With these latest grants, The Trust has delivered more than $44.2 million in 2024 to support nonprofits working to make New York a healthier and more equitable place to live.
Contact
Lauren Stewart, Turn Two
lauren@turn-two.co | (804) 690-9966
Courtney Biggs, Public Relations Liaison
cbiggs@thenytrust.org | (212) 889-3963
NEW YORK, NY (December 19, 2024) – The New York Community Trust, New York’s largest community foundation, today announced more than $8 million in new grants to 43 nonprofits addressing New York’s critical challenges, including raising the minimum wage for tipped food sector workers, making cultural institutions more accessible for people with disabilities, and investing in social workers.
The newly announced grants include more than $1.2 million to better integrate social workers into health care and legal settings, advocate for policy changes that address shortages of social workers, and provide social work education and training that reflects the diversity of the communities served.
“Social workers play a critical role across sectors serving people in need. We’re proud to invest in better equipping these professionals to meet the complex needs of clients experiencing trauma, homelessness, and mental and physical health issues,” said Chantella Mitchell, The Trust’s program director for community development, housing, and human services.
These grants reflect The Trust’s historic investment in social work. “The Trust is one of the largest foundation funders of social work in the country,” said Amy Freitag, The Trust’s president. “This is thanks to generations of generous donors who recognized the need to expand and strengthen the field and left legacy gifts at The Trust that allow us to make grants year after year in their names.”
“We are privileged to support nonprofits doing vital work to improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers, and work with donors committed to investing in communities,” said Shawn Morehead, The Trust’s executive vice president for grants and chief program officer. “Together, we are helping our region become a more just and equitable place to live.”
The Trust also is investing more than $1.3 million in grants to increase job opportunities and strengthen labor rights and workforce development programs. A grant to One Fair Wage will allow the nonprofit to advocate to raise hourly pay for tipped workers across the state’s food sector, which would increase wages for more than 300,000 employees.
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.
Supporting Health Care & Nutrition
St. Barnabas Hospital: $315,000 to reduce avoidable hospital readmissions for Bronx residents with chronic heart failure or obstructive pulmonary disease.
Brooklyn Community Pride Center: $170,000 to provide mental health services to queer young people in Brooklyn.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: $112,000 to provide medical fellowships for foreign physicians to travel to the U.S. for an overview of cancer treatment.
Equity Advocates: $106,000 for a campaign to expand the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in New York State.
Entertainment Community Fund: $230,000 to help retired and elderly entertainment professionals secure health coverage, affordable housing, and mental health support.
Creating an Accessible Region
Museum of the Moving Image: $100,000 to make a popular Queens museum accessible for patrons who are blind or have low vision.
Summertime Gallery: $150,000 to expand a residency program for artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Asian American Coalition for Children and Families: $150,000 to help the City and State use new data to meet the needs of Asian American people with intellectual disabilities and their families.
Chinese-American Planning Council: $150,000 to empower Asian families to advocate for and support their children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Supporting Educators and Schools
National Council on Teacher Quality: $100,000 to collect data about teacher preparation programs and recommend changes consistent with improvements in reading instruction.
New Visions for Public Schools: $350,000 to build a digital tool to help teachers assess and improve middle and high school students’ reading skills.
Student Success Network: $175,000 to strengthen relationships between students and adults in transfer schools,
Advancing Labor Rights
One Fair Wage: $180,000 to advocate to raise the minimum wage for tipped food sector workers.
Worker’s Justice Project: $180,000 to protect immigrant workers with labor rights claims.
Adhikaar for Human Rights and Social Justice: $180,000 to improve conditions for Nepali women in the nanny and nail salon industries.
New Immigrant Community Empowerment: $180,000 to create a small legal team to help Latine immigrant workers understand and protect their rights in the construction, restaurant, and cleaning industries.
Expanding & Supporting New York’s Workforce
Center for Employment Opportunities: $125,000 to expand an employment program for the formerly incarcerated.
Emma’s Torch: $100,000 to help immigrants build careers in the food industry.
Grace Institute of New York: $100,000 to expand a workforce program for low-income women.
Rebuilding Together NYC: $ 80,000 to help adult jobseekers prepare for union apprenticeship programs.
NYC Workforce Development Fund: $250,000 for joint grantmaking in workforce development.
Investing in the Field of Social Work
Bronx Defenders: $100,000 to help legal service providers across the country add social workers to their legal teams.
Center for Health and Social Care Integration: $100,000 to lead a national coalition to advocate for the role of social workers in health care.
Council on Social Work Education: $100,000 to train social work doctoral students in policy and legislative advocacy.
Social Workers for Justice: $100,000 to advocate for the interests and concerns of New York’s social workers.
University of Maryland: $100,000 to help social work doctoral students translate their dissertation research into policy and practice.
Hunter College of CUNY: $200,000 to diversify the pipeline of students into social work academic programs focused on child welfare services.
Kingsbridge Heights Community Center: $500,000 to train bilingual social workers to provide mental healthcare to non-English speaking clients at five settlement houses.
Supporting Immigrants
Havens Relief Fund Society: $200,000 to provide emergency relief to newly arrived migrants.
New School: $160,000 to help migrants in shelters enroll in school.
Missionaries of Charity: $390,000 to benefit the poorest of the poor, including supporting recently arrived migrants.
Building a Better Future for Younger New Yorkers
You Gotta Believe: $150,000 to assess a program that finds permanent families for older foster youth.
Campaign Against Hunger: $100,000 to expand paid internships for young people in Brooklyn and Queens.
Promoting Arts and Culture
Mosaic Network and Fund: $750,000 for a pooled fund to support small and mid-sized arts groups led by people of color.
Strengthening Civic Participation
League of Women Voters of New York State Education Foundation: $310,000 to support legislation that requires New York’s jails to give eligible inmates access to the ballot.
DRUM-Desis Rising Up and Moving: $200,000 to engage South Asian and Indo-Caribbean youth in debates about the City’s budget.
Catholic Migration Services: $100,000 to expand community organizing for tenant protections in Queens.
Protecting the Environment
NYC Green Fund: $200,000 for a pooled fund that supports the responsible use and stewardship of the City’s green spaces.
Partnership for Advancing an Inclusive Rural Energy Economy: $150,000 to facilitate clean energy investments for rural electric cooperatives, from the Henry Phillip Kraft Family Memorial Fund.
Strengthening Nonprofits
Independent Sector: $150,000 to update good governance guidelines for nonprofits.
Helping Appalachia Recover from Hurricane Helene
Appalachia Funders Network: $180,000 for a pooled fund that will support a resilient recovery from Hurricane Helene.
Invest Appalachia: $190,000 to attract private support for a resilient recovery from Hurricane Helene.
Just Transition Fund: $158,000 to help coal-impacted communities across Appalachia access federal funding after Hurricane Helene.
