youth helped ensure that young people throughout the city could participate in arts programming during remote learning.
Above, two fifth grade students participate in Studio in a School’s multilingual learners art program. Photo courtesy of grantee
ARTS EDUCATION
Legal wins raise and recover workers’ wages
Westchester’s Worker Justice Center represents workers pro bono in class-action litigation to prevent wage theft, illegal discrimination, and labor trafficking. With the Raise Up NY Coalition, it helped raise the hourly minimum wage in Westchester County from $15 in 2022 to $16 in 2024, and $17 in 2026, with future increases tied to inflation. Center attorneys also settled two federal lawsuits that recovered wages owed and damages for Westchester workers.
The Dominican Sisters of Hope Empowerment Fund, which promotes social justice and the transformation of systems that perpetuate poverty, oppression, and injustice, helped make these victories possible.
OLDER ADULTS & AFFORDABLE HOUSING
$2 billion won to house low-income New Yorkers
In recent years, the number of older New Yorkers in city shelters has more than doubled, while homelessness among all ages has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression. LiveOn NY’s advocacy led the city to allocate $2 billion towards affordable housing, including for older New Yorkers, in its 2024 budget. The New York Times and other media covered the agency’s report on homelessness among older adults and the city’s affordable housing crisis.
This grant combined contributions from six funds at The Trust, including the Lucy Wortham James Memorial Fund and the Frederic H. Leonhardt Fund, which both provide unrestricted funding for our strategic grantmaking.
ENVIRONMENT
A New York law leads to cleaner drinking water nationwide
Until recently, a dangerous chemical known as 1,4-dioxane lurked in detergents, baby shampoos, and other personal care products, eventually leaching into drinking water. Citizens Campaign for the Environment used our grant to successfully advocate for a firstin-the-nation law requiring manufacturers to greatly reduce the amount of the likely carcinogen in personal care products sold in New York State. This caused industries across the country to reformulate products with dramatically less 1,4-dioxane.
Our Henry Phillip Kraft Family Memorial Fund supported this grant.
DEMOCRACY
Community-driven efforts increase voting rates
New York City has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the country. The GoVoteNYC funder collaborative at The Trust supports nonprofits’ nonpartisan efforts to increase voter turnout across the five boroughs, reaching close to 2 million New Yorkers each year—many of whom are infrequent voters. One study found that GoVoteNYC grantees nearly doubled voting rates among lowturnout voters through their canvassing work.
The GoVoteNYC funder collaborative housed at The Trust brings together nearly a dozen foundations to make grants and learn alongside grantees how best to advance civic engagement.
Left: GoVoteNYC grantee Center for Law & Social Justice cohosts Dancing for Democracy, a celebration of voter participation, in Brooklyn. Photo by
To address increasing demand for immigration legal aid services in New York City, a coalition of nonprofits, including African Communities Together, Catholic Migration Services, Central American Legal Assistance, Masa, New York Legal Assistance Group, and Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, created the Pro Se Plus Project to train people to represent themselves in immigration court. The Project held 90 community presentations, reaching more than 6,000 people, and trained more than 1,800 advocates to help people apply for immigration relief.
The Lucy Wortham James Memorial Fund and Major Fund, which both support the good of the region, made these grants possible.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Free storefront space boosts small businesses
High rents can stymie entrepreneurs, while many New York storefronts lie vacant. Chashama used our grant to connect 250 creative small businesses owned by women and people of color with temporary rent-free retail space, along with technical and financial assistance to help their businesses grow. Participants earned a total of $1.2 million and hired 300 new staff. Eighty percent reported plans to expand, and a third are pursuing commercial leases.
This grant was made possible by the Richard and Mildred T. Rhodebeck Fund and the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for the Arts
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Paid government internship program expanded
Internships provide crucial training for people with disabilities and help dispel employers’ misconceptions about their potential. With Trust funding, AHRC’s Partnership for Inclusive Internships placed New Yorkers with disabilities in paid internships at city and state agencies in fields such as data entry, architecture, and public policy. The city recently announced plans to expand and fund the project over three years and ultimately incorporate it into its workforce development programming.
This grant was made possible in part by the Wilhelm Loewenstein Memorial Fund, which supports health and welfare in New York City, and the Jack Goldring Fund, which benefits people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
Karen Smul
A community comes together to fund the arts in Westchester, forever
When the COVID pandemic shut down our region in 2020, much of Westchester’s vibrant arts world screeched to a halt. Concerts, classes, and festivals were canceled, and museums, galleries, and exhibitions closed. Those who worked in the arts faced financial hardship, and many residents who built community through the arts felt isolated.
“The pandemic upended Westchester’s arts world,” said Laura Rossi, executive director of The Trust’s Westchester office. “It sent a wake-up call to those of us who care deeply about the arts, highlighting the need for a source of permanent funding to safeguard arts organizations against unexpected crises.”
