Celebrating $1.4 Million in Grants

By
Hope for New York

Hope for New York is excited to announce that we’re investing $1.47 million in financial and capacity-building grants to our network of 40+ affiliate non-profit organizations this fiscal year.

That grant investment includes

  • $1.1 million in direct grants to fund existing programs (like soup kitchens, after-school mentoring, and career clinics) or seed new ones
  • $200K in volunteer impact grants to support our volunteers with needed supplies or funding for outings and activities so they can serve effectively.
  • $70,000 in capacity-building grants to increase the effectiveness of our non-profit affiliates. These grants fund opportunities like workshops, trainings, consulting services, and leadership development throughout the year.
  • $55K in incubation grants to fund brand new programs serving the poor and marginalized.

Our grant investment is wide-ranging, and represents everything from funding a healthy food initiative to supporting several affiliates in implementing impact assessments to gauge the effectiveness of their work. 

A few themes have emerged from this year's grantmaking that we're especially excited about:

Leapfrogging nonprofit pitfalls 

This year, some of our capacity-building dollars have been devoted to partnering with our non-profit affiliates to avoid common nonprofit pitfalls. For nonprofits that are largely founder-driven, we’re working with them this year on developing succession plans, to make sure that their work continues well into the future. For nonprofits with concentrated revenue sources, we’ve given challenge grants— if they’re able to find new revenue sources to fund a certain amount, we’ll match it.

 

Investing in start-ups 

We are thrilled to be able to fund two new non-profits this year. Last year, we fully funded The Open Door (one of our newest affiliates) to launch their Manhattan location of ESL classes and connected volunteers to teach the classes. This year, we’ll fully fund a second night of ESL classes. We’re also providing significant seed funding and capacity-building support to the Center for All Abilities, a new non-profit serving people with special needs and their families.

 

Leveraging the power of our network 

We love that our grantmaking is made even more effective by our broad network across the city. Throughout the year, we'll convene our non-profits to share best practices and troubleshoot together. Instead of hosting one workshop for each non-profit, we can gather groups of non-profits serving the same population for training and discussion

 

Involving our community in decision-making 

For the past two years, we've convened a Community Grant Circle of volunteers, church staff, donors, and friends to participate and advise on our grant-making process. Because our grantmaking process is so transparent and involves a range of stakeholders, we're confident that the investments we're making in our affiliates.

Thank you for enabling us to invest in organizations to serve the poor and marginalized of our city this year. We're can't wait to see how God will use these resources to change lives and communities across our city.