Change Capital Fund has supported place-based organizations that address the most urgent needs in the city’s poorest neighborhoods since 1996, first as the Neighborhood 2000 Fund, then, from 1996 to 2012 as the Neighborhood Opportunities Fund. In 2013, sensing a need for CDCs to reposition themselves in a gentrifying city and in a new funding environment, we refocused our support on capacity building and renamed as the Change Capital Fund. We believe that increasing community development organizations’ capacity to manage their programs based on outcomes enables them to reach more of the people who need their services more effectively and to succeed in a competitive funding environment.

During our first cycle we supported Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation (CHLDC), Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), New Settlement Apartments (NSA) and St. Nicks Alliance (SNA), all of whom increased their budgets and improved their outcomes during CCF’s four-year cycle. We sustained our approach for a second cycle of grantees even as we continued to provide stepped down grants to our first cohort. Our current cycle includes: Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Inc. (BK), Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (BSRC), Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) and Make the Road New York (MRNY). In both cycles we provided annual grants of $200-$250,000 paired with generous technical assistance and regular workshops and convenings.

The following case studies mention a sampling of the services that each grantee provided during the early months of the pandemic and as racial tensions erupted. Despite cuts and delays in government funding, all eight of our grantees maintained service delivery while adding emergency supports under dire conditions.