Brooklyn COVID-19 Response Fund: Phase 1 (March - July 2020)

From March onward, as New York City, and especially Brooklyn, emerged as the global epicenter of the pandemic with the highest number of fatalities and hospitalizations and astronomical unemployment rates, Brooklynites came together to form an unprecedented community-led, racially just response that truly embodied our borough’s motto: “In unity, there is strength.”

Over 16 weeks, our team issued 420 grants totaling $3.3 million thanks to the incredible generosity of our donors. 

As we enter the Phase 2 of the Fund this Fall, we will remain focused on addressing the profound economic impact of this crisis and working towards greater systemic change that will highlight, dismantle, and reimagine the deep inequities that were both revealed and exacerbated by this crisis. 

"This approach, we believe, made our efforts far more effective at getting support to where it was needed from the start—nearly a full month before the city released data revealing Black and brown New Yorkers were dying at twice the rate of whites. If city and state governmental leaders had applied the same strategy to their initial response, things may be very different today.

In Brooklyn, where nearly 70% of residents are non-white, privilege and power rest largely in the hands of white residents. With systemic racism our country’s predominant pre-existing condition, we knew that a disease that could threaten the life of anyone would mean devastation for communities of color.” 

- Cecilia Clarke, Foundation President and CEO in the New York Daily News:
“Combat racial disparities like never before: A post-coronavirus imperative”
(May 20, 2020)

Watch Our Webinar: The Impact of COVID-19 on Black Communities (May 21, 2020)

According to the CDC, 25,000 more people than usual died in New York City from January through July 2020, the majority of whom were people of color. This statistic, often referred to as “excess deaths” by experts, has been used to estimate the number of deaths caused by COVID-19. Black residents accounted for 32% of the fatalities and Latinx were 30%, even though they are only 16% and 25% of the metro area population respectively. In contrast, white residents accounted for 26% of deaths, and are 46% of the population. 

Black and Latinx residents are more likely to be essential frontline workers and live in areas experiencing outbreaks, compared to whites. They have experienced far greater rates of job loss since the start of the pandemic, with Black and Latinx women the hardest hit. The Center for New York City Neighborhoods reports that in New York City, where the real unemployment rate may be higher than 30%, nearly 70% of all jobs lost were held by workers of color, and 76% of those who lost jobs made less than $60,000 a year. 

 Watch Our Webinar: Labor and COVID-19: Impact on Low-wage Workers (May 7, 2020)

Moreover, the impacts on undocumented workers and their families—estimated to account for more than 1.2 million New Yorkers—were made more severe by their exclusion from the direct financial assistance of the CARES Act. Without access to unemployment benefits, or protections to ensure their workplaces were safe from exposure, undocumented immigrants faced increasing vulnerabilites with few places to turn to for help beyond networks of local nonprofits.

 Watch Our Webinar: The Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis on Undocumented Communities (April 9, 2020)

Image Courtesy of Black Women's Blueprint

Image Courtesy of Red Hook Initiative 

"You have no idea how much this means to us! We're mobilizing right now to establish our hotline and activate our volunteer base—you're making this happen for us!”

- Muslim Community Network

“We just received notice this morning that our application was approved. Thank you so much—this will radically expand our ability to get healthy, fresh, delicious foods to food-insecure residents of Brownsville and East Brooklyn.”

- Brownsville Community Culinary Center

Immediate Response Grants provided up to $10,000 of “no strings attached” infusions for frontline organizations giving direct cash assistance for low-wage workers, emergency food deliveries for older adults, PPE for NYCHA residents, social support for survivors of domestic violence and people recently released from incarceration, and much more.

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Click through each of the funding areas to view a complete list of Immediate Response grants:

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Image Courtesy of Friends of Island Academy

“My staff, all of us, are doing things beyond our job descriptions. We’re doing things that all humans should be doing. We make sure we show our young people we are out in the trenches for them, and they get it.”

- Venus Core, Friends of Island Academy

 Learn more about the work of grantees in BK Reader’s Essential Brooklyn series:

 Hear directly from Immediate Response grantees in our COVID-19 video series:
 

Image Courtesy of Bedford Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps 

As data on cases, hospitalizations, and fatalities became available, our team tracked where the disease was having the greatest impact in our borough. Ultimately, we identified ten Black and Latinx communities across Brooklyn with significant populations of older adults, immigrants, and people living in poverty to prioritize our funding in:

Image Courtesy of Yemeni American Merchants Association

Our support also focused on organizations that have largely been overlooked by traditional philanthropy. Of the 214 organizations funded, one third have annual operating budgets under $500,000 and over 70% are led by people of color. We also knew that to achieve the goals of the Fund it would be critical to build new relationships with organizations in ways some funders may deem too risky: 65% of our Immediate Response grantees had no recent funding relationship with us.

Image Courtesy of The Campaign Against Hunger

COVID-19 has presented the greatest threat to nonprofit survival in recent history. With no possibility for in-person fundraising events, skyrocketing expenditures to meet urgent needs, navigating transitions to remote work, reducing and furloughing staff, and providing frontline services in high risk environments, experts are predicting that as many as one-third of all nonprofits may be forced to close within a year. 

“They were there when I needed them. I was really struggling with the finances of Mixteca, and I got the training from them on the Paycheck Protection Program, and it was so clear and so good that I applied, I did it and I got the money….They are kind, and lovely, and respectful and mindful of the cultural differences which we have.”

- Lorena Kourousias, Executive Director, Mixteca

To aid Brooklyn nonprofits confronting these extreme circumstances, we provided Foundation grantees with a host of free virtual workshops and individual and group coaching for leaders, attended by more than 400 participants:

• Fundraising in a Crisis
• Risk Management and Scenario Planning
• Paycheck Protection Program Application Clinic
• Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness Clinic
• Navigating Tough Times: Strategy and Decision Making for Leaders
• Leadership and Organizational Challenges   

Image Courtesy of Diana Guerra/Make the Road New York

In addition to Immediate Response grants, the Fund distributed $873,000 in Sustainability Enhancement grants to provide unsolicited general operating support to 75 current foundation grantees across all of our portfolios to continue their critical work during the social and economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

And when the global Giving Tuesday campaign announced #GivingTuesdayNow, an emergency day of giving for COVID-19 relief on May 5, 2020, we activated our #BrooklynGives on Giving Tuesday giving platform and committed to matching up to $2,500 in donations to all Immediate Response grantees through June 2020. More than 147 organizations received a total of $363,831 from the Fund to match donations. 

Brooklyn Liberation March, June 2020  |  Image Courtesy of Churches United for Fair Housing

This Fall, we will embark on an ambitious Phase 2 of the Fund, beginning with extensive community engagement. This process will enable us to learn from—and partner with—leaders and residents in communities of color who have been most harmed, in order to identify and fund the most critical needs and promising approaches going forward.

Our focus will be on community-led strategies that address systemic injustice and structural oppression through advocacy and organizing as well as urgent relief and direct services for rapidly growing crises—such as food and housing—resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to grantmaking, we will continue to offer our nonprofit partners technical assistance and capacity-building support on issues related to sustainability, financial planning systems, forecasting, leadership, and management.