Brooklyn Community Foundation Announces Grant Awards for Bed-Stuy Non Profits

Brooklyn Community Foundation, the largest public philanthropy in the borough, announced on Monday its first round of 2011 grant awards, totaling $2.3 million to 118 nonprofits, including 30 grants targeted towards Central Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Brownsville communities.

Since its launch as Brooklyn’s first community foundation in 2009, it has awarded more than $10 million to Brooklyn’s most effective nonprofit organizations that demonstrate the greatest need.

As one of the most culturally diverse and economically mixed areas in the United States, Brooklyn’s 70 neighborhoods present many challenges for potential donors. The Foundation’s neighborhood-oriented approach has demonstrated that through patient but targeted grantmaking, substantial and lasting impact can be made.

“Brooklyn is New York City’s largest borough, yet philanthropic giving to Brooklyn lags far behind giving to Manhattan based organizations,” said Brooklyn Community Foundation President Marilyn Gelber. “Our role is to narrow that gap by attracting new donors to Brooklyn to help address the borough’s critical needs. 

Bedford-Stuyvesant, as well as many other neighborhoods within Central Brooklyn, rank among the highest in the city’s poverty and infant mortality rates—and lowest in graduation and employment rates.

"We can improve the lives of Brooklynites now and in the future by investing in the people and organizations that understand local needs and can provide the best and most effective approaches to serving their communities,” said Gelber.

These grants come from across the Foundation’s five giving areas -- education, culture, human services, housing and environment -- offering a holistic view of community improvement. For Bedford-Stuyvesant, some of these awards include:

• $25,000 to Education and Youth Achievement grant to Groundwork, Inc to provide college prep and workforce development for high school students.
• $50,000 to Arts for All grant to the Weeksville Heritage Center for programs at its new Education & Cultural Arts Building on the site of the first free African-American community in New York state.
• $15,000 to Caring Neighbors grant to the Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger to support the food pantry’s annual distribution of 1.1 million meals.
• $40,000 to Partnership with Children, Inc. to promote social and emotional learning for at-risk middle school students.  
• $25,000 to Exalt Youth to support an educational internship program targeting court-involved youth. 
• $10,000 to Coro New York Leadership Center for leadership program targeting 100 students at four public high schools. 
• $25,000 to Maura Clarke - Ita Ford Center to support GED and ESL programs for adults. 
• $25,000 to Settlement Housing Fund, Inc. for educational and vocational program. 
• $20,000 to Brooklyn Kindergarten Society to support preschool education program. 
• $10,000 to SCO Family of Services to support home-based, early literacy program. 
• $25,000 to Community Development grant to Pratt Area Community Council for economic initiatives like the “Rolling Up the Gates” storefront stroll on Fulton Street.
• $5,500 to Green Communities grant to the Hattie Carthan Community Garden for a food justice training series.

Other neighborhoods of focus in this grantmaking cycle include Red Hook, East New York, Fort Greene/Clinton Hill, Bushwick/Williamsburg, and Flatbush/East Flatbush.

To view the complete list of 2011 Cycle 1 grants, click here.