An answer came when an anonymous donor who had given to The Trust’s Community Needs Fund, which supports nonprofits addressing urgent local issues, asked how else they might help their Westchester community. Rossi shared the need for a source of arts funding for the county that
could make grants in perpetuity with the income of invested assets.
The donor responded with a $500,000 challenge grant to help raise one million dollars for The Trust’s Arts & Creative Expression Fund, created to support the arts in Westchester. The grant matched donations from the community dollar-for-dollar.
“I really liked the idea of giving back to the whole community, not just one organization.”
- Gabi Schneider
An energized campaign followed, bringing in donations from families, companies, and foundations across the county and beyond. In the spirit of the fund, some donors used live performances to fundraise.
Gabi Schneider, a student at the Harvey School, an independent high school in Katonah, organizes cabaret nights with other students to raise money for local causes. While researching causes to
support, Gabi discovered the campaign for the Westchester Arts & Creative Expression Fund. She was immediately drawn to the opportunity.
“I really liked the idea of giving back to the whole community, not just one organization,” Gabi said.
Efforts like Gabi’s and generous contributions from local donors helped the campaign reach its million-dollar goal. The fund recently made grants to the Brooklyn Steppers to expand a drumline program for young people in Mount Vernon, and to RiverArts to provide free public arts programs along the Rivertowns, including concerts featuring more than 300 musicians across venues in five villages.
“These grants represent a fraction of what this fund will accomplish over time,” said Rossi. “Thanks to neighbors across the county coming together to invest in future generations, the fund will help the Westchester arts scene thrive—and serve Westchester communities—for generations to come.” n
High school students Gabi Schneider (left) and Logan Kreisberg (right) wanted to expand access to the arts in Westchester, so they planned a cabaret fundraiser for our Arts & Creative Expression Fund.
SEPA Mujer builds community with Latina immigrants on Long Island
In 2008, when Martha Maffei started at SEPA Mujer as its program coordinator, the organization could pay her to work only 16 hours a week. But the need to build trust and organize with the Latine community in Suffolk County called for more time and resources.
Maffei prioritized applying for funding and developing a team of volunteers from within the community. A grant from The Trust’s Long Island office allowed her to work full-time to build the grassroots organization. In 2011, she became its executive director.
SEPA Mujer (Servicios Para el Avance de la Mujer, which translates to “services for the advancement of women”) is the only organization on Long Island dedicated to Latina immigrants. Since that first Trust grant, Maffei has built SEPA Mujer into a vital service provider with 31 staff members. In 2023, SEPA Mujer provided direct services to more than 1,000 Long Islanders.
“My staff and I all share similar challenges, because we are first- or second-generation Latina immigrants,” Maffei said. “That’s what makes this work so special, because it’s not just about them— it’s about us.”
This connection allows Maffei and her team to respond to the community’s evolving needs. With Trust funding, SEPA Mujer advances policy and systems change through its advocacy programs, which include advancing equitable language access within Long Island municipal services, boosting census and voter participation, and monitoring local implementation of the Green Light Law, which allows New Yorkers to apply for a driver’s license regardless of their immigration status.
In 2017, when a spike in local violence affected Latina girls on Long Island, Maffei’s team used a Trust grant to create the Girls A.C.T. summer program, a safe space for young Latinas to build community and gain employment and advocacy skills. Girls A.C.T. has since expanded to provide year-round girls’ leadership, academic, and workforce development programs, including in three Suffolk County high schools.
Sixty-seven participants have graduated from the program and are now pursuing higher education, employment, and public service opportunities.
“Some of these girls are translators and advocates for their family, and they are learning how to manage systems meant for adults,” said
Dilcia Erazo, SEPA Mujer’s equity & community empowerment senior organizer. “Being Latina, being young, being of mixed generations, and dealing with school is all challenging. Yet they are so eager to learn and give back to their community.”
Catherine Lucero Amaya is a young artist with a passion for social justice. Girls A.C.T. paired her with SEPA Mujer’s campaign to address human trafficking on Long Island. Catherine created an animated video for the campaign that helped spread community awareness.
“I want to make art my career, so I can make art for the rest of my life,” Catherine told Erazo. “But I don’t know if art will be sustainable for my life. From Girls A.C.T., I realized that I can make art my career and help people at the same time.” n
SEPA Mujer participants tour Stony Brook University on Long Island.
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How would you direct $3 million in grants to help your community?
Now is your chance to help shape our grantmaking in 2025 by voting for three causes that are important to you.
We will distribute $1 million in grants to each of the three areas that receive the most votes—for a total of $3 million to the community, guided by the community. Our grantmaking experts will work with our board to make grants in 2025 to support nonprofits addressing the selected issues in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.
Vote now to help us direct these dollars! Visit qrco.de/ourvotes or scan the QR code.
Sophia Li, one of the speakers at our at our climate-focused event on Staten Island. Photo by Casey Kelbaugh
