The New York Community Trust helps New Yorkers support the nonprofits that make the City and its suburbs great places to live, work, and play. Join us.
How can I make a difference? We heard that question repeatedly in the past year, as campaign rhetoric heated up against environmentalists, immigrants, civil libertarians, and even those with disabilities. The question comes from New Yorkers of all political stripes. At The Trust, we focus on improving the quality of life for everyone who lives, works, and studies here. We’re resolved to make sure our City remains a beacon for all who believe in equity and respect.
So, how can you make a difference? Start a fund at The Trust (see page 8), or talk to us about leaving a legacy As a donor, you can join us at one of our half-dozen 2017 donor briefings on topics including an online service that matches skilled volunteers with nonprofits (page 6).
And consider the quickest way to get involved: Donate to our annual fund, which supports nonprofits that meet New York’s urgent needs.
In times of uncertainty, the certainty of our work becomes more critical. Join us in making a difference. n
Lorie A. Slutsky is president of The New York Community Trust.
Our nonprofit awards recognize community building
WHAT’S NEW: This newsletter highlights some of the 50 grants, totaling $6.2 million, approved at our December 2016 board meeting. These grants are possible because of donors’ generosity.
Grants Newsletter
WRITING AND EDITING
David L. Marcus
Amy L. Wolf
Clare V. Church
DESIGN
Sean Kelly
Daniella Van Gennep Comments? Contact us: info@nyct-cfi.org or on Twitter:
@nycommtrust
It takes more than passion and good intentions to run an effective nonprofit—it also takes strong leadership. That’s why we encourage savvy management with The New York Community Trust Nonprofit Excellence Awards. In December’s ceremony, long-time Trust grantees Neighbors Link (above) and Per Scholas (page 5) were among the winners.
Our Westchester Community Foundation has given Neighbors Link, in Mount Kisco, more than $200,000 over the past decade to recruit
volunteers, improve fundraising, and develop a board that thinks strategically.
Nearly 400 volunteers help prepare children for school, teach English classes, and help immigrants apply for citizenship. The organization is so successful it has been invited to expand to Ossining, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and Stamford, Connecticut.
The first-place winner was the Jewish Board, which serves 43,000 New Yorkers at its community programs, residential facilities, and day treatment centers. n
The Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of freedom since 1886, welcoming “the homeless, tempest-tost,” as native New Yorker Emma Lazarus wrote in her sonnet about the “mighty woman with a torch.”
In New York City, where more than one-third of today’s residents are foreign-born, the torch symbolizes the promise of a safe haven. “In these uncertain times, it’s important to preserve the beacon, along with its symbolic meaning,” says Kerry McCarthy, the Trust program director who oversees historic preservation.
In 1986, the torch was replaced, and the original housed in the Statue of Liberty Museum, protected from the extreme weather of New York Harbor.
Unfortunately, only 20 percent of the Island’s annual 4 million visitors can see the artifact because crowds are limited for security.
Now we’re giving $150,000 to the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation to prepare the torch for a move to a new, freestanding, glass-walled museum, scheduled to open in 2019. n
In today’s changing political climate, many immigrants who had hoped to start a new life in America worry about their future.
Will the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) be eliminated, putting tens of thousands of young people out of work?
Will parents in the City, Long Island, or Westchester be deported? With the answers unclear at the start of 2017, we are giving $100,000 to the
New York Immigration Coalition, a group we helped start, to advocate for the newest New Yorkers. The coalition will answer their questions about law and public services as new policies evolve in Washington.
The grant also will help immigrants take on hate speech and crimes, draft strategies to preserve DACA, and press immigration enforcement agencies to protect families and communities. n
JOIN US: Are you concerned about helping immigrants, preserving historic places, or training workers for today’s tech jobs? Start a fund at The Trust, or add to an existing fund. Contact Jane Wilton at (212)
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New York City is home to 1 million millennials, ages 15 to 24. Many of them have lives brimming with family time, culture, and first-class educations. But half of New Yorkers in this age group lack these advantages: They live in or near poverty; 30 percent have one parent or no parent to help them.
These young residents lack some or all of the six factors needed to grow into productive adults (see list at right).
That is where The Trust’s new youth development strategy starts. We want to help nonprofit organizations, including public schools, provide the elements that help young people thrive.
“The City is fortunate to have several hundred groups dedicated to helping young people excel,” says Roderick Jenkins, our senior program officer for promising futures. “In recent years, we’ve seen these after-school programs become more academic, more rigorous, and more likely to be based in schools.”
The Trust, Jenkins notes, is the City’s eighth-largest funder of youth development.
The City now has 75 organizations that blend athletics, academics, and other youth development activities. These tend to attract young people who avoid programs
Every year, The Trust invests about $1.5 million in youth employment services, emphasizing training that pays attention to what employers need. That marks a change for the youth employment field, which used to operate with very little input from employers.
The Trust supports programs that connect the right person to the right job and help young people stay on the job. If they want to advance or if they lose a job, young workers can get advice from mentors. “These techniques are far more common in the adult workforce,” says Roderick Jenkins, who oversees youth development.
