We envision a State where foundation leaders from every region are engaged in aligning and leveraging resources, developing and implementing intersectional approaches to community challenges, and being allies to advocates and community organizers who are addressing the needs of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities throughout New York.
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Dear Colleagues:
Happy New Year! As our network embarks on a new year and a new decade, it is only right to think about our past. In 2010, Engage New York was an idea born out of conversations between foundation leaders, mostly from New York City, interested in learning and sharing information with each other about grantees focused on organizing and building state-wide momentum for equitable policy change. Part of their goal was to connect with colleagues from other regions in New York that shared their vision, and began to slowly build a diverse network of foundations leaders. Over the past decade, Engage New York has realized the original mission and truly is a network of diverse leaders from different corners of the state, from different types of foundations, with varying asset sizes. The network is guided by principles of justice and equity, and is centered on developing relationships with each other. In early 2018, after several conversations with stakeholders, Engage New York narrowed its focus to work on Census 2020, safe and healthy housing, immigration reform, and criminal justice. The network affirmed its mission and committed to being action oriented, as well developing new models of how to work across regions by aligning and/or pooling resources to invest in the change they were seeking.
Below, you will find more information about each of the issue areas Engage New York is working on, some of our programmatic achievements from the previous year, and highlights of some of the policy wins that our advocacy partners helped to achieve in 2019.
In 2020, the Advisory Committee will be meeting in late January on Long Island to discuss our accomplishments over the past year and to develop our programmatic plans for the next twelve months. We look forward to sharing more about our future work in the upcoming months. However, we invite you to contact
us
if you have questions and how you might engage more meaningfully with our network.
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EXPLORING THE HUDSON VALLEY
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Part of what we have learned through our work over the past decade is that to achieve a more equitable New York, foundation leaders need opportunities to connect with their colleagues and to witness the challenges regions outside of their own grantmaking geographies are confronting. To meet this need, Engage New York has committed to organizing site visits with partners in different parts of the State.
In previous years, Engage New York has organized tours in
Buffalo
and
Long Island
, both regions of the State that have been experiencing demographic and economic shifts, and offered interesting opportunities to talk about state challenges within a local context.
In May 2019, Engage New York organized a site visit to the Hudson Valley, which census data tells us has been experiencing significant demographic shifts throughout the region over the past decade. Coupled with several local progressive policy wins in 2017 and 2018, the Hudson Valley is becoming a key region in understanding state-wide policy. With over 50 foundation leaders in attendance, were able to witness first-hand the changes impacting the Hudson Valley River cities of Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, and Kingston, and what it means not only for local progress, but also how organizations are influencing key policy discussions in Albany. The two-day agenda included presentations, panels, and tours featuring how the region is approaching developing housing and working with landlords and tenants, increasing transportation, thinking about urban planning and land use, food justice and systems, and how community organizing is informing policy as the region faces immense change. One highlight from the tour was hearing from local leaders building powerful movements in rural communities, like Millerton, that are transforming how the communities approach land-use, farming, and are taking a stand on hateful immigration policies. It was a jam-packed two-day site visit that was filled with excitement, great discussions, and highlighted the need to bring leaders together more often in this type of setting. The positive feedback has has prompted Engage New York to consider hosting another site visit in 2020. Stay tuned for details.
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Opening Presentation
Setting the Context
:
The Hudson Valley Then and Now
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The Power Of Movement
with Drew Andrews
, The Center for Creative Education
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NYS CAMPAIGNS:
Changing the Conversations in Albany
. The panel featured the following organizations and campaigns:
Advocacy Institute
Green Light
Caring Majority New York
Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance
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To read the full agenda, see more pictures, and download resources and information from the Hudson Valley Site Visit, click
here
.
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Lead Poisoning Prevention
In 2018, Engage New York was asked to support the burgeoning coalition titled the Lead Poisoning Prevention Statewide Advocacy Network (LPPSAN). This group, which is comprised of advocates, nonprofits, Department of Health officials, researchers, public interest lawyers, and foundation leaders came together to share information, resources, and to eliminate lead poisoning in children across the State. Building off the 2018 framework the Coalition developed together, and the passage of a
bill
that will protect children in New York by lowering the statutory standard for elevated blood levels from 10 to 5 to comply with the CDC. Currently, the Coalition is working together to advocate for resources to support the implementation of this new law by providing financial support to local communities that are likely to have more cases of children with blood levels of 5 or higher.
Also, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, the Central New York Community Foundation, the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties, and the New York Community Trust have developed an aligned fund to support a two-year strategy to move New York to a primary prevention state. The invite-only RFP was sent to 23 organizations that are positioned to collaborate to move this body of work further. If your foundation is interested in learning more about this work or participating in the aligned funding strategy it is not too late, please contact
us
for more information.
Housing Justice
Building off of the discussions that took place during the Hudson Valley Site Visit regarding tenant rights, rental control, public housing, and healthy and sustainable housing, Engage New York partnered with the
Neighborhoods First Fund
to host a policy briefing featuring some of the leading advocacy groups to discuss the 2019 policy wins including protections for renters through
rent stabilization
and
eviction protections
, what the plans are for implementing these new policies, and future asks the groups will consider including in their 2020 policy agendas.
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Housing Panel featuring the following Coalitions/Campaigns:
Right to Counsel
Just Green Partnership
Housing Justice for All/
Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance
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Alexa Kasdan
, consultant, sharing her preliminary findings for a report she is writing about how policy wins were achieved in 2019
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Small Group Discussion:
How can Foundations can support equitable housing in New York?
