Dear Friends,

As another challenging year nears its close, we remain humbled and inspired by the incredible resilience, determination, and compassion of nonprofits, leaders, and residents across our borough. 

Brooklyn's strength comes from our communities. Your support helped Brooklyn’s community foundation rise to the challenges of this past year with over $11 million in grants to date for nonprofits—and we hope you will continue to partner with us to create a new way forward under the visionary leadership of our incoming President and CEO Jocelynne Rainey. 

From the start, our response to the pandemic has focused on under-resourced communities of color who have suffered immense economic hardships while enduring higher case rates and fatalities. Our commitment to racial justice and our deep community partnerships have enabled us to swiftly and efficiently channel funding to frontline nonprofits both led by and serving the hardest hit communities, ensuring that our support has gone where it’s needed most.

As we entered the second phase of our COVID-19 response last winter, we connected with hundreds of Brooklyn residents in these communities to learn about their ongoing challenges and hear their ideas for long-term change. 

We answered their urgent call to action with rapid grants for COVID-19 vaccine education and outreach and to alleviate anti-Asian bias and violence, food insecurity, and lost wages. 

Next, we took aim at the root causes of the pandemic’s disproportionate impacts by making an unprecedented five-year commitment for advocacy and social change.

And through our community-led initiatives, now entirely determined in partnership with community advisory councils, we continue to invest in organizations working towards racial and social justice for youth, immigrants, and older adults.

Together with community members, nonprofits, and donors, we are taking bold steps towards a fair and just future for all of Brooklyn. But social change does not happen overnight, and it cannot happen without the generosity of friends, neighbors, and supporters like you.

Change starts here. Please give today. 

Sincerely, 

Nicole Gueron Co-Chair, Board of Directors

Harsha Marti Co-Chair, Board of Directors