The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation (NNJCF) launched and announced the first awards of its Legacy Grants Program. These four nonprofit organizations in New Jersey were recognized: CivicStory in Summit, Creative Placemaking Communities in South Orange, and the Hackensack Riverkeeper in Hackensack, as well as the Network for Responsible Public Policy (NFRPP) in Ridgewood. The recipients also each received a grant award of $2,500 to undertake their work.
Creative Placemaking Communities Leadership Summit
The NNJCF, a regional resource in the state, improves community life. The Foundation accomplishes this by working in six priority areas. These include the arts, civic engagement and education. In addition, the NNJCF focuses on the environment, philanthropy, and public health.
Legacy Grants Program
CivicStory’s 2019 New Jersey Sustainability Reporting fellows
The new program expands the Foundation’s mission to bring people and organizations together to address pressing issues in northern New Jersey. “The Legacy Grants Program supports organizations fostering collaboration in their communities. With these awards, the recipients will promote creativity, civic engagement, and environmental resiliency in their daily work,” said Michael Shannon, President, Northern New Jersey Community Foundation.
Nonprofit partners with a longstanding track record promoting the NNJCF’s priority areas received the grant awards to support their general operations. Furthermore, grantees were selected based on their existing relationship with the NNJCF, as well as their ability to leverage a small grant for a broader impact.
Nonprofits With a Mission to Collaborate
The grant awards provide support for the organizations to carry out their missions of collaboration. CivicStory, a solutions-based news site, focuses on environmental health, justice, and sustainability. They advance solutions-based news about citizens building healthy communities. Furthermore, their New Jersey Sustainability Reporting Fellowships provide professional and student journalists the opportunity to write about environmental sustainability work in the Garden State.
Creative Placemaking Communities works to help creative placemakers lead, achieve and inspire new and better partnerships, projects, programs and policies. They also support those who strengthen communities through local arts and culture. In addition, they connect creative placemakers to opportunities and resources, while also seeking to build lasting communities of practice.
Hackensack Riverkeeper’s UEP program
The Hackensack Riverkeeper defends the Public Trust resources of the Hackensack River Watershed. The organization accomplishes its mission through environmental action and advocacy, as well as education and litigation for the people and wildlife that depend on the river and its watershed for life. They undertake this ambitious mission using formal and nonformal environmental education programs designed to raise awareness of the people of the Hackensack River Watershed. They seek to protect, preserve and restore fish and wildlife habitats found within the watershed.
A NFRPP educational forum
The NFRPP’s mission encompasses fostering a vibrant democracy. They accomplish this by providing stories with authoritative information and forums for debate on public policy issues. In addition, their goals are to educate, inspire, and motivate the public to engage more deeply in our democracy. NFRPP also wants to develop a constituency of informed, civic-minded voters seeking common ground in pursuit of the common good.
