Community Fund Grants
Filter the grants using the options below:
| Organization | Year | Amount | Initiative |
Program |
Project Description | Neighborhoods |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooklyn Movement Center (BMC) | 2022 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | Brooklyn Movement Center (BMC) is a Black-led, membership-based organization of primarily low-to-moderate income Central Brooklyn residents founded in 2011. BMC builds power and self-determination in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights’ Black communities by nurturing local leadership, waging campaigns, and winning concrete improvements in people’s lives. Through intersectional organizing, BMC addresses a range of issues that define a whole community, including police accountability and community safety, food sovereignty, environmental justice, anti-gentrification media production, electoral justice, and tenant organizing. | Boroughwide |
| Red Hook Community Justice Center | 2022 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | Launched in 2000, the Red Hook Community Justice Center works to strengthen Red Hook and surrounding areas by reducing crime and the use of incarceration, improving public trust in justice, and collaborating with the community to solve local problems. At the Justice Center, a single judge hears cases that ordinarily would go to three different courts: civil, family, and criminal. Whenever possible, cases are resolved through a restorative, problem-solving approach that seeks to repair harm and address the underlying issues that bring individuals into the justice system. The Justice Center also serves as a hub for an array of unconventional programs that are available to litigants as a means of resolving their cases, as well as to the community at large. | Red Hook |
| Audre Lorde Project | 2017 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | An inter-generational organizing center for LGBT people of color that promotes community wellness and progressive social and economic justice in New York City. Founded in Brooklyn in 1996, ALP works with over 8,000 members on issues including creating safety models against police brutality and hate crimes, as well as training small businesses, community organizations, and neighborhood leaders on de-escalation and safety strategies. | Boroughwide |
| Groundswell Community Mural Project | 2022 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | Groundswell Community Mural Project was founded in 1996 to bring together artists, youth, and community organizations to use art as a tool for social change. Its projects beautify neighborhoods, engage youth in societal and personal transformation, and give expression to ideas and perspectives that are underrepresented in the public dialogue. Each year, Groundswell engages over 450 youth, led by trained teaching artists, and in partnership with community partner organizations and city agencies, in the presentation of afterschool, summer, school-based, and community commissioned programs. In addition, Groundswell hosts free, often youth-led, events and programs for the general public. | Boroughwide |
| VOCAL-NY | 2018 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL-NY) is a Brooklyn-based, statewide network building a movement led by low-income people of color to end the AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and homelessness. Founded in 1999 as a progressive AIDS housing network at a time when the epidemic was increasingly concentrated in low-income communities of color, VOCAL-NY was formed to shift attention toward root causes, like homelessness and incarceration. Today, VOCAL-NY operates a syringe exchange that distributes over 50,000 clean syringes annually, provides overdose prevention training and other services to hundreds of New Yorkers, and has worked to pass 15 pieces of legislation since 2013. | Boroughwide |
| Common Justice | 2017 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | A restorative justice program of the Vera Institute of Justice that works with responsible parties and those harmed by violent crime in Brooklyn. Founded in 2008, Common Justice is the first and only alternative to incarceration program for violent crimes in the adult courts in the United States. It works with 16 to 24-year-olds to address the criminal justice system’s over-reliance on incarceration, to halt cycles of violence, and to meet the needs of victims of crime. To date, fewer than 8% of its participants have been terminated from the program for committing a new crime. | Boroughwide |
| Weeksville Heritage Center | 2022 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | Weeksville Heritage Center upholds the legacy of one of the largest free Black communities in pre-Civil War America, using historic preservation, education, the arts, and a social justice lens to keep this unique chapter of American history relevant and resonant for contemporary audiences, particularly Black residents in Central Brooklyn. The Weeksville Heritage Center is the steward of the historic Hunterfly Road Houses, and serves as an education space, community hub, and presenter of free or low-cost recreational and artistic programming—all with a nexus to the Weeksville legacy of self-determination. Having emerged from a crippling financial crisis in 2019, Weeksville reestablished a record of fiscal accountability under a new strategic plan, and was included in New York City’s esteemed Cultural Institutions Group in 2020. | Boroughwide |
