Grants Newsletter February 2015

Grants FEBRUARY 2015 NEWSLETTER

Wanted: Tech Workers The Trust Helps Meet Employer Needs PAGE 3

Abigail West, 22, found a job soon after graduating from a Year Up program supported by The Trust.

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Our senior program officer for community development, civic affairs, and technical assistance came to The Trust after directing community and economic development programs in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She earned a B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in urban planning from Pratt Institute, and was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University.

For 90 years, The Trust has been making donors’ charitable dreams come true by funding the nonprofits that make the City and its suburbs

| Patricia Swann

Why is it important to make affordable housing more energy-efficient?

Buildings emit 75 percent of the city’s carbon emissions, and older apartment buildings in low-income neighborhoods are among the worst offenders. Our new grant to Enterprise Community Partners helps update equipment while training superintendents and tenants of nonprofit-owned buildings to save fuel oil.

You recently announced The New York Community Trust Leadership Fellows Program. Why is this a priority?

In New York, nonprofits are critical to so many

aspects of urban life. Working with Baruch College, we’re starting to train the next generation of nonprofit leaders. We’ve asked several dozen groups to nominate ambitious and creative mid-level managers.

Nonprofit management isn’t exactly a sexy subject. Why is it so important to The Trust?

An organization can have an amazing program, dedicated staff, and a charismatic CEO. But if the organization isn’t run well, eventually it will hit a plateau. Every group needs strong management to best serve clients, keep revenue sources diverse, and be open to the right opportunities.

great places to live, work, and play.

Honoring Excellent Nonprofits

HE COT MM NEW UNI YO TY RK NO 2014 TRUST

EXC NPR E O AW LLENFIT ARD CE S

From 77 applicants for the New York Community Trust Nonprofit 2014 Excellence WINN Awards, three nonprofits were selected to share $60,000 in prizes: Leake & Watts, ER a provider of programs for child welfare, developmental disabilities, and juvenile justice; Graham Windham, which helps children and families affected by abuse, neglect, and delinquency; and Row New York, which involves young people in competitive rowing and offers academic support. Here are tips from two of the winning groups: HE COT MM NEW UNI YO TY RK TRU NO ST

MOVING UP: Two graduates of the Graham School PostSecondary Success Program (right), part of Graham Windham’s residential education and treatment center.

EXC NPR E O CHALLENGE: High AW LLENFIT ARD CE S

W I N Nschool students during aEspring rowing R practice on Meadow Lake in Queens.

Celebrate! We reward “ strong performances of staff with merit-based bonuses.

We celebrate achievements of our team, clients, and clients’ families through formal events as well as impromptu personal notes. — Graham Windham

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Just say no: Get comfortable turning down “ opportunities. Just because someone wants you to create a new program or form a partnership doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. — Row New York

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nycommunitytrust.org

COVER STORY

Wanted: Tech Workers Helping Meet Employer Needs

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nyone who knows New York’s growing technology sector sees a paradox: Well-paying jobs abound, yet tech employers struggle to find workers.

The Trust is changing that. With $150,000 to the Workforce Development Corporation, we’re underwriting the Tech Talent Pipeline, a new project to expand tech careers for disadvantaged workers. The project will bring together employers to identify jobs that will emerge over the next five years, then specify the training needed, such as managing a network and testing software.

The Pipeline will assess requirements for each position and train and place candidates.

Some training can be done in months rather than years: nearly half the City’s 28,000 tech jobs don’t require a college degree.

There’s more: City University of New York is using our $265,000 grant for its Information Technology Specialists Internship Program, placing students with Silicon Alley employers. And Year Up will use our $130,000 to add more young women to its information technology (IT) training and apprenticeship program. (See Abigail West’s story, right.)

At the Tech Talent Pipeline, employers’ needs shape the job-training curriculum. This is modeled on the New York Alliance for Careers in Healthcare, a succesful program started by The Trust. For more on this program, see our 2013 Annual Report at nycommunitytrust.org.

MY YEAR UP | Abigail West In high school, I saw a poster that changed my life. It was for Year Up, a nonprofit that gives intensive training and apprenticeships to young people who have lots of motivation, but not a lot of money or contacts.

I got in. As I learned about IT, I was placed at Citigroup, where I helped employees with email, solved printer problems, and made their online work more efficient. I learned some “soft” skills, too, like how to deal FIRST with people skeptical of a womPERSON an in IT. After graduating from Year Up, I got a job at CompuCom, a contractor that placed me at the New York offices of a major international bank. Six months later, I was promoted.

Just five years ago, I moved from Saint Martin, in the Caribbean, to Queens to be closer to relatives. It’s been a whirlwind. Now I’m working full-time while earning my bachelor’s.

