Celebrating $1.7 million in grants to our affiliates

This past fiscal year (which ended in June 2016) has been one for the books at Hope for New York. Because of the generosity of our donors, we were able to give more than $1.7 million in financial support to our non-profit affiliates — more than we’ve ever given in our 25 year history.

Our mission is to strengthen our non-profit partners with volunteer and financial resources so they can continue their critical work of serving New Yorkers in need. We currently partner with over 45 non-profit organizations across the city, serving populations from the homeless to at-risk youth to the elderly to new immigrants, and we want to ensure they have the resources they need to continue to address poverty and injustice in a way that is effective, holistic, and sustainable.

This year, we funded more than $1.7 million in grants and capacity building support for organizations serving the poor and we mobilized over 3,500 unique volunteers to serve 43,003 hours — that’s over 13,000 times a volunteer served a meal, mentored a kid, or packed a homeless care kit.

You can see more of our grantmaking, capacity building and volunteer activation numbers in the charts below. A few themes have emerged from this year's affiliate development that we're especially excited about:

1. Investing in start-up non-profits to meet needs across the city

For the past 6 years, we’ve been investing in start-up non-profits and working with them to get them off the ground in the early stages of their growth. Past success stories include Restore NYC, A House on Beekman, Open Hands Legal Services, The Open Door, and Center for All Abilities. This year, we added two new affiliate non-profits to our network, both of which are start-ups: Do for One, which serves adults with disabilities, and Safe Families for Children, which connects churches to families in crisis. We are looking forward in the coming years to providing seed funding and incubation support to even more start-up non-profits in the city, so that more and more neighborhoods and populations in need can be reached.

2. Going deeper with our current affiliates

We’ve worked with each of our grant-receiving affiliates to develop a customized “three year partnership plan”, outlining key goals and how we plan to support them through direct grants, training and consulting support, and volunteer activation. Our goal is to go beyond direct grants for funding programs, but to really walk alongside our affiliate partners and fund strategic projects to allow them to become stronger organizations. This includes providing leadership training, resources for developing a board, and fundraising and strategy consulting. We’ve also given grants to affiliates to expand their current programs, like funding an expansion of the mentoring program for the homeless at The Father’s Heart Ministries, or giving grants to help the NYC Rescue Mission broaden their career center programs.

3. Developing and utilizing volunteer leaders more effectively

More and more volunteers are joining us to serve our affiliates at a strategic level. Our Community Grant Circle, now in its third year, is a group of skilled volunteers who serve as external reviewers and advisors with HFNY’s grantmaking process. Through our BoardMatch program, we’ve been able to connect committed volunteers to serve on boards of our affiliate non-profits. And through leadership programs like the Young Supporters and His Toy Store Committees we’re seeing seeing volunteer leaders commit more deeply into the work of mercy and justice throughout New York City.

And what’s the result of all this investment? Lives are changing. Our affiliate network impacts over 1 million New Yorkers, providing access to nutritious meals, emergency shelter, mentoring, educational services, and vocational support.

We couldn’t have done the above without our supporters' incredible investment of time, financial support, and prayer. Thank you for your generous partnership with what God is doing to promote the flourishing of all New Yorkers, particularly the poor and marginalized.

We can’t wait to see what happens this year and hope and pray you’ll partner with us in new and deeper ways.

FY16 Grant InvestmenT