| Make the Road New York | 2017 | $100,000 | Spark Prize | Spark Prize | An immigrant-led organization that develops grassroots leadership to mobilize Latino and working class communities. It provides legal services, education, and employment access to achieve policy change. MRNY is dedicated to building community power and racial equity in Bushwick, where it was founded in 1997. It now has over 20,000 members and 200 staff working across New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. | Boroughwide |
| New York Peace Institute | 2015 | $100,000 | Invest in Youth | Brooklyn Restorative Justice Project | New York Peace Institute will provide restorative justice practices and coordination at the Rachel Carson High School for Coastal Studies in Coney Island. New York Peace Institute is one of the nation’s largest community mediation services, with expertise in special education mediation. They have previously partnered with the Department of Probation, the New York City Department of Education, NYPD and the Brooklyn District Attorney’s offices. | Coney Island |
| Good Shepherd Services | 2015 | $100,000 | Invest in Youth | Brooklyn Restorative Justice Project | Good Shepherd Services (GSS) will provide restorative justice practices and coordination at the School for Democracy and Leadership in East Flatbush. GSS is a leading New York City youth and family development agency with over 85 programs serving more than 30,000 children, youth, and families in under-resourced communities. | East Flatbush |
| Partnership with Children | 2015 | $100,000 | Invest in Youth | Brooklyn Restorative Justice Project | Partnership with Children will provide restorative justice practices and coordination at Ebbets Field Middle School in Crown Heights. Partnership with Children provides critical social and emotional support for the hardest-to-reach students and engages families in the school community so they can succeed in school, society and life. They have social workers in 32 public schools in all five boroughs and manage all community resources and support services in 12 community schools. | Crown Heights |
| Sweet River Consulting | 2015 | $100,000 | Invest in Youth | Brooklyn Restorative Justice Project | Sweet River Consulting will provide restorative justice practices and coordination at Science Skills Center High School in Downtown Brooklyn. The founders of Sweet River Consulting have over 10 years’ experience implementing school-wide restorative justice policies and programs, and providing youth programming and leadership development. Sweet River Consulting is supported by the Center for Nu Leadership, a criminal justice advocacy organization in Central Brooklyn. | Downtown |
| Off the Page, Inc | 2016 | Invest in Youth | Youth Voice Awards | Award recipient Shaqur Williams with Off the Page, Inc for "All American Boys," a show adapted from the book by the same name that addresses different points of view between a black teenager and a white teenager in a community and the way police officers approach them. The project brings black and white actors together to work on this production and to talk about the problem facing the black community and how to work together to address it. | Park Slope | |
| Arts & Democracy | 2016 | Invest in Youth | Youth Voice Awards | Award recipient Hasiba Haq with Arts & Democracy for "Sari Project," which aims to connect young Bangladeshis with women in the community in an intergenerational exchange of stories using the idea of Saris, a traditional outfit for Bangladeshi women, to explore their immigration stories and their histories. The project will help young immigrants and second-generation youth connect with elders in their society, and help carve an identity for them in a diverse borough. | Kensington | |
| Brooklyn Free School | 2016 | Invest in Youth | Youth Voice Awards | Award recipient The Brooklyn Free School Team for "Let's Talk About It! Housing Justice," a project aimed at educating and creating a documentary on housing justice and gentrification. It will engage youth by arranging visits to town hall meetings, reading articles and watching interviews addressing housing, gentrification and justice, as well as opportunities to engage with the Mayor’s office and participate in local shelter events. As part of the project, the youth team will create a documentary and facilitate a workshop for youth on housing rights. | Fort Greene, Clinton Hill | |
| Ancient Song Doula Services | 2016 | Invest in Youth | Youth Voice Awards | Awarded to Sevonna Marie Brown with Ancient Song Doula Services for "Reproductive Renaissance," which uses grassroots political philosophy to foster a restorative space for women of color to come together and seek refuge in reproductive justice and education. Black girls and women of color have a history of using their personal spaces—the living room, grandma’s bedroom, the kitchen, the beauty salon, the front porch—as spaces for women-centered empowerment and healing. | Bedford Stuyvesant | |
| Eco:StationNY | 2016 | Invest in Youth | Youth Voice Awards | Award recipient Iyeshima Harris with Eco:StationNY for "Farm to Cafeteria," a student-led outreach project focusing on healthy eating and self-empowerment that engages students at a place and time they are thinking about food: the lunchroom. The project will use school lunch and culturally relevant food to teach youth how to healthfully and affordably prepare meals they love. Through cooking demos, students will learn how they can combine fresh produce with goods from their supermarket, instilling in them the knowledge, access, and creativity to needed to transcend and redefine what food means in a low-income neighborhood. | Bushwick | |
| Center for NuLeadership | 2016 | Invest in Youth | Youth Voice Awards | Award recipient Yamil Torres with the Center for NuLeadership for “Bridging the Healing Gap,” which will facilitate gatherings that provide space and educate youth who are affiliated with gangs and/or are street involved about how, why, and where gangs originated, explain political and racial history, and principles of what gangs were founded on. The second half of the project will focus on changing the way the larger community views the youth by opening up dialogue with an intergenerational event. | Bedford Stuyvesant | |
| Mexican Coalition for the Empowerment of Youth & Families | 2021 | $40,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund | To increase language access and provide culturally relevant food, health and legal services to Latinx indigenous New Yorkers. | Sunset Park, Bushwick, Coney Island, Park Slope |
| Arab American Association of New York | 2019 | $25,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund Sustained Response Grants | Immigrant Rights Fund | To support immigration legal services for the Arab American community that has been deeply impacted by ongoing changes, including the removal of re-designation for Temporary Protective Status for Syrian and Yemeni arrivals post-2017 | Bay Ridge, Boroughwide |
| NYC Fund for Girls and Young Women of Color | 2016 | $20,000 | Girls of Color Fund | Girls of Color Fund Grant | A collaboration of 16 foundations that awarded $2.1 million to 28 nonprofit organizations working to cultivate the leadership of young women of color as change agents to advance cultural and systemic shifts. The grantees provide services, leadership development and advocacy in the areas of health, economic and workforce development, community support and opportunity, education, and anti-violence/criminal justice. | Boroughwide |
| Bangladeshi American Community Development & Youth Services | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | East New York, City Line |
| Council of Peoples Organization | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | Flatbush, Midwood |
| Flanbwayan Haitian Literacy Project | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | East Flatbush, Canarsie, Crown Heights |
| Mixteca | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Coney Island, Bensonhurst, Park Slope, Red Hook |
| Arab American Association of New York | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | Boroughwide, Bay Ridge |
| Center for Anti-Violence Education | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | Boroughwide |
| United Chinese Association of Brooklyn | 2016 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Emergency Grants | Support for neighborhood-based, immigrant-led organizations working on the frontlines to address legal, safety, and civil rights issues. | Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Sunset Park |
| Adhikaar | 2018 | $15,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | To support community legal clinics and advocacy efforts for Nepali immigrants with Temporary Protected Status | Boroughwide |
| Make the Road New York | 2017 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | For advocacy and organizing across immigrant populations and support for multi-step “Our Plan to Resist Trump” initiative | Boroughwide, Bushwick |
| Jews for Racial and Economic Justice | 2017 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | For ally-building and trainings to create connections between anti-Islamophobia and anti-Semitism organizing | Boroughwide |
| Make the Road New York | 2017 | $20,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | To support DACA legal action through the Batalla Vidal et al v. Baran class-action lawsuit, cover the costs of DACA renewal applications, as well as citywide town halls and "Know Your Rights" workshops | Boroughwide |
| New York Immigration Coalition | 2017 | $20,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | For a three-tier response to DACA: policy and advocacy, community engagement and service coordination, including federal and state legislative advocacy, processing DACA renewals, and expanding mental health services for DACA recipients | Boroughwide |
| Atlas:DIY | 2017 | $10,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | Support for eligible youth applying for DACA renewals before October 5, 2017 deadline | Boroughwide, Sunset Park |
| New Sanctuary Coalition | 2019 | $20,000 | Immigrant Rights Fund | Immigrant Rights Fund Immediate Response Grants | For person-to-person support to hundreds of immigrants facing detention and deportation. This includes staffing a pro se legal clinic; maintaining a bond fund to free immigrants being held in in private, for-profit, overcrowded detention centers; and expanding its community-based, citywide “Sanctuary Hood” program to organize safe spaces for immigrants at more than 100 churches, and countless businesses and homes. | Boroughwide |