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To find out more about the Campaigns and Coalitions, click on the links below:
All of these coalitions and campaigns are looking to expand their base, and are looking for local nonprofits and resident groups throughout the State to be part of their networks to amplify the needs of all New Yorkers and inform future equitable housing policies. Engage New York is happy to make an introduction to any of the lead organizers for each of these coalitions, many of whom may already be organizing in your region of the State.
Other News to Track on Housing Policy:
For those that have not been tracking housing discrimination news, in late 2019, Newsday broke the story of a three-year investigation they have been conducting on Long Island exposing the level the real estate industry has been violating the fair housing laws. In this expose,
Long Island Divided, the authors share what they learned and the extent of the discrimination black families are facing on Long Island.
The New York Times has also been following this newsworthy story in the following two articles:
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IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE REFORM
This was an important year for immigration policy in New York State, given the removal of the IDC and the Democratic controlled Senate. As the session opened, one of the first pieces of important legislation passed. The Dream Act ensures children who were brought into America illegally are eligible to apply for tuition aid from the State if they can prove they attend high school in New York. Even with $19 million being allocated in the State budget to support the Dream Act, there have been
challenges with implementation
, but advocates remain hopeful that in the second year of the program students will feel confident in completing the applications, and the forms will be easier to complete and will offer more guidance.
The second piece of immigration policy that passed in the NY State Assembly was the Green Light legislation. In early summer, after a decade of advocacy efforts, the Governor signed
Green Light
into law allowing all New Yorkers to be able to apply for a driver's license with valid, foreign documents that prove their identity and age instead of a U.S. Social Security card. Of the two immigration policies to pass in the Assembly, the Green Light bill was certainly more controversial with vocal detractors and lawsuits filed. The first lawsuit was dismissed in mid-November while advocates continued to prepare undocumented immigrants to apply for driver's licenses starting on December 16th, when the bill went into effect. To learn more about the importance of this legislation and the details about what is included in the Green Light bill, click
here
.
To showcase the work and share with the foundation community what it took to pass these monumental pieces of legislation, Engage New York hosted a webinar in December 2019, highlighting the work of the
New York Immigration Coalition's
work on both pieces of legislation, as well as the work local partners like Columbia County Sanctuary Movement in the Hudson Valley and SEPA Mujer on L
ong Island contributed to the effort.
The webinar covered not only what strategies the advocacy groups used to ensure the Dream Act and Green Light passed, but also allowed the advocates to share some of the implementation challenges both laws are facing. To review the webinar, click
here
.
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PARTNERSHIP WITH NEIGHBORHOOD FUNDERS GROUP TO PROMOTE RURAL NEW YORK
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In the Fall of 2018, with the leadership of Faron McLurkin, who was a Program Officer at the
Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock
and on the advisory committee for Engage New York, in partnership with Neighborhood Funders Group's (NFG) Integrated Rural Strategies Group (IRSG), we hosted two initial meetings for funders who make grants in rural communities. The first of the meetings meetings was to share and solicit reactions to the landscape scan titled,
Voices from the Field, Rural Organizers on What they Need from Funders
, that IRSG commissioned. The second meeting was to invite input from rural funders about what they need, and what could help promote their work regionally and nationally. The feedback was positive, and participants shared the need and desire to continue to meet to identify ways they could meaningfully work together in the future. In early 2019, Faron transitioned to NFG full-time to run IRSG, and began to develop plans to bring interested New York funders together with others throughout the country.
In October of this year, Engage New York and IRSG held a meeting of foundations from across the state representing rural and urban grantmakers from almost every region of NYS to discuss how to amplify the assets and opportunities in rural New York. At the end of the meeting, the group has developed the following idea and agenda to begin working on in early 2020.
Project overview
Rural New York is often overlooked and underfunded but remains an important source of power. In partnership with foundations across the state, IRSG and Engage New York will commission a scan and an analysis that seeks a deeper understanding of the structural barriers to rural equity and enables a more nuanced reflection of rural realities based on dis-aggregated data, centers the voices of directly impacted rural residents, and focuses on rural NY’s assets. A group of New York foundation leaders decided it was important to make visible those who are not recognized as the face of rural, with a focus on race, class, gender, and disability as key drivers of invisibility and marginalization. The analysis will include an inventory of community assets that includes the contributions of people of color, low income individuals, people of all gender identifications, and the disabled. The project goal is to create a narrative shift around how rural NY is seen and assert the need for rural inclusion in statewide strategies and equity conversations. The project will have data and narrative components.
To learn more about this portfolio or to engage in this work, contact
Faron McLurkin
.
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As part of our commitment to a complete count in New York State during the 2020 Census, Engage New York continues to play a valuable role in advancing the work of the
New York State Census Equity Fund (NYSCEF)
, which is pooled fund managed by the New York Community Trust. As part of our commitment to a fair and accurate Census, we convene weekly phone calls of the Steering Committee, identify funders interested in engaging in the NYSCEF, write a monthly
newsletter
to keep the field updated on census happenings, work with other key stakeholders like the Census Bureau, the Governor's office and other key stakeholders, assist with the documentation and evaluation strategy for the fund, convene state-wide consultants in other states, and connect with the national collaborative as appropriate. Earlier this year, Engage New York worked with advocates and stakeholders to organize to ensure the citizenship question was not added to the Census questionnaire to help alleviate the fears of immigrants and refugees. As we enter into 2020, the work of the Fund will continue to support efforts and strategies that promote a complete count, but will also begin to turn its attention to redistricting.
The NYSCEF has awarded nearly $2.0 million dollars to support the 2020 Census. To read about the grantees supported by fund, click on the following links.
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