College Students’ Need for Experience Meets Green Teams’ Need for Staff

This fall, eighteen college students crowded shoulder to shoulder with Mayor Donnelly and members of the Green Team and Environmental Advisory Committee in the eclectic Jersey Made store in Mill Race Village in Mount Holly.

The students were given a pep talk before going door to door to talk to residents. The objective was to learn about community members’ attitudes and preferences for shopping local versus at the big box stores and elsewhere. The data collected provided the necessary information to help develop a planned Buy Local Campaign in town to promote the local stores.

Top: Students ready to go door to door in Mount Holly
Bottom: Students survey residents for Buy Local Program in Mount Holly

Just one month before, nineteen energetic students got down and dirty. They built two rain gardens in Mount Holly. The students dug a large hole and planted it with deep-rooted native plants and grasses to soak up rainwater. In this case, the garden will capture and filter water runoff from a huge parking lot, preventing it from entering the nearby creek. A rain garden can soak up to 30% more water than a traditional lawn. This will help protect the quality of water downstream by preventing runoff from getting to the creek and storm drains.

Perfect Green Swap

It was a perfect green swap. Mount Holly needed staff to get a long list of environmental projects started and the college students needed hands-on work experience.

Thanks to a grant from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Sustainable Jersey partnered with The College of New Jersey’s (TCNJ) Bonner Center for Civic and Community Engagement to form a team of Bonner/Sustainable Jersey scholars that help municipalities to achieve Sustainable Jersey actions. Towns were selected through a competitive application process. Bonner Fellows also help to mobilize TCNJ freshmen students engaged in Community Engaged Learning (CEL) to work with towns participating in the Sustainable Jersey program.

Students working on the Shinn Cabin Rain Garden

By helping to plan and execute green projects throughout the year, the Bonner Scholars are aiding officials from four municipalities—Mount Holly, Trenton, the City of Burlington, and Green Brook—in their goal of attaining the 150 points necessary to get Sustainable Jersey’s bronze level of certification by October of 2012.

This partnership extends the practice of student community engaged learning with service beyond typical non-profit community partners to local governments. The partnership has been beneficial all around, according to Heather Camp, senior program director at the Bonner Center. “The partnership helps us to connect to different communities throughout New Jersey in a meaningful, long-term way. What I think makes the Bonner Center a good partner for the project is that we have the opportunity to mobilize a greater number of students to help communities meet their Sustainable Jersey needs,” Camp said.

This arrangement is useful for towns. Dan Rita of the four-person Mount Holly Green Team said, “Mount Holly is really struggling right now. It has been incredibly helpful to have the students organize and get the projects off the ground.” Each project gave Mount Holly 10 points for a total of 20 points toward Sustainable Jersey certification, moving their total from 90 to 110 points.

Students complete work on the Burlington County Jail Rain Garden

The students get a lot out of the experience as well. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), new college graduates who had participated in internships did far better in the job market than their classmates who did not have that experience. The students gain experience, develop skills, make connections, strengthen their resumes, learn about environmental fields, and are able to assess their interests and abilities. In Mount Holly, Dan Rita of the Green Team makes sure that the students get a full experience.

This spring, the students plan to help Mount Holly install community gardens. The other towns participating in the partnership have some worthwhile projects in the pipeline with the students as well. Stay tuned for updates on the students work with the Green Fair in the City of Burlington, an anti-idling campaign in Green Brook, and asset mapping projects in Trenton.

For more about Sustainable Jersey®:

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All photos by Randi Rothmel

2012 is already shaping up to be quite a year for New Jersey’s philanthropic community.

We have two national organizations coming to Newark in the next few months. At the end of this month, the Association of Black Foundation Executives will launch its 2011-2012 Connecting Leadership Fellowship program with a Leadership Summit in Newark. The Fellowship, which began in 2005-2006, is a yearlong professional development experience which aims to promote the professional mobility and visibility of mid-career Black executives in the field of philanthropy.

Another first is being planned by Grantmakers for Education. The organization will convene one of its three 2012 Urban Education Study Tours in Newark. These study tours bring funders from around the country together for an extensive, multi-day site visit. Their visit is being designed now.

What these two gatherings affirm is the recognition nationally that New Jersey’s philanthropic community is working in innovative and successful ways — pushing the envelope beyond the traditional operating patterns of foundations. We are seeing members connect more and collaborate more. New Jersey’s philanthropic leaders are taking on national leadership roles as well — serving on the boards of national affinity and infrastructure groups. These include the Schumann Fund’s Barbara Reisman with Grantmakers for Education, the Dodge Foundation‘s Laura Aden Packer with the Grantmakers in the Arts, Novartis’ Rhonda Crichlow with the Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals, and Risa Lavizzo Mourey of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with Independent Sector.

When I sit at Council on Foundations Board meetings and share with my fellow trustees the exciting things that we are doing in New Jersey, it piques great interest because they are hearing about New Jersey’s accomplishments from their colleagues in the field – both far and wide. For instance, they have learned of the way CNJG brings our members together regularly with key legislative officials in our “Conversations With the Cabinet.” Or, they’ve heard about our other policy work, like Facing Our Future, for which we’ll be releasing updated and expanded information in the next month.

When CNJG advocated for, and ultimately created, the Newark Philanthropic Liaison position, there was only one other in the country. Five years after embedding Jeremy Johnson in Newark City Hall and Mayor Cory Booker’s administration, he’s been directly responsible for attracting more than $45 million and leveraging millions more.

These and many other CNJG programs throughout the state have placed New Jersey’s philanthropy among those providing best practices and successes that will be replicated across the country.

Nina Stack is the President of Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, the statewide association for corporate, family, independent, and community foundations. She is a regular contributor to the Dodge blog.

Every town has green gurus and community experts. These are the ultra-connected people I call to find out the best trails to hike, the hours of the farmers’ market, innovative sustainable projects, the most interesting cultural resources to visit and more.

Imagine having an insider connection like this to provide you with the greatest community resources, events and even future sustainability goals in every town in your county, state and galaxy. Actually the Green Map System® has not moved beyond the planet, but just give them a little more time.

I confess that I have an aversion to maps that comes from driving for hours around the state before GPS systems arrived. I can assure you, the Green Map System does not involve the static road lines of a conventional map, but rather cool global icons and adaptable tools that you want to use.

The Green Map System has engaged communities worldwide in mapping green living, nature and cultural resources since 1995. In 2011, Green Map received funding from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation to provide resources and technical support to a number of Sustainable Jersey municipalities that were interested in doing a Green Map.

Sustainable Jersey Green Teams

Sustainable Jersey set up an application process, and four teams representing nine municipalities were selected to participate in the program. They include: Central Jersey Team (Hillsborough, Princeton, Montgomery and Lawrence); Camden/South Jersey Team (Galloway, Haddonfield and Camden); a Montclair Team, and a Jersey City Team.

With locally-led Green Map projects in 14 New Jersey communities and in 766 other cities in 60 countries, these maps help people of all backgrounds and ages share fresh perspectives on hometown progress toward sustainability. Each project informs and connects diverse constituencies that care about local nature, cultural, social justice and green living resources. In New Jersey, the maps can even highlight the actions leading to Sustainable Jersey certification.

Seeing is Believing

But Green Maps are much easier to understand visually in printed form and on-line. Here are the communities involved along with local initiatives; find them mapped below:

Jersey City

With an interactive Green Map project underway, great progress has been made in this diverse community. Through funding and tax programs, Jersey City is encouraging green building and green purchasing standards. The Adopt a Lot Law has created community gardens and green areas from vacant lots. Educating the community on urban agricultural practices has driven the construction of two hydroponic greenhouses. It’s the first New Jersey city to execute a Buy Fresh Buy Local Program that will enable local restaurants, schools, food banks, and hospitals to buy local healthy food at wholesale prices.

Montclair

Montclair is paving a path toward a green future. The program Eat Play Live…Better has helped communities work together to improve awareness and access to healthy food and enhance infrastructure related to healthful choices. Montclair’s Mount Hebron Middle School students recently completed their first edible garden. Community gardens are encouraged throughout the town and safe routes for alternative transportation have been developed.

Central New Jersey: Includes the Townships of Hillsborough, Montgomery, Princeton and Lawrence.

These four Central Jersey towns have joined in the movement towards a greener future with cycling and local food focused Green Maps. Green Mapmaking will be used in the district’s education system as part of a new sustainability curriculum. Carpooling and bike lanes have been promoted and built. Princeton has begun holding “Green Drink” gatherings, at which a collection of community members meet on a regular basis to share ideas about eco-conscious living. The West Windsor community has opened their first farmers’ market to sponsor local and organically produced food.