I like to stop by Year Up’s offices and cheer on the new class. My message to teens who are scared about the economy: Jobs are out there, so start training. Our generation is going to make the world better. _______________________________ Abigail West, 22, lives in Queens.

JOINING THE WORKFORCE: Abigail West found a job soon after graduating from Year Up’s program. Cover and left: Photos by Ari Mintz/The Trust

WHAT’S NEW: This newsletter highlights some of the 51 grants from our most recent round, totaling $7.4 million.

These grants are possible because people started funds during their lifetimes or in their wills. For details about how you can fund this work in New York City, Westchester, and Long Island, see nycommunitytrust.org— where you also can watch our new video.

More Grants to Strengthen our Workforce

TEACHING TEACHERS: A teacher receives coaching from Workforce Professionals Training Institute staff.

Grants Newsletter | February 2015

The Trust’s $100,000 to New York City Employment and Training Coalition helps workforce development groups as they involve employers in everything from designing and running courses to mentoring job-seekers. And Trial Opportunity Partnership will use $75,000 to improve transitional jobs for hard-to-employ job-seekers.

Meanwhile, $80,000 will help Workforce Professionals Training Institute offer courses in employment strategies for different sectors, serving jobseekers with disabilities, and using data to identify jobs in emerging industries.

facebook.com/ nycommtrust twitter.com/ nycommtrust

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CLIMATE CHANGE

Cut Emissions, Build Resilience, Change Lo

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ur most recent grants help insurance companies, environmental groups, and regional governments and alliances take on climate change. This work is made possible largely by our Henry Phillip Kraft Family Memorial Fund, created to support environmental work with national and international impact.

The world “ looks to the U.S. for decisive action and innovation.

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— Arturo Garcia-Costas, Trust program officer for the environment

AFTER COAL: As mines close across Appalachia, residents must figure out what’s next.

We’re giving $350,000 to the Just Transition Coalition, which works to restore polluted and plundered natural resources, teach workers new skills, and create clean-energy jobs. Above: Coalition-member Kentuckians for the Commonwealth marches on I Love Mountains Day. The Trust made this grant from the Oakey L. and Ethel Witherspoon Alexander Fund, created in part to help the people of Appalachia.

ELECTRIC CARS: Carbon dioxide from gas-burning vehicles accounts for nearly a third of America’s climate-changing emissions. Electric cars can help reduce them. Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (known as NESCAUM) is using $75,000 to get more of them on the road in the Northeast and California by working with dealerships, expanding charging stations, and lobbying to create financial incentives for buyers.

RESILIENCY PLANNING: The Trust’s $100,000 grant to Regional Plan Association will help update flood and coastal resilience plans for the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut region and identify communities and public infrastructure vulnerable to storms and rising sea levels (map, above). And American Red Cross Greater New York Region

will use our $110,000 to help downstate nonprofits prepare for natural disasters.

Henry Phillip Kraft is remembered for protecting the environment. What do you want

ge Local Economies

WHERE RIVERS MEET THE SEA: Estuaries teem with life, but they’re vulnerable to storm surges and rising ocean levels. The risks are greatest for poor people in these low-lying places. Our $150,000 to the Association of National Estuary Programs will help strengthen the resilience of three of these communities on Staten Island and in Alabama (pictured) and Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, the Environmental Law Institute will use $80,000 to help local governments restore and manage the flood-prone properties they acquire.

New York’s Vulnerable Infrastructure

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MOBILIZING INSURERS: The insurance industry has been roiled by extreme weather and flooding. With our $100,000, Ceres, a nonprofit that helps corporations be environmentally responsible, is encouraging the insurance industry to disclose climate risks to investors and invest in “green bonds” to finance environmental projects. With past support, Ceres held an Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations last year (above).

ou want to be remembered for? Contact Bob Edgar at 212.686.2564 or rve@nyct-cfi.org

QUICK VIEW | A Sampling of New Grants...

Donors’ bequests are now helping redefine poverty, study children’s bone cancer, and more. Details about our 51 latest grants at nycommunitytrust.org

CONNECTING COMMUNITIES: The A train runs along the spine of the Rockaway peninsula, and the area underneath is an eyesore. Two previous grants, plus a new grant of $50,000, to Rockaway Waterfront Alliance help

HOLDING ON: Last year, our grant to New Visions for Public Schools helped train teams of teachers and principals in three schools to boost student achievement while improving faculty retention. It worked. Our new $160,000 grant will expand this team approach (above) to eight more schools.

plan and build support for a bike and pedestrian corridor to link neighborhoods along the penisula.

Right: a rendering of the corridor.

MENTAL HEALTH

Illness, Incarceration, and a New Start Treatment for Those in Trouble with the Law SUPPORT AFTER RELEASE: For those leaving Rikers Island prison with health and substance abuse issues, our recent $100,000 grant to Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn provides immediate help while enrolling them in longer-term care.

