Community Fund Grants

Filter the grants using the options below:

Organization Year Amount Initiative Programsort descending Project Description Neighborhoods
Center for NuLeadership 2019 $45,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program For programs that divert neighborhood youth from arrest proceedings by developing pre-arrest diversion options for law-officers. Bedford Stuyvesant
Red Hook Initiative 2015 $40,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program Support for Red Hook Youth Leaders Program, a 4-year program that provides job readiness and leadership training, part-time employment, academic support, and services to assist young people toward high school graduation, college, and/or meaningful employment. Red Hook
Young New Yorkers 2018 $20,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program To provide court-mandated arts diversion programs for youth that engage them in social justice issues through the creation of large-scale public art projects. Boroughwide
Kings Against Violence Initiative (KAVI) 2022 $45,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program For the hospital-based violence interruption program and in-school and community-based discussion groups and workshops. East New York, Brownsville, Flatbush
YWCA Brooklyn 2017 $30,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program To support the YW LEAD youth development and college access, and social justice education program for low-income and immigrant young women of color Boroughwide
Drive Change 2021 $45,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program To provide training and first job experience for formerly incarcerated and court-involved young people through a nonprofit food truck. Bedford Stuyvesant, Bushwick
Atlas: DIY 2016 $30,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program Community-based "cooperative model" that provides free legal, educational, and social services for undocumented youth and their allies. Sunset Park
El Puente 2019 $45,000 Invest in Youth Invest in Youth Grant Program To organize communities of color to fight gentrification through youth-led community campaigns and initiatives focused on environmental justice, climate change, community safety, and racial/cultural equity in education, the arts, and wellness. Williamsburg
Weeksville Heritage Center 2015 $10,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program Weeksville Heritage Center is an historic site museum and community cultural center that preserves the legacy of the original Weeksville community founded in 1838 – one of the first and most prolific free African American communities in the United States. Funds will support a performance project featuring new oral histories and collaborations with local performing artists and teens to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1991 Crown Heights Riots. Weeksville will also host a community dinner for residents of its immediate vicinity. Crown Heights
Young Movement 2015 $5,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program Young Movement provides research, advocacy, and partnerships on socio-economic issues like financial literacy and employment alternatives for young adults. Funds will support the Weeksville Entrepreneurship Project to train 10 young adults from the Weeksville section of Crown Heights in tools to find and create sustainable solutions to employment, financial, and health disparities in Weeksville. Crown Heights
The Youth Farm 2015 $10,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program The Youth Farm is a one-acre farm on the Wingate Campus that grows approximately 15,000 pounds of fresh, culturally relevant crops for the Crown Heights community each year. Funds will support a year-round youth program, an advanced organic farming training program for adults, and a paid summer youth employment program. Crown Heights
596 Acres 2017 $20,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program To support stewardship, preservation, and transformation of two neighborhood lots into community gardens. Crown Heights
Brooklyn Clergy Action Network 2015 $10,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program The Brooklyn Clergy Action Network mobilizes faith leaders and the community to end gun violence in low and moderate-income communities in Brooklyn. Funds will be used to establish a mentorship program for 12 to 17-year-old males designed to reduce and prevent violence by training them in methods of communication as an alternative to violence. Crown Heights
Bethany United Methodist Church 2017 $20,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program To support services, workshops, and cultural programming that engage residents around issues in the community. Crown Heights
Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine 2015 $5,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program Brooklyn Hi-Art! Machine is a collaborative public art project that explores art-making as a community-building tool. Funds will be used to create and distribute an accessible guide to tenants’ rights to assist long-time residents being pushed out of their homes. Crown Heights
Haiti Cultural Exchange 2017 $10,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program To support local Haitian artists who will facilitate arts activities and programming in Westbrook Memorial Garden to bring community concerns to light. Crown Heights
Brooklyn Movement Center 2015 $15,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program The Brooklyn Movement Center, a Black-led organizing nonprofit, trains and mobilizes Central Brooklynites to lead local and city-wide policy campaigns to end abusive policing. Funds will be used for police accountability organizing and legislative advocacy in Crown Heights that mobilizes local stakeholders, creates alternative community safety approaches, and conducts know-your-rights and leadership trainings. Crown Heights
New York Communities for Change 2017 $30,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program For supporting the inclusion of community voices to inform the development plan of the city-owned Bedford-Union Armory. Crown Heights
Global Kids 2015 $10,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program Global Kids’ mission is to educate and inspire underserved youth to become successful students, global citizens, and community leaders. Funds will be used for the Human Rights Activist Project in three Crown Heights public schools to empower youth to advocate for community and global issues through interactive workshops on community organizing, social action, digital and social media, policy, and root causes. Crown Heights