Researchers say young people need the following to become well-adjusted adults:
1. Guidance from positive adults
2. Emotionally safe places
3. Opportunities to earn money
4. A chance to demonstrate leadership
5. Access to engaging activities
6. Stability
Younger New Yorkers have been an important clientele of Per Scholas, a South Bronx nonprofit that trains workers with and without college degrees for the City’s growing tech sector, which employs 540,000. As part of The Trust’s Youth and Workforce Development programs, we just committed $130,000 to Per Scholas as it expands to Brooklyn. n focused solely on education. The best of these use sports to help young New Yorkers learn how to play on a team, handle losing, and respect compromise and persistence. One example: Play Rugby, which uses the sport to teach discipline and leadership. Headquartered in New York, it reaches 3,000 boys and girls in 150 local public schools. Many of these groups lack specialized staff, management skills, and money. Play Rugby has developed a business plan to help other sports-based youth development groups strengthen their organizations while sharing purchasing, administrative staff, and payroll services. n
2017 DONOR BRIEFINGS:
A sidewalk mural in Williamsburg, Brooklyn shows how art transforms neighborhoods; a still from “Secret Life of Muslims,” a minidocumentary series; and the Morris-Jumel Mansion, a stop on our tour of Sugar Hill, Manhattan.
The City’s paratransit system, called AccessA-Ride, provides a shuttle service so New Yorkers with disabilities can get where they need to go for the same price as a subway ride. That’s the idea, anyway.
In reality, the system is very expensive and plagued with delays. The cost of Access-A-Ride in 2016 was about $456 million, or an average of $70 a ride. Making matters worse, Access-A-Ride’s passengers report long waits, indirect and lengthy routes, and drivers who don’t show up.
To help, we’re giving two grants to improve the system. The Rudin Center for Transportation at NYU’s Wagner School will receive $75,000 to recommend improvements by creating an interactive map that links demographic information with potential shared-ride pick-up spots.
The image of a subway car packed with strangers swaying rhythmically through the tunnels takes your mind to one place: New York. But if you’re disabled, the subway is often out of reach. Of the City’s 472 transit stations, only 20 percent are wheelchair accessible— and elevators are frequently out of service.
And our grant of $300,000 to New York Lawyers for the Public Interest will launch an advocacy campaign to improve Access-ARide. The lawyers will work with the Center for Independence of the Disabled-New York, the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, and MFY Legal Services to survey and document passengers’ experiences, offer consumer-rights training to people with disabilities, and create a plan to make the service more efficient and effective. n
Are you a Trust donor? If so, this year you and your guests will be invited to tour Alexander Hamilton’s America in Sugar Hill; meet the filmmakers behind a new series of minidocumentaries, “Secret Life of Muslims;” and speak with visionaries using art to improve communities.
In past years, donors were dazzled by nonprofits we fund, from Ballet Hispanico to the Park Avenue Armory, at our Annual Reception. In times of uncertainty, we can help you make a difference—and our donor events can give you a glimpse of what we can do together. To start a fund, contact Jane Wilton at (212) 686-2563 n
Young children from low-income families often spend their days in home-based child care—informal settings where adults look after a few children and don’t need to be licensed. Unfortunately, many of these caregivers lack training to support healthy child development.
Those who want more job skills face long hours, language barriers, and their own family responsibilities—all obstacles to paying for and attending classes.
With $430,000 from The Trust, the New York Early Childhood Professional Development Institute at CUNY will try a new approach: A workshop series and personalized coaching for child-care providers in their own boroughs. To emphasize lessons of weekly classes, trainers will go to caregivers’ homes and help them practice what they’ve learned.
Sample lessons include how to use household items—ice, measuring cups, and funnels—to teach
basic math and science; or participants learn to prepare healthy food with tots to teach nutrition. While it’s easy to get nods in a classroom setting, seeing the work in action gives trainers practical insights they can use in future workshops.
“Anyone who cares for a child for more than three hours a day is a teacher,” says Sherry Cleary, the Institute’s executive director.
Trainers on home visits can spot stumbling blocks and suggest solutions. For instance, exercising outside helps kids develop motor skills, but parents sometimes discourage it or don’t always provide appropriate clothes for the weather. Caregivers learn to talk to parents about the importance of outdoor play.
“By going to homes, coaches deepen a relationship with these providers, instilling confidence and becoming a trusted resource, and improving the quality of care they provide” says Natasha Lifton, The Trust’s senior program officer for human services. n
CARE AT HOME: Our $173,000 will help Sheltering Arms Children and Family Services improve home-based child care sites and create a hotline for caregivers. Left: a girl and her caregiver enjoy an outing on one of the agency’s Family Fun Days in Queens. SMART PHILANTHROPY: Get our free Guide to Giving, and share with friends and family. Send us your address at info@nyct-cfi.org, and we’ll mail as many as you need.
“Anyone who cares for a child for more than three hours a day is a teacher.”
—Sherry Cleary, CUNY
Jacob and Helen Goldfein worked for groups serving the sick and needy, and gave generously during their lifetimes.
At age 60, Jacob lost his sight because of diabetes. He died in 2003, and in his will, he created a permanent fund in The Trust, named in honor of himself and his wife, to help children with physical and visual disabilities.
Consider: Fewer than 20 percent of the City’s high schools are fully accessible to students in wheelchairs, yet the Department of Education doesn’t give such students priority placement.
“Every year, students are randomly assigned to a school where they can’t get to the auditorium, computer labs, or bathrooms,” says Shawn Morehead, Trust education program director.
We’re putting the Goldfeins’ legacy to work with a $100,000 grant to Parents for Inclusive Education. The group helps disabled students get assigned to schools that meet their needs.
They cared about New Yorkers with disabilities. So they gave.