The New York Community Trust Awards $14.6 Million in Grants to 86 Nonprofits

The New York Community Trust has announced $14.6 million in grants to 86 nonprofits to improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers.

“These grants will give some exemplary nonprofits the support to tackle the myriad issues and opportunities for the city today,” said Shawn Morehead, The Trust’s vice president for grants. “From evaluating the nation’s first overdose prevention centers to lifting up the social work profession to aiding the city’s companion animals and wildlife.”

[Grants serving people in specific boroughs or neighborhoods are noted in brackets. Longer descriptions of the grants are available upon request.]

Promoting Animal Welfare

For more than 30 years, The Trust has supported New York City’s nonprofit animal care sector by making grants to provide veterinary and humane care. In consultation with 16 leading animal welfare experts, The Trust developed a new grantmaking strategy focused on two areas: 1) the welfare and humane treatment of animals in captivity in the city and 2) the conservation, rescue, and rehabilitation of wildlife that resides in or passes through the city, with a focus on protected species.

Animal Defense Partnership: $80,000 to support free legal services to small animal-welfare nonprofits and volunteer groups to support expansion, with a particular focus on groups led by people of color.

Bee Conservancy: $180,000 to protect bees and other pollinators in the New York metropolitan area.

Bide-A-Wee Home Association: $100,000 to provide free pet food and veterinary care in under-resourced communities.

Dogs Trust USA: $100,000 to import a successful program from the UK that will offer canine behavioral training in partnership with three New York City animal rescue agencies.

Flatbush Cats: $150,000 to open Brooklyn’s first affordable, high-capacity spay and neuter clinic. [BROOKLYN]

New York City Audubon Society: $100,000 to support changes in building design and operation that will reduce bird-building collisions.

New York State Animal Protection Federation Education Fund: $92,000 to help New York City animal shelters meet animal care standards and improve their business operations.

NYC Plover Project: $38,000 toward protection of the piping plover, a shorebird that nests in dunes close to the water, making them particularly vulnerable to human disturbance, coastal storms, and erosion.

Wild Bird Fund: $150,000 to open a Brooklyn site that will provide emergency services for injured birds, who are vulnerable to collisions with windows, automobile accidents, pet attacks, pollutants, and litter. [BROOKLYN]

Wildlife Conservation Society: $180,000 to protect marine wildlife in New York waters through research, public education, and advocacy.

Conserving the Environment

Children’s Defense Fund – New York: $220,000 for a statewide advocacy campaign to prevent childhood lead poisoning.

Health and Environmental Funders Network: $100,000 to make federal funding easier to access for local efforts to prevent childhood lead exposure.

New Yorkers for Clean Water and Jobs Coalition: $150,000 for a statewide campaign in support of the Clean Water, Clean Air, Green Jobs Bond Act, which will fund projects to restore wildlife habitats, improve water quality, create parks, modernize infrastructure, and expand renewable energy.

Waterfront Alliance: $120,000 to promote more accessible, climate-resilient waterfront development that also meets the needs of historically disenfranchised communities.

Improving Health and Behavioral Health

Brooklyn Community Pride Center: $175,000 to create a mental health and social service hub for LGBTQ young people in Brooklyn. [BROOKLYN]

Child Center of New York: $175,000 to expand mental health services for young people in Queens.

I’RAISE Girls and Boys International: $175,000 to expand a school-based program focused on improving the mental health of Black and Latinx children.

Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health: $100,000 to predict the public health effects of proposed transportation policies, including the benefits of more electric vehicles and congestion pricing.

Long Term Care Community Coalition: $100,000 to advocate for better management and oversight of non-nursing staff in long-term care facilities.

New York Academy of Medicine: $60,000 to produce a report on emergency response for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and develop recommendations to prepare for the next health emergency.

New York Genome Center: $305,000 to lead a consortium of research institutes to analyze genomic cancer data from patients of color, who are underrepresented in research.

One Brooklyn Health System: $200,000 to improve care for diabetic patients in Central Brooklyn. [BROOKLYN]

OnPoint NYC: $200,000 to evaluate and advocate for the nation’s first overdose prevention center.

Primary Care Development Corporation: $150,000 to strengthen the financial and operating capacity of small physician-owned primary care practices.

Safe Horizon: $125,000 to provide mental health support to women who are living in domestic violence shelters, including mothers of young children.

