Investing in Brooklyn’s Future

 
(Image courtesy of slashdevslashnull2002/Flickr)

138 Grants. $2.3 Million. A Bigger Impact by Giving Together.

We are thrilled to announce Brooklyn Community Foundation’s Class of 2012: 138 highly-effective, locally-sourced ideas and initiatives ready to take on our borough’s most significant social and economic challenges.

The donor-supported investment totals $2,299,600 and is distributed across five funds: Education & Youth Achievement, Arts for All, Community Development, Caring Neighbors, and Green Communities—which so many of you have generously contributed to over the past year.

“We’re linking people who love Brooklyn and want to invest in its improvement with the organizations and institutions that are performing this essential work, often out of public view and without substantial resources. They may not all be household names, but they best understand our diverse communities and are getting real results.”

- Brooklyn Community Foundation President Marilyn Gelber
 

View the complete list of our 2012 grants here

A Critical Time to Give

Brooklyn is changing. We’ve got a swelling skyline, a professional sports team, and exponential cultural capital. But with that change, the economic disparities among our residents are becoming painfully evident.

“When people talk about Brooklyn, they often speak of the quality of life here. Yet revitalization is leaving a lot of our neighbors behind. We want to ensure that the great ‘Brooklyn life’ many of us know and love is available to all who call Brooklyn home—from Brooklyn Heights to Brownsville to Brighton Beach, and every neighborhood in between.”

- Brooklyn Community Foundation
Board
Chairman Alan Fishman

Today, one in four Brooklynites lives in poverty. And the contributing causes—poor educational outcomes, unemployment, escalating rents, and access to good health care and healthy food—remain deeply rooted in many of our biggest neighborhoods.

Through our interconnected funds, we take a multipronged approach to addressing these factors, to achieve the biggest collective impact. We believe that:

• environmental stewardship is a path to new jobs as well as fresh, local food;
  
  
• the arts not only enhance life quality but provide people with special needs a new way of engaging with the world;
  
  
• educational development in just as critical out of school as it is in the classroom;
  
  
• affordable housing promotes family stability as well as thoughtful community development.
  
  

Looking at the grants, you’ll see many exciting new organizations in addition to our borough’s terrific anchor institutions. Over the coming weeks, we’ll introduce you to their ideas for creating lasting positive change within our communities, and how together, they represent our borough’s greatest hope for making Brooklyn a better home for all.  

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We Are All Brooklyn Fellowship
The application for the annual WAAB Fellowship is now available! We're proud supporters of this professional development opportunity for emerging nonprofit leaders. If you work for a community, faith-based, government, or nonprofit institution, considering applying for this unique opportunity. Details here.