Community leaders directly affected by New York City’s child welfare system awarded grants to grassroots nonprofits working to support family integrity and justice without involving the child welfare system.
Contact:
Lauren Stewart
Turn Two
lauren@turn-two.co | (804) 690-9966
Courtney Biggs
Senior Manager, Public Relations
cbiggs@thenytrust.org | (212) 889-3963
New York, NY (March 5, 2025) – Youth and Families Forward (YFF) today announced $1.4 million in participatory grants for community-led solutions that support family integrity and justice without involving New York City’s child welfare system.
YFF is the only New York City-based funders’ collaborative focused exclusively on addressing the harms of the city’s family regulation system using a participatory grantmaking approach. Participatory grantmaking shifts decision-making power from funders to people directly affected by the issues the grants will address.
“Many child welfare practices end up harming the very children they aim to protect,” said Eve Stotland, Youth & Families Forward co-chair and program director for human justice at The New York Community Trust. “The Trust is proud to be a funder of this grantmaking effort that brings the decision-making power to the communities who have experienced the system’s failures firsthand and who are best positioned to identify meaningful solutions.”
Fourteen grassroots nonprofits with budgets under $1 million were selected for general operating support grants of $100,000 over two years. The grantees focus on movement-building, policy, and advocacy; direct and concrete support; prenatal and maternal health and early childhood services; and culturally relevant mental health resources for community healing.
“The big lesson learned for me was in witnessing how this committee prioritized building deep, trusting relationships with community groups, and in the process shifted us from a more transactional approach to grantmaking to one that is truly aligned and supportive in movement building,” said Sarah Chiles, co-chair of YFF and senior advisor to the Redlich Horwitz Foundation.
Such approaches are critically important for a city child welfare system marked by racial bias. A report by the NYC Family Policy Project found that one in 15 Black children in New York City were the subjects of welfare investigations in 2019, compared with one in 86 white children. The system was also placed Black children in foster care 10 times more frequently than their white counterparts.
“Grantee organizations equip families with the support, resources, and power to advocate for themselves, in addition to shifting power back to the community, breaking cycles of harmful intervention, and building stronger, self-determined futures,” said Nancy Fortunato, a participatory grantmaking committee member.
“It was a privilege to work with our participatory grantmaking committee to launch this collective effort–by aligning philanthropic resources with community expertise, we unlock greater potential for community-led solutions that genuinely support families and strengthen community,” Rashida Abuwala, principal of New Tomorrow and YFF fund advisor.
YFF is a grantmaking collaborative whose funders include the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, Ira W. DeCamp Foundation, Pinkerton Foundation, Redlich Horwitz Foundation, and The New York Community Trust.
Since 2018, the collaborative has invested $6 million in public-private partnerships, participatory grantmaking, and advocacy to ensure young people, families, and communities are well-resourced and supported.
Grantees:
The Alex House Project is a peer-led nonprofit supporting pregnant and parenting mothers in NYC, especially women of color in Brooklyn, by providing comprehensive services to help them transition into parenthood with access to training, education, and employment.
Blessings in Transformation aims to raise awareness about the family regulation system and assist families navigating ACS cases and investigations. BIT aims to influence policy to reduce or eliminate the family regulation system and provide legal support to families impacted by ACS involvement.
Circle Up! Youth Restorative Justice Arts works to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline by training & empowering youth as restorative justice practitioners, community organizing activists, and socially conscious artists who bring healing, restoration, and transformation into their communities.
Through mentorship, after-school programming, and community engagement activities, Dear Black Girl Incorporated works to provide youth ages 12-26 with the opportunities to improve their social, educational, and professional lives.
Freedom Youth Family Justice Center Inc is a social welfare organization dedicated to assisting survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence. Its mission is to provide comprehensive support and services to survivors of abuse and exploitation, empowering them to take control of their lives
Her Village, Inc., exists to fill in the gaps and make the difference so mothers can thrive. It supports mothers with their tangible needs so that they can continue to work/provide for their children, bond with their children, and focus on the intangible aspects of taking care of their families.
Inspiring Futures, Inc., strives to improve high school and college graduation rates for young people involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems by offering free mental health therapy and educational services and by training support systems.
Justice for Families, Ltd/, provides critical support to family members of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated young people. In response to critical community needs during COVID-19, J4F expanded direct services to meet families’ basic needs and increase access to support resources, turning their Bronx office into a Relief Hub for the community and a learning lab to implement programming at the local and national levels.
Multi Assistance Resource Centers is a peer-run resource center, working to improve the quality of life in New York by ensuring that every New Yorker has access to resources in crisis prevention, intervention, and response. The purpose of Multi Assistance Resource Centers is to facilitate delivery of social and public health services to qualified clients provided by nonprofit organizations and government agencies.
The mission of PureLegacee Inc. (PLI) is to serve as a haven of healing for females ages 16-24 who have experienced trauma as a direct result of the criminal justice system and/or aging out of foster care and facing homelessness. To accomplish this mission, PureLegacee Inc. provides an alternative to incarceration and advocates for justice reform at a grassroots level. PLI uses training and advocacy as tools to impact systemic change.
The mission of Table of Kingz Inc. is to promote the constructive development of young men of color through programs that foster and advance social skills, build character, enhance self-esteem, and appreciate diversity while encouraging the proper use of etiquette and everyday life skills.
The Birthing Place Foundation: A team of BIPOC doulas and birthing professionals at The Birthing Place Foundation serve a range of families and their needs throughout their reproductive lifespan, while actively taking steps to create a safe, serene, and deeply supportive birth center. Their approach in providing individualized prenatal, birth, and postnatal care reduces maternal and infant stress and provides family support.
Urban Fairies of Staten Island Community Outreach: The mission of Urban Fairies is to assist struggling families by providing them with educational opportunities, resources, direct outreach, referrals, and support while fostering community healing and success by addressing poverty, hunger, and other social challenges.
Voices of Women Organizing Project: VOW works to improve domestic violence policy, its implementation, and the services survivors and their children turn to for safety, justice, and assistance. Their vision is for survivors of domestic violence and their children to thrive–free from re-victimization by abusers, the courts, housing, and child welfare systems.
About Youth and Families Forward
Youth and Families Forward is a collaborative grantmaking fund that supports transformative initiatives to ensure New York City’s youth and families can thrive, free from the fear of surveillance and separation. Through strategic grants to community-based and system partners, it centers lived expertise to support advocacy and fund innovation and to champion youth and families.