Repair the World NYC 2017 $20,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program To support increased accessibility, programming and community partnerships that bring new and long-term residents together to meet community needs at its storefront space on Nostrand Avenue. Crown Heights
NYC Coalition for Educational Justice 2015 $10,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program NYC Coalition for Educational Justice is a parent-led movement that seeks to affect policy change and create a more equitable educational system. Funds will support local parent engagement around the Department of Education's Community Schools Initiative, which will bring over a million dollars in new resources to three Crown Heights schools. Crown Heights
Progress Playbook 2015 $5,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program Progress Playbook designs customized learning experiences for entrepreneurs so that they can accomplish their business goals. A $5,000 grant will provide 10 Crown Heights youth with a three-month entrepreneur training program, through which each will develop a comprehensive business plan. Three plans selected by community members will receive financial and technical assistance to launch or expand their business within Crown Heights. Crown Heights
Simone Leigh 2015 $5,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program Resident Simone Leigh is receiving a $5,000 grant to support an innovative series of drumming classes and workshops for black women and girls in Crown Heights, which seeks to build bridges across cultures and communities and provide a nurturing environment where participants can relax, learn new skills, exercise, and connect in a non-competitive way. Crown Heights
UHAB 2015 $15,000 Neighborhood Strength Crown Heights Grant Program UHAB organizes tenants to fight poor living conditions in buildings neglected or abandoned by landlords; in 2013, three UHAB-organized tenant associations formed the Crown Heights Tenants Union. A $15,000 grant will support their focus on ending bad living conditions, illegal displacement, and loss of rent-regulated housing in Crown Heights by bolstering tenant and neighborhood power. Crown Heights
Be More 2015 $5,000 Brooklyn Accelerator Incubator Project Be More aims to raise awareness about race-based disparities, train change agents with tools to reduce unconscious bias to eliminate racial inequities, and foster leadership to enable multiracial social change movements. In the coming year, Be More will launch its second #Vision2040 social media video campaign, organize community gatherings to heal from racism, and prototype a training to reduce unconscious bias using evidence-based techniques. Boroughwide
Domestic Workers United 2015 $5,000 Brooklyn Accelerator Incubator Project DWU is an organization of Caribbean, Latina and African caregivers and housekeepers—concentrated in Crown Heights and Flatbush—that organizes to end exploitation and oppression for all workers whose labor is based primarily in homes and is not protected by most labor laws in New York City. DWU has adopted a model that centers on the development of strong, low-income immigrant women of color leaders who have the drive, training, and sensitivity to lead a movement for social change. Crown Heights, Flatbush
The Precedential Group 2015 $5,000 Brooklyn Accelerator Incubator Project The Precedential Group, founded by Marlon Peterson in 2014, is an organization working to establish “Child Safe Zones” to reduce gun violence in Brooklyn neighborhoods by engaging young people, local police, schools, and residents. Marlon Peterson has led, advised, and supported several criminal justice reform organizations including Fortune Society, Crown Heights Mediation Center, and New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. Marlon recently received the Soros Fellowship Award from Open Society Foundation. For more information: marlonpeterson.com Crown Heights, Brownsville, East New York
Black Women's Blueprint 2022 $100,000 Spark Prize Spark Prize Black Women's Blueprint was founded in Brooklyn in 2008, and is a lifeline for survivors of gender-based violence, and provides birth education and maternal health support. The organization’s Sexual Abuse to Maternal Mortality Pipeline report and institute has pioneered a campaign to desilo these movements and affirm the link between trauma healing and maternal health. Each year, it engages doulas, midwives, birth-workers, and sexual assault advocates to reach 5,000 survivors at 50 different locations through its Sistas Van mobile health unit, and trains 800 clinicians and medical personnel. In addition, it is building a Reconciliation Center in Upstate New York to offer Brooklyn women space to heal and give birth safely. Boroughwide
Workers Justice Project 2023 $100,000 Brooklyn Accelerator Spark Prize Workers Justice Project (WJP) is a New York City workers’ rights hub that has been spearheading new ways of labor organizing and empowering workers to gain a voice in the workplace since 2010. WJP is building a diverse membership base and developing the skills of worker leaders who understand the connection between the barriers they face and systemic racism, while providing Spanish-language services, training and organizing. WJP has created over 5,000 construction and house cleaning jobs in the past five years that have resulted in $4.9 million in salaries. Additional achievements include securing six landmark policies to “Deliver Justice'' for 65,000 app-based delivery workers in 2021, and distributing $2.5 million in cash relief to essential workers and excluded workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Williamsburg, Bushwick, Sunset Park
exalt 2018 $100,000 Spark Prize Spark Prize Since its founding in 2006 in Brooklyn, exalt has worked with over 1200 youth ages 15-19 who have been involved in the criminal justice system. exalt equips youth with tools and experiences to avoid further criminal justice system involvement through structured classes for tangible skill development, individualized support to navigate the education and justice systems, placement in paid internships, and an alumni network of resources. Boroughwide
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
Griot Circle 2018 $100,000 Spark Prize Spark Prize Founded in 1996 by a group of LGBTQ elders of color living in Brooklyn to address the systemic racial, social, and economic injustices that LGBTQ elders of color experience, GRIOT Circle now offers culturally-sensitive, innovative programming to over 400 members throughout the year, 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

Pages