The Change Capital Fund (CCF), a collaboration of 15 foundations, financial institutions and government dedicated to increasing economic mobility in New York City’s persistently low-income communities, has selected four new grantees to harness the strength of community development corporations (CDCs) to reduce poverty in high-need New York City neighborhoods.
CCF, which provides flexible grants and technical assistance in four-year funding cycles, will help four organizations increase their performance management capacity to address persistent poverty more effectively. This second cycle builds on the accomplishments of CCF’s first four grantees, which increased their scale and impact while generating new funding for their organizations. The accomplishments of CCF’s first cycle are documented in five evaluation briefs and a final report by MDRC [forthcoming, September 2018] and a CCF report, Smart Organizations, Strong Neighborhoods.
Each of the new grantees will receive up to $800,000 over four years and access to technical assistance as they implement new and refined strategies and develop tracking systems that will equip the organizations to demonstrate their results in a funding environment that pays for success. The CDCs, working in the South Bronx, Central Brooklyn, the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Staten Island, were selected through a competitive process. The four organizations in the first cycle will receive extension grant funding of $100,000 each.
Many of the very low-income neighborhoods where CDCs have worked over some four decades have experienced a dramatic reversal of the disinvestment of the 1970s to 1990s, spurred, in part by the CDC’s physical redevelopment of abandoned buildings. Now these organizations are engaging residents of limited economic means in planning and organizing to enable them to stay in their neighborhoods and to thrive through access to affordable housing, education, and jobs.
CCF has found that siloed funding and data systems inhibit the potential impact of neighborhood-focused organizations that act as anchors to a constellation of local, government, and private partners and funding streams. CCF funding will help grantees evaluate their own progress and support the integration of services and programs to increase outcomes. For example, residents of affordable housing may increase their financial literacy and job skills; residents engaged in organizing and neighborhood planning efforts may be engaged in increasing their English language skills.
The donors selected these four organizations to participate in the second cycle.
- Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Inc. will better coordinate and evaluate its housing, social services, health and organizing to increase its impact in the South Bronx.
- Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation will strengthen its partnership with Bridge Street Development Corporation (BSDC) and IMPACCT Brooklyn to create neighborhood-level economic and community development improvements in two high poverty census tracts in Bedford Stuyvesant, while also expanding these opportunities across Central Brooklyn neighborhoods.
- Good Old Lower East Side will learn to use data to better connect its direct services, public education, community organizing, community-based participatory research, and coalition building; thereby increasing its impact for the residents of the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
- Make the Road New York will increase the ability of Staten Island residents, particularly immigrant families, to enforce their legal rights, access educational and work opportunities, and achieve broad-based policy change by increasing internal evaluation and coordination of its services and organizing.
Each grantee has been awarded a $200,000 grant, renewable for three additional years. Lili-An Elkins Management Consulting will provide technical assistance to the grantees to strengthen their theory of change, select key metrics, create cross-program MIS systems, strengthen the data-oriented culture of the organizations and, ultimately, to use their data to improve programs and demonstrate public benefits. Grantees will also be able to choose additional consultants to support this work.
Matthew Klein, Executive Director, NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity & Senior Advisor, NYC Mayor’s Office of Operations said, “Complex challenges require multifaceted solutions, and so we are proud to be part of this cross-sector collaboration that is supporting integrated, data-driven strategies to address poverty in New York City.”
Patricia Swann, Senior Program Officer at the New York Community Trust and CCF Co-Chair said, “The New York Community Trust and our funding partners are committed to investing in community development because these organizations are demonstrating that they make a difference for individuals, families and neighborhoods.”
Beth Gilroy, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for the Americas at MUFG Bank said, “Our participation in CCF gives us the chance to make larger and longer-term grants and to exchange knowledge with our peers in the field. We are proud to be part of this donor collaborative.”
Non-Profit Organization Management Consultant, Chief Strategy Officer at ROCA, and Associate Professor at Columbia University, Lili Elkins said that, “CCF funders have taken on an important challenge by helping organizations to build their performance management capacity. Using performance based management allows nonprofits to work more strategically and to make clear and convincing arguments in support of their services. Strong performance management enables nonprofits to focus on the work that generates the most effective outcomes and leads to better run organizations that can effectively compete in today’s environment.”
According to a brief by MDRC entitled, Beyond Reporting, Using Data as a Performance Management Tool, “Maximizing the effectiveness of services that meet the needs of low-income residents in each of the CDCs’ neighborhoods is a matter of urgency. What makes CCF unusual compared with other community initiatives is its investment in building the capacity of its grantees to use data for performance management. CCF’s approach is helping CDCS transform their use of data.”