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n 18-year-old who abandoned her baby was struggling with mental illness and didn’t know where to turn. She was charged with felony abandonment. The Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (known as CASES) advocated for her transfer from Rikers Island to the agency’s new Harlem mental health clinic, opened last year with Trust funding. There, she gets treatment while she lives at home, studies for her high school equivalency, takes a parenting class, and visits her child under supervision.

Like many CASES participants, she has a family history of sexual trauma, along with the determination to get her life back on track. The Trust’s new $70,000 grant is helping CASES open a satellite clinic in downtown Brooklyn. The agency is using part of the money to improve electronic record keeping and hire a data analyst so it can negotiate effectively with managed care companies.

CASES Chief Executive Joel Copperman was part of a task force that helped develop Mayor Bill de Blasio’s recent $130 million pledge to address

HELP FOR THE COURT-INVOLVED: Two counselors train at CASES’ clinic in Harlem that’s supported by The Trust.

mental health treatment for those in jail. “This is a concerted effort to address the crisis of mental illness in the criminal justice system,” says AnnMarie Louison, CASES’ director of adult behavioral health programs. nycommunitytrust.org

...From Education to Medical Research BALANCING ACT: Students at the

Borough of Manhattan Community College

(below) are often the first in their families to attend college. Our past grants helped enroll hundreds in Freshman Learning Academy, which gives academic and social support to students juggling school, jobs, and family. Our new grant of $115,000 expands the program beyond freshman year. Photo: Louis Chan

UNDERSTANDING DIABETES: Part of our $90,000 grant to the Naomi

Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University

NO ROOM: Hoarding is a little-discussed problem among seniors suffering from depression and other mental disorders. Cramming objects into an apartment is a fire hazard and can lead to eviction. EIS Housing Resource Center is using our $40,000 for cleaning, psychiatric referrals, and free legal help for seniors facing eviction. Above: The apartment of a hoarding senior before EIS intervened.

supports research by Rebecca Haeusler (above) into how diabetes causes heart disease and stroke.

Funding also supports another researcher’s work using stem cells to create new insulin-producing cells in patients with diabetes.

SOCIAL WORK

Help People, Change Policy Grants Will Improve Social Work Education

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hile helping struggling teens, overwhelmed single mothers, and disabled seniors, social workers develop a keen understanding of problems and solutions. They could bring this insight to policymaking—but too few are trained to deal with larger issues. If the social work profession is to shape housing, child care, health, and job policies, social work education must change.

The Trust is taking the lead in this national effort. Our $1 million grant to the new Social Work Education Project, housed at Hunter’s Silberman School of Social Work, will bring together experts to suggest ways to improve the way social work schools prepare students.

“The schools need curricula, internships, and continuing education programs so their graduates have a greater voice in making large-scale change,” says Pat White, director of the project.

Two other social work grants: • The National Association of Social Workers Foundation and the Council on Social Work

Education are using our $585,000 grant for health-focused scholarships and fellowships for students, and for professional development for educators.

SOCIAL CHANGE: Our generous donors Lois and Samuel Silberman, Robert and Ellen Popper, Harriett M. Bartlett, and Dorothy Fahs Beck were united by a passion for social work. They set up funds in The Trust that allow us to improve the field.

• Hunter College’s Silberman School of Social Work is using $77,000 for management and

advocacy training for leaders of human services agencies.

We must find ways for students and practitioners to “shape the policies that affect the people we serve. ” — Pat White, director of the Social Work Education Project

Grants Newsletter | February 2015

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909 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 www.nycommunitytrust.org Address Service Requested

GETTING REAL: Grants from our Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz Fund to the International Documentary Association underwrote these three documentaries.

From top to bottom: “Rich Hill” (2014), “As Goes Janesville” (2012),“Children of the Arctic” (2014). These films echo the vision of Pare Lorentz, who said: “What I want to do is photograph America— show the people what it really looks like…the farms and factories, the hills and mountains and streams…real people and real places.”

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 5013 New York, NY

Pare Lorentz, a pioneering documentary filmmaker in the 1930s, brought the country’s attention to rural poverty, the limits of environmental resources, and other pressing problems. His widow, Elizabeth Meyer Lorentz, started a fund in The Trust to support films that explore social issues.

We work with nonprofit groups to carry out this wish. For example, we created the Pare Lorentz Film Fund with the International Documentary Association. In the past five years it has given $672,000 to underwrite films on subjects including rape prevention on campuses, the fight to end mountain-top removal in Appalachia’s coal country, and Native Alaskan teenagers facing climate change.

What do you love?

Set up a fund to keep your passions alive—forever.

Call Jane Wilton at 212.686.2563