June Newsletter: An Update on Our Leadership Transition + More News from Your Community Foundation

June 22, 2021

An Update on Our Leadership Transition

After eight years as President and CEO, Cecilia Clarke will mark her last day at Brooklyn Community Foundation on Friday, July 2nd as she embarks on an exciting new chapter. In her time here, Cecilia accelerated the Foundation's growth and deepened our partnerships. A few highlights include:

  • Growth of assets from $60M to over $100M, with nearly 100 Donor Advised Funds under management 
  • Instituting a Racial Justice Lens across all operations
  • Boosting grantmaking from $3M annually to nearly $13M in 2020
  • Increasing staff by 80% and moving our headquarters to Central Brooklyn 
  • Development of our signature Brooklyn Insights community engagement model—earning us the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's prestigious Impact Award

Following Cecilia's departure, our Chief Operating Officer Sarah Shannon will serve as Interim CEO as we continue our CEO search. Please join us by echoing our immense gratitude to Cecilia for her service to Brooklyn!

We are also excited to share the position description for the executive search and encourage you to circulate it widely among your networks. Please send nominations to BrooklynCommunityFoundation@PhillipsOppenheim.com.
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Read Our Juneteenth Op-Ed

In conjunction with our announcement last week that we are committing a minimum of 30% of all Brooklyn Community Foundation grantmaking to Black communities, we put out a call to action to our peers in philanthropy to join us in moving more money, resources, and power for racial justice:

"American foundations and corporations distributed over $100 billion in 2019, which did little to offset the impacts of COVID-19. The philanthropic sector must overhaul how we give, who makes the decisions about giving, where the money goes, and for what. Giving alone is not good enough anymore."
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Spark Prize: Meet Our Committee! 
As we celebrate the return of our $100,000 Spark Prize for Brooklyn nonprofits, we are pleased to announce the 2021-22 Spark Committee members. 
 
View This Year's Committee
The Spark Committee will help us to distribute $600,000 in total to honor the work of values-driven Brooklyn nonprofits that have demonstrated a strong commitment to advancing racial justice in our borough and have a dynamic vision for the future of their organization.

Five winners will receive $100,000 in general operating support, and 20 finalists will receive a $5,000 match as part of our 2021 #BrooklynGives on Giving Tuesday campaign. Finalists will be notified in October 2021, and winners will be announced in early January 2022.

The Spark Prize application is due Friday, June 25th.
Apply Today
 

Save the Date: #BrooklynGives 2021
Mark your calendars for #BrooklynGives on Giving Tuesday campaign this fall! Last year, 3,500 donors came together to raise over $800,000 for 95 local nonprofits. Registration for Brooklyn nonprofits begins Tuesday, September 8th. The campaign's donation window will open three weeks before Giving Tuesday, November 30th on Tuesday, November 9th.
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Change starts here, and it starts with you. Please consider making a donation today to invest in a better future for Brooklyn.