About the Change Capital Fund
Over a period of 20+ years the donor collaborative now called the NYC Change Capital Fund (CCF) invested over $30 million in philanthropic dollars to strengthen the capacity of non-profit Community Development Corporations (CDCs). CDCs pioneered the revitalization of distressed communities throughout New York City by creating and preserving housing and repairing the fabric of neighborhoods across the city. The CCF recognizes the importance of strong neighborhoods to New York City, and particularly to the prospects of the city’s low-income residents.
Evolving from the Neighborhood Opportunities Fund, which began in 1996, the donor collaborative launched CCF in 2013 to help CDCs retool and refocus on disrupting persistent and concentrated poverty. New and renovated housing, revitalized shopping districts, safer streets, and restored civic pride prove the benefits of coordinated philanthropy that supports entrepreneurial, community-based nonprofits.
Participating donors
Altman Foundation; BankUnited; Capital One; Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation; Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.; Local Initiatives Support Corporation; Mizuho Bank USA; MUFG; M&T Bank; New York Community Trust; New York Foundation; Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity; Santander Bank; Scherman Foundation; and United Way of New York City.
About CCF’s New Grantees
Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Inc., was formed in 1977 when residents of the South Bronx came together to confront the disinvestment resulting from decades of structural racism and inequality in the forms of redlining, urban renewal, planned shrinkage. Today, Banana Kelly works to revitalize the Community Districts 2 and 3 of the South Bronx through the development and management of affordable housing and a combination of social services, community organizing, and advocacy. Its Residents Council, a core group of residents that informs internal policy decisions and housing campaigns, has been a sustaining force for the organization, reflecting its community-driven approach. Banana Kelly is committed to keeping housing affordable. It operates 55 buildings with 1350 units, provides Medicaid Services Coordination, eviction prevention, school and afterschool programs and other social services.
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation is the nation’s first community development corporation with a track record that spans half a century. An anchor in the community, respected coalition builder, and direct service provider reaching over 60,000 annually, Restoration’s mission is to relentlessly pursue strategies to close gaps in family and community wealth to ensure all families in Central Brooklyn are prosperous and healthy. Restoration is pleased to partner with two high performance partners like Bridge Street Development Corporation, a faith–based not-for-profit organization whose mission is to build partnerships with businesses, government, and other community stakeholders to provide civic and economic opportunities to the residents of Central Brooklyn, and IMPACCT Brooklyn, a community development corporation committed to helping residents build and sustain flourishing communities in Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights.
Funding from the Change Capital Fund will support Restoration as the lead organization and partners Bridge Street Development Corporation (BSDC) and IMPACCT Brooklyn to create neighborhood-level economic and community development improvements in two high poverty census tracts, while also expanding these opportunities across Central Brooklyn neighborhoods. The Initiative’s goals are to:
- maximize sustainable community development and growth by providing housing and services that contribute to neighborhood affordability, stability, and diversity;
- develop effective employment, economic and education programs in response to resident needs; and,
- organize, engage, and empower residents to work together to define neighborhood solutions and build community agency while creating neighborhood conditions that advance racial equity and opportunity.
Good Old Lower East Side Good Old Lower East Side, Inc. (GOLES) is a grassroots organization that has served the Lower East Side of Manhattan since 1977.
GOLES serves, engages, and empowers low- and moderate-income residents of the LES/Loisaida, specifically people of color, through community organizing, public education, direct services, community-based participatory research, and coalition building. Our work focuses on six interrelated issue areas: housing, land use, disaster preparedness and environmental resiliency, healthy aging, job readiness, and youth.
Make the Road New York Make the Road New York builds the power of immigrant and working-class communities of color to achieve dignity and justice. Recognizing that real and lasting improvements will be achieved only when all New Yorkers have sufficient power to enforce their legal rights, access educational and work opportunities, and achieve broad-based policy change, Make the Road NY supports and enables residents’ efforts to access education and legal services and to shape policies that affect their lives.
Make the Road NY’s model integrates four core strategies:
- Legal and Survival Services to tackle discrimination, abuse and poverty;
- Transformative Education to develop community members’ abilities to lead our movement and society;
- Community Organizing to transform the systems and structures impacting our communities and win policy changes that benefit millions;
- Policy Innovation to rewrite unjust rules and make our democracy accountable to all of us.
The organization applies its multifaceted approach to issues critical to its community: workers’, immigrant and civil rights; environmental and housing justice; justice for TGNCIQ people; and, educational justice. Make the Road NY has over 23,000 members in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester.
CCF’s first grantees are receiving extension grants in 2018-19; these include: