New York’s Largest Community Foundation Invests More Than $11.5 Million In New Grants To 65 Nonprofits

The New York Community Trust, New York’s largest community foundation, today announced more than $11.5 million in new grants to 65 nonprofits addressing New York’s critical challenges.

Those challenges range from opening Brooklyn’s first public school for students with dyslexia and developing environmentally responsible practices for street food vendors to advocating for a more affordable child care system and preventing eviction for low-income tenants.

“… reflect and incorporate their students’ culturally diverse backgrounds …”

The newly announced grants include funding for programs that will advance equity in education, including preparing schools to meet the needs of newly arrived migrants and training teachers to reflect and incorporate their students’ culturally diverse backgrounds in the classroom. More than $2.2 million in grants to 15 nonprofits will expand arts education programming for public school children and young New Yorkers.

“Nearly 40,000 new students have enrolled in New York City public schools during the last two years, and they arrived in this country under some tough circumstances,” said Kadisha Gordon, The Trust’s program officer for education and scholarships. “Our grantees are working to meet the needs of English language learners, while ensuring educators see and use students’ cultural identities as assets to improve their classroom instruction.”

New York State is home to about 900,000 students with dyslexia, including an estimated 200,000 in New York City alone who are undiagnosed. An earlier Trust grant to the Literacy Academy Collective helped it open the South Bronx Literacy Academy in 2023, the city’s first public school for students with dyslexia and other struggling readers. The Trust’s current grant will help the collective prepare to open its second public school, in Brooklyn.

“… expanding access to arts education, creating inclusive classrooms …”

“The New York Community Trust is committed to investing in long-term systemic reform to build a more equitable education system,” said Shawn Morehead, The Trust’s vice president for grants. “These grants work towards that goal by expanding access to arts education, creating inclusive classrooms, and bringing proven literacy instruction to greater numbers of public school students.”

The Trust is also investing more than $1.6 million to strengthen social services and expand access to affordable housing and economic mobility. A grant to the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy will support more affordable and effective child care, while a grant to Enterprise Community Partners will test an eviction prevention program based on the theory that it’s more cost effective for landlords to invest in prevention than to go through the legal eviction process. 

New York City’s estimated 4,000 food carts and trucks use unregulated gasoline-powered generators that pollute the air, creating health risks for vendors, pedestrians, and local communities. A grant to the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project will help street food vendors adopt environmentally responsible practices and technologies.

“… give back to local communities for generations to come …”

“We’re able to support a more equitable region thanks to the vision and generosity of our diverse group of donors, a number of whom were artists, immigrants, and educators themselves and wanted to give back to local communities for generations to come,” said Amy Freitag, The Trust’s president.

As New York’s largest community foundation, The Trust brings together the contributions of donors past and present to champion local causes, address the region’s urgent challenges, and advance long-term systemic change. 

The following is a list of grants awarded today by The Trust. Longer descriptions of the programs supported are available upon request.

Regional Advocacy and Policy Grants

The four grants below, totaling $1,250,000, help advance systems and policy changes to benefit New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.

Open New York: $300,000 to advocate for legislation allowing faith-based organizations to build affordable housing on their properties despite exclusionary local zoning.

Hispanic Federation: $300,000 to expand access to college coursework for Black and Latinx high school students.

Eight County Chapter Three of the American Academy of Pediatrics: $300,000 to increase enrollment in a supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children.

New Hour for Women and Children Long Island: $350,000 to support advocacy efforts to improve care for incarcerated pregnant women and parents.

Advancing Medical Research

Hackensack Meridian Health: $353,000 to develop rapid tests for antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: $231,000 to study the potential role of CD4 T cells, a type of white blood cell that helps fight infection, in treating cancer.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: $200,000 to study how to use T cells, a white blood cell that originates in the bone marrow, to treat thyroid cancer.

Preventing Gender-Based Violence

Urban Resource Institute: $140,000 to educate children living in domestic violence shelters on healthy relationships and how to identify gender-based violence.

Day One: $260,000 to educate young people from Staten Island about healthy relationships, including how to prevent gender-based violence.

Supporting Women and Girls

Arab-American Family Support Center: $120,000 to start a support group for Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian immigrant girls and young women.

Advocating for Affordable Housing

Enterprise Community Partners: $165,000 to evaluate an eviction prevention program for low-income tenants with rental arrears.

Legal Aid Society: $150,000 to help more homeless families access the resources and information they need to obtain market-rate rental subsidies.

TakeRoot Justice: $115,000 to engage public housing residents in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) policy.

Preventing Overdoses

OnPoint NYC: $235,000 to strengthen the efficacy of the country’s only overdose prevention center.

Drug Policy Alliance: $330,000 to support a campaign that advocates for legalizing overdose prevention centers.

Investing in Young New Yorkers’ Futures

The Brotherhood Sister Sol: $90,000 to support a youth organizing program for Black and Latinx young people.

Commonpoint Queens: $225,000 to train young adults to become paraprofessionals who help people with disabilities live independently.

Friends of Wheels: $83,000 to enable 14 young people to visit Olympic National Park in Washington State. 

Reel Works: $80,000 to expand a media skills training program for young people.

Summer Search: $190,000 to send 36 young people to three national parks in the western United States. 

