The Community Foundation of New Jersey celebrates the leadership of Dennis Wilson as Chairman of the Board of Trustees from 2018 through 2020.

Tapping Philanthropy’s Spike for Long-Term Priorities

Community Foundation as thought leader

The year 2020 was, in a word, volatile. The back and forth among political partisans on foundational issues such as equity, expression, and race marked a volatile year in our civic squares.

The ups and downs in the market, interest rates, and unemployment marked an historically volatile year for the American economy.

Volatility transcended our social norms, our cultural appetites, our media consumption, and even our charitable giving.

While municipalities have had to endure this volatility and deliver consistent service on behalf of residents, there is an opportunity to leverage at least one aspect of this volatility – charitable giving from residents – in ways that lead to maximum, long-term benefit.

Click here for our op-ed in Municipalities magazine.

Chartering a new path: Racial equity

Community Foundation as social justice advocate

The clarion call for racial equity in all aspects of civic life, including philanthropy, has been increasing in intensity over the last few years. We have witnessed example after example of the great disparities facing people of African descent and other ethnic minorities in education, economic advancement, social justice, health outcomes, and access to housing. When the news of George Floyd’s murder erupted, following a difficult three months of pandemic, quarantine and economic dislocation, the Community Foundation of New Jersey responded to the moment at hand with a statement of concern and outrage, and a promise for commitment to racial equity.

The Leadership Committee met in June 2020, and took up the issues raised in our statement to think about how we as an organization and civic community leader could address structural racism in our state and effect lasting change that leads to racial equity.  Following an earnest conversation among members and staff, the group came to consensus around a few principles of how to inform our work:

• Conversations around race, and being anti-racist, are uncomfortable but necessary
• Words are not enough; we have to support those words with concrete actions
• Remove bias from the grant selection process
• Get at root causes, rather than applying Band-Aids, recognizing there will be urgent needs that require attention
• Without advocacy and policy that affects systems change, direct services support alone is futile
• Solutions to these difficult challenges will not be swift or easily tackled, but
• Chipping away at the problem is important; focusing on the magnitude of the problem causes inaction
• We have to start internally with a self-assessment.

The Community Foundation of New Jersey is committed to three critical actions: educate ourselves, use a racial equity lens to reflect on the Foundation’s processes and underpinnings, and educate and inform our current fundholders.

3,200 New Winter Coats Distributed to Kids through the South Jersey Funder Collaborative’s “Operation Warm Up Jersey Shore”

Community Foundation as local partner

This past winter saw a lot of snow in New Jersey, but that was all the more fun for 3,200 children in Monmouth and Ocean Counties who received new, warm winter coats. As part of the South Jersey Funder Collaborative’s “Operation Warm Up Jersey Shore,” the coats were purchased and distributed by partners including Fulfill, Operation Warm, Better Education for Kids, and the Community Foundation of South Jersey. The effort was, in fact, made possible by a grant from the South Jersey COVID-19 Response Fund, spearheaded by the Community Foundation of South Jersey, an affiliate of CFNJ.

Over two picture-perfect November days, hundreds of families attended drive-through events at Fulfill in Neptune and the Church of Grace and Peace in Toms River. Fulfill also provided each household with a meal kit including holiday favorites cookies and hot chocolate. Community volunteers and staff affiliated with the funding partners, Fulfill, and the Church of Grace and Peace did the heavy lifting loading the meal kits and coats into participants vehicles.

Gathering of Givers: Reshaping our Communities and our World

Community Foundation as convener

As we begin to imagine our lives after the pandemic, we know that women’s needs and choices will be critical to how the world evolves. Will the millions of women who left the workforce last year rejoin it? How will workplaces be transformed? What conversations will women lead in the public square, and how will our art chronicle this moment? How will our philanthropy reshape our communities? How can women move the country toward greater social justice?

The third annual Gathering of Givers explored these pivotal questions and more on May 8th – International Women’s Day – through a virtual meet-up that brought together leaders from the worlds of philanthropy, art, activism, and business. The Community Foundation of New Jersey is proud to present the Gathering of Givers in partnership with Women@NJPAC and Impact100 Essex.

Leadership Work: Immigrant Families

Community Foundation as Changemaker

In late 2018, the Community Foundation of New Jersey, The Fund for New Jersey, and the Victoria Foundation banded together to form the Funder Collaborative for Immigrant Families supporting nonprofits working to make life better for immigrant families in New Jersey. Together with the Prudential Foundation, which provided critical initial support, and additional matching support from several national funders through Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, the Funder Collaborative first convened nonprofit leaders to identify key areas of focus and then worked closely with them to seed new initiatives.

The work continues in 2021 as we work to improve the social and economic wellbeing of the more than 500,000 undocumented New Jersey residents, including more than 50,000 DACA eligible youth.

Thank you for your continued generosity!