The Trust called "heroic" for large grants that have helped New Yorkers in need

The Trust is praised for granting $7 million to strengthen umbrella organizations helping New Yorkers avoid hunger, homelessness, and foreclosures.

The 8/31/09 City Limits Weekly article, "Nerve-Racking Times in New York City's Largest Private Employment Sector" was written by Anne Noyes Saini.

The article is excerpted below:

"...Foundations have also stepped in to help nonprofits weather the economic storm. More are allowing their grants to be used for general operating expenses. Others have shifted their grantmaking priorities altogether - at least temporarily - to fund human services organizations that provide basic services for people hit hard by the recession. "The number of foundations providing human services support has increased," noted Sigurd Nilsen, director of policy research at the Council on Foundations. "More foundations are maintaining or increasing their grantmaking in this area than are maintaining or increasing their grantmaking overall. You can interpret that as a shift."

This summer, the Staten Island Foundation awarded $170,000 in emergency grants to 34 organizations. The new grant program provides funding that can be used to cover operating expenses. The New York Foundation also has also allowed the nonprofits it funds to convert existing grants to general support. "We've had to change the way we do our work," said executive director Maria Mottola. "With every group, at some point the current economic situation is going to be a factor."

One of the biggest boosts to New York City nonprofits came in February, when the New York Community Trust awarded more than $7 million to eight key nonprofits that work to alleviate hunger, homelessness and foreclosures. The grants were announced earlier in the year in order to get funds to struggling nonprofits as quickly as possible. "Our strategy is to help the 'mothership' organizations, which know how to use the money wisely to help their members," said Trust spokeswoman Amy Wolf. "The idea is that these big groups really know what their constituents need, so it's more effective to give them larger sums of money and have them distribute that."

"The New York Community Trust stepped up big time. They frontloaded their grants and they made larger grants and they made grants to what they called a 'safety net,' so they funded all these really crucial frontline services for poor communities," Community Resource Exchange's Fran Barrett noted. "They were just heroic." Barrett and other nonprofit leaders also praised Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to help the city's nonprofits cope with the effects of the economic downturn.

In April, the mayor announced a slate of new initiatives aimed at improving the way the city and the nonprofit sector, which contracts to provide most of the city's human services, work together. The measures more than double the funding for bridge loans through the New York City Returnable Grant Fund and, for the first time, give nonprofits access to the city's Capital Access Revolving Loan Guaranty Program. The initiatives will also institute long-awaited reforms to the city's contracting process..."

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