Improving Quality of Life for Older Adults

Encore Community Services: $200,000 to help vulnerable older adults—particularly those who are homebound—avoid loneliness by participating in senior support programs.

Lenox Hill Neighborhood House: $100,000 to support educational classes, health and wellness activities, and community events that help vulnerable older adults avoid loneliness.

Mark Morris Dance Group: $150,000 to provide dance classes to older adults in under-resourced communities.

Medicare Rights Center: $200,000 to help eligible older adults enroll in and recertify for New York’s Medicare financial assistance program.

NYC Health + Hospitals: $212,000 to support a rehabilitation program for older adults in public city hospitals.

Advancing Education Equity 

Educators for Excellence: $100,000 to advocate for implementing a mandatory middle school math curriculum.

Fund for Public Schools: $600,000 to train elementary school teachers to provide evidence-based reading instruction to students.

Internationals Network for Public Schools: $150,000 to prepare high schools to meet the needs of newly arrived immigrant students.

Language Unity Collaborative: Educational Solutions: $135,000 to prepare middle and elementary schools to meet the academic needs of students who are learning English.

Literacy Academy Collective: $150,000 to expand public schools to Brooklyn to help struggling readers achieve academic success.

Teaching Matters: $250,000 to help teachers provide small-group instruction to students struggling to read.

Youth Communication: $100,000 to train teachers to incorporate and acknowledge cultural diversity in their classrooms.

Progressing Economic Mobility and Justice

Change Machine: $105,000 to teach homeless services providers how to use financial education tools to help low-income clients achieve financial security. 

Family Legal Care: $200,000 to support the development of a digital tool that provides unrepresented litigants with legal guidance for family court. 

Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies: $150,000 to develop policy recommendations to increase local economic mobility by using a new measure of financial insecurity.

Surveillance Technology Oversight Project: $103,000 to support research and information-sharing about discriminatory government surveillance practices.

Unlock NYC: $101,000 to study the relationship among different types of housing discrimination in New York City.

Supporting Social Services and Nonprofits

Center for Family Life in Sunset Park: $102,000 to expand the geographic reach and marketing for a worker cooperative program for low-income immigrant New Yorkers. 

New York University: $100,000 to mobilize private finance to support increased food security for low-income New Yorkers.

SeaChange Capital Partners: $200,000 to help nonprofits successfully navigate mergers and other formal alliances.

Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy: $500,000 to advocate for a more affordable, accessible, and effective child care system.

Expanding Creative Arts Education & Opportunities

Art Start: $200,000 to operate creative arts programs in city-funded family shelters.

Ballet Hispanico: $150,000 to provide three-year pre-professional fellowships to four young dancers.

Bloomingdale School of Music: $150,000 to provide two-year pre-professional fellowships to six young musicians studying chamber music instruments.

Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy: $150,000 to provide one-year pre-professional fellowships to 12 young musicians.

Dance Theatre of Harlem: $150,000 to provide two-year pre-professional fellowships to six young dancers.

Drawing Center: $150,000 to provide three-year pre-professional fellowships to 10 young visual artists

El Puente de Williamsburg: $200,000 to provide multi-disciplinary after-school arts education to young people in North Brooklyn.

International Center of Photography: $75,000 to provide one-year pre-professional fellowships to 24 young photographers.

Jewish Community Center of Staten Island: $100,000 to launch an afterschool arts education program on Staten Island.

Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center: $200,000 to expand access to arts instruction in the Bronx.

MOVE NYC Foundation: $150,000 to provide two-year pre-professional fellowships to six young dancers.

People’s Theatre Project: $140,000 to provide after-school theater education to young people in Washington Heights.

Red Hook Art Project: $120,000 to start a public art project for young people in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

UpBeat NYC: $144,000 to provide after-school music education to young people in the South Bronx.

WP Theater: $150,000 to provide one-year pre-professional fellowships to eight young theater artists.

Protecting the Environment

Akashinga: $250,000 to support a ranger program that employs local women to protect wildlife in Southern Africa.

Amazon Sacred Headwaters Alliance: $150,000 to support the conservation efforts of indigenous leaders in the Peruvian-Ecuadorian Amazon.

American University: $125,000 to evaluate proposed approaches for removing carbon from the atmosphere and oceans.

Environmental Defense Fund: $150,000 to reform the federal government’s designs and funding to reduce the risk of flooding.

For the Many Education Fund: $100,000 to support compliance with a new law that requires New York State to develop publicly owned renewable energy generation.

Southern Environmental Law Center: $150,000 to improve the climate resilience of coastal communities in the Southeast.

Urban Justice Center-Street Vendor Project: $85,000 to help the city’s street food vendors adopt environmentally responsible practices and technologies.

Recognizing Achievements in Astronomy 

American Astronomical Society: $25,000 to present an annual award for meritorious work that advances the science of astronomy.

The New York Community Trust 

As New York’s largest community foundation, The New York Community Trust fosters and engages in enduring and innovative philanthropy, making grants that bring together the diverse, local knowledge and expertise of its team, nonprofits, and partners to help donors fulfill their vision for the causes they love. From education and the arts to health care and the environment, The New York Community Trust seeks to improve every aspect of the cultural and civic life of New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.

The New York Community Trust celebrates 100 years of impact and looks forward to the next 100 years of improving life for New Yorkers. This is philanthropy for New Yorkers, by New Yorkers.