The New York Philanthropy Initiative

Note to website visitors about this page:  The New York Philanthropy Initiative was an earlier strand of our work.  Nevertheless, we continue to receive occasional requests for the material organized on this page and, therefore, have kept the page open for your use.

We agree that responsive philanthropy continues to be an important public policy concern and to be of even more day-to-day interest to grassroots organizations, particularly education justice groups.  At this time, however, responsive philanthropy is not a priority for our own policy work.  This is in part because we have found that, not surprisingly, this area of public policy is not a high priority for the grassroots community, parent, and youth groups in our network who depend on foundation support.

We encourage visitors with a continued interest in this important issue to participate in and support the work of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, which you can visit at  http://www.ncrp.org/ .

The New York Philanthropy Initiative (NYPI) is an action research project geared towards making foundations more responsive to the funding needs of New York City organizations that work to achieve social and economic justice.

The project specifically seeks to:

• Expand philanthropic investments in organizations that either represent  the interests of and/or support the active involvement of disenfranchised constituencies in the determination of local and state policy that affects their lives and communities;
• Encourage cross-sector dialogue between funders and social justice nonprofit organizations;
• Raise important questions regarding the role of American philanthropy in promoting democracy, equity, opportunity and fundamental fairness in society.

The first step of the project was the creation of a "map" of progressive organizing and advocacy groups in New York City.  Groups on this map distinguish themselves by working to develop grassroots leadership, influence public policy and promote the participation of disenfranchised constituencies.  The NYPI examines the adequacy of foundation support for organizations engaged in this work.  

In Building Power, Supporting Change? Foundation Support of Community Organizing in New York City, we use organizational and budget data on each group in order to document the overall level of foundation investments in organizations engaged in these activities.  Penny for Your Thoughts , the second report in the series, examines the funding, governance, and fundrashing challenges of a cross-section of New York City-based organizations.