Save New York’s Safety Net: $75,000 for advocacy to protect safety-net health providers in the wake of changes to the state’s Medicaid prescription payment system.

Aiding Community Development

Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation: $100,000 to open an affordable, shared commercial kitchen for neighborhood culinary entrepreneurs who have outgrown their home kitchens and need an affordable space. [BROOKLYN]

Queens Economic Development Corporation: $160,000 to support a network of small restaurants and food businesses, which were hit especially hard by the pandemic and continue to struggle. [QUEENS]

Riders Alliance: $95,000 for an advocacy campaign to improve bus service in the outer boroughs, where lower-income residents disproportionately depend on bus service and as ridership has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Promoting Justice

Alliance of Families for Justice: $110,000 to expand a leadership and organizing program for young people focused on civic engagement, racial injustice, and police accountability.

Legal Information for Families Today: $200,000 for a digital tool to assist litigants without attorneys in Family Court navigate the system, which moved its processes online due to COVID-19.

Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York: $200,000 to help prisoners, especially those with disabilities, prepare for and navigate their release.

Release Aging People in Prison Campaign: $75,000 to advocate for the release of elderly prisoners, who rarely commit another crime and cost twice as much to incarcerate than a prisoner under 50.

Rise: $100,000 to support a campaign by low-income families at risk of child welfare interventions for affordable child care.

Helping Immigrants

Fund for New Citizens: $150,000 for a collaborative donor fund housed in The Trust that makes grants to assist immigrants and refugees, who are often excluded from stimulus and safety-net benefits.

Immigrant Children Advocates Relief Effort: $300,000 to coordinate nonprofits providing legal representation for children in deportation proceedings, where a record-breaking number of the children are unaccompanied minors fleeing violence and poverty.

Women for Afghan Women: $150,000 to provide Afghan refugees with skills training, job placement, and legal services.

Aiding Education & Youth

Blue Engine: $100,000 to evaluate and improve co-teaching where students with disabilities are taught by a team of teachers in classrooms alongside their peers.

Harlem Grown: $140,000 to expand a paid urban farming internship program for young people in Harlem to develop work skills and address the limited access to nutritious food.

New Yorkers for Children: $130,000 to redesign the city’s foster care system to meet the needs of all children by no longer separating children into “regular” and “therapeutic” programs.

Promise Project: $150,000 to help families of children with disabilities access educational and supportive services.

Studio in a School Association: $200,000 for a school-based arts education program for English language learners.

Stuttering Association for the Young: $100,000 to train speech therapists working in public schools to effectively serve students who stutter.

Teaching Matters: $300,000 to train early-grade teachers in District 10—which is overwhelmingly Black and Latinx and has a high rate of students who are learning English—to boost literacy using read-aloud books that reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the student body. [BRONX]

You Gotta Believe!: $200,000 to assess the effectiveness of a program that finds permanent families for older foster youth.

Helping People with Disabilities

Community Inclusion and Development Alliance: $202,000 to expand an employment program for Asian adults with developmental disabilities. [QUEENS]

Lighthouse Guild International: $75,000 to develop a plan for coordinating vision care with Northwell Health.

Lucerna Fund: $73,000 to automate the subscription process for a magazine that serves people who are blind and visually impaired.

Meaningful New York Initiatives for People with Disabilities: $120,000 to allow underserved families gain access an innovative community program for people with developmental disabilities.

New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations: $100,000 to expand library services for Spanish-speaking New Yorkers with visual disabilities.

Alleviating Hunger & Improve Housing Housing Insecurity

CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy: $200,000 to advocate for healthier, sustainable, and equitable food production and distribution in downstate New York.

Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City: $200,000 to improve New York City’s emergency food system.

Neighborhood Housing Services of Brooklyn CDC: $74,000 to expand a property management service of small family homes that accommodate two to four households in Brooklyn, which are one of the last remaining sources of affordable housing in several neighborhoods. [BROOKLYN]

TakeRoot Justice: $100,000 to engage tenants in shaping New York City Housing Authority policy and train them to advocate for critical capital improvements in response to decades of neglect and disinvestment.

Urban Pathways: $300,000 to develop supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals.

Supporting Arts and Culture

Brooklyn Arts Council: $150,000 for a digital platform that will enable Brooklyn artists, residents, and organizations to exchange resources and share skills. [BROOKLYN]

Chamber Music America: $362,000 to strengthen young chamber music ensembles.

Dancing Classrooms: $125,000 to instruct students attending 10 elementary schools in Washington Heights in social dance. [MANHATTAN]

DreamYard Project: $125,000 for multidisciplinary arts classes to students attending 15 schools in the Bronx. [BRONX]

Education Through Music: $150,000 to provide music instruction to students attending seven elementary schools in the Bronx. [BRONX]

International Documentary Association: $300,000 for awards to help documentary filmmakers make and distribute films that support the aims and concepts of 20th-century documentarian Pare Lorentz.

Learning Through an Expanded Arts Program: $75,000 for musical theater instruction to students at five elementary and middle schools in the Bronx. [BRONX]

Metropolitan Museum of Art: $75,000 to support visual arts instruction to students with disabilities at five schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.

National Dance Institute: $125,000 for dance and music instruction to students attending 13 elementary schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.

92NY: $125,000 to create online resources for dance instruction and share them with public school teachers.

Partners for Sacred Places: $150,000 so Queens and Bronx congregations can share their historic houses of worship with performing arts groups.

Strengthening the Field of Social Work

The Trust is one of the nation’s largest foundations funding the field of social work. With the help of an advisory committee, The Trust’s board approved a revised grantmaking strategy focused on three issues: Building the capacity and stature of the field, facilitating community groups and academic institutions working together, and expanding the pipeline of students of color and from low-income backgrounds into social academic programs. The following 17 grants totaling $4.5 million put this strategy into action.

Adelphi University, School of Social Work: $200,000 to assist students of color complete a masters of social work degree to work in the child welfare sector.

Bronx Defenders: $100,000 to help nonprofit legal service providers add social workers to their legal teams to create a more holistic defense.

CAMBA: $500,000 to train social workers to treat homeless shelter residents who have experienced trauma. [BROOKLYN]

Catholic Charities Community Services, Archdiocese of New York: $500,000 to incorporate the perspectives of women asylum seekers in social work education and practice.

Center for Health and Social Care Integration: $100,000 to lead a national coalition to promote the role of social workers in health care, who are some of the most skilled patient advocates and can improve equity in health outcomes.

Columbia University, School of Social Work: $200,000 to support Black graduate students pursuing degrees in social work.

Council on Social Work Education: $100,000 to familiarize social work doctoral students with policy and legislative advocacy since few Ph.D. social work programs offer a policy or advocacy concentration. 

Herstory Writers Workshop: $425,000 to recruit social workers to address racial and academic disparities in the Wyandanch school district using counseling and written narratives. [SUFFOLK]

Hunter College of CUNY, Silberman School of Social Work: $200,000 to train social workers to recognize their biases in working with families of color in the child welfare system.

Jewish Association for Services for the Aged (JASA): $500,000 to use social workers to assist older adults with complex needs, such as homelessness, incarceration, mental health problems, and substance use.

Kingsbridge Heights Community Center: $500,000 to train bilingual social workers to provide mental health care to non-English speaking clients at eight settlement houses.

Samaritan Daytop Village: $475,000 to teach social workers to practice in residential drug treatment programs in response to new license requirements.

Stony Brook University, School of Social Welfare: $200,000 to enable social workers to assist individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Touro College, Graduate School of Social Work: $200,000 to increase enrollment of students of color and low-income backgrounds in graduate social work degrees.

United Neighborhood Houses of New York: $100,000 to address the issue that not a single organization convenes social workers across sectors.

University of Maryland, School of Social Work: $100,000 to aid social work doctoral students in translating their dissertation research into policy and practice.

Yeshiva University, Wurzweiler School of Social Work: $100,000 to train social workers to help their clients and community members become more engaged voters to remedy bigger societal challenges over the long run.

Bolstering Nonprofits and Social Services

Human Services Council of New York City: $150,000 to reform nonprofit contract procurement systems to adjust pay scales that reinforce racial and gender inequities, and prevent excessive late payments.

Historic Preservation

Historic District Councils: $150,000 to advocate for the preservation of historic neighborhoods in New York City.

Awards and Scholarships

American Astronomical Society: $25,000 for The Trust’s Lancelot M. Berkeley award for meritorious work in the field of astronomy.

About The New York Community Trust

The New York Community Trust is a public charity and New York City’s largest community foundation. It connects generous people and institutions with high-impact nonprofits making the city and its suburbs a better place for all. It builds stronger communities, influences public policy, foster innovation, improves lives, and protects our environment.