Camden County & South Jersey: Camden, Haddonfield, Galloway

Camden has New Jersey’s new EcoVillage, and aims to encourage awareness among college campuses, high school students, and community members for green action. Camden County’s 36 municipalities are working together to spread sustainable information, strategies, and skills. An inventory to gather information on all greenhouse gases created from county commerce is underway. Galloway and Haddonfield are encouraging the preservation of open green space, as well as the promotion of alternative transportation options. With city and suburbs working together, a wide variety of social and eco issues are being addressed.

Each Green Team has an Open Green Map in development. Among the first to open their map to public insights, images and site suggestions are the four created by Camden, including the Native Plant Corridor, Camden Food Assessment, Mid-Atlantic Rain Gardens and the Camden City Green Map.

Through working with these Green Teams, an interesting challenge has arisen for Green Map System. As each community began developing Open Green Maps, many wanted to include pre-existing environmental health and planning data from GIS maps created by local governments. Green Map System is currently investigating data interchanges to bridge diverse information resources.

Upcoming Green Map workshops are planned for 2012, so I encourage you to participate. For updates on workshops visit the Sustainable Jersey events page and www.GreenMap.org/snj.

For more about Sustainable Jersey®:

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For more about Green Map System®

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Sustainable Jersey staff and partners are regular contributors to the Dodge blog.

By Samantha Rothman
President & Co-Founder
Grow It Green Morristown

One of the things I love about Morristown is that despite its population size (close to 20,000), it truly has a small town feel. It seems of late that whenever I’m out and about in town, I invariably run into parents of children who have been to the Urban Farm at Lafayette. It has been so heartwarming to hear their stories: how their children loved the farm, the chickens, etc. This is routinely followed with an anecdote about how the parent was then shocked to hear how much their child loved the [insert green, leafy vegetable name here].

The Urban Farm in September

I must say, there is magic to the Urban Farm that invites – dare I say tempts children – to try new foods. I’ve seen it with Logan, my own picky eater of 5 years old. If Farmer Shaun presents him with a fresh basil leaf, it is as if it had a chocolate coating! Yet, my basil at our home garden is only good enough after he’s learned to enjoy it at “the farm.” Go figure.

As the Urban Farm at Lafayette continues to expand its reach, so many more children in our community will have the opportunity to engage in healthy eating choices in a fun, child-centered environment. Our “pick a snack” program with the 140 children of the Lafayette Learning Center pre-school program has shown that when given the chance to try new, healthy choices, children not only will give it a nibble, they’ll devour their veggies before even getting a chance to give them a good rinse! (Thankfully, their teachers are on top of it—and the farm is organic). These first interactions with living, fresh vegetables set the foundation for a lifetime of making good nutritional choices.

Hundreds of school children visited the Urban Farm at Lafayette this summer. Their trips to the farm enrich their educational experience and enhance their classroom-based lessons.

Our produce from the Urban Farm is making its way on to the plates of the older children too. Working with the chef at the Morristown High School cafeteria and Chartwells, the food service provider of the Morris School District, our produce is being served up at MHS. Each week, the chef comes to the farm for a pick-up. Choosing from a wide variety of vegetables, nothing has been deemed too uncool for school. We hear the bean salad and collards have both been big hits.

During the height of summer when school is out of session, the Urban Farm at Lafayette has been making weekly donations to both the Interfaith Food Pantry and the Community Soup Kitchen. This summer over 2,000 lbs of produce were donated.

As our support for community food programs grows, we’ve learned that getting the food where it needs to go isn’t always that easy. So, we’re very excited about having been awarded a grant from the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to purchase a pick-up truck. Our new farm truck will support the delivery of our produce, but also enable us to deliver excess produce from other growers, as well as our community garden.

Often, children who attended a class at the Urban Farm at Lafayette with a school group come back on their own in summer months.

Speaking of the community garden, with over 40 families on our waiting list for space at the Early Street Community Garden, we took the leap and began working on the creation of a new community garden in Morristown. We anticipate opening the garden this May. Funding for this new project was made possible through a Franklin Parker Small Grant of $5,000 from Conservation Resources, Inc., a $5,000 award from Gran Fondo NJ and $3,500 from the Supau Family Trust.

In my mind, I can already see the gates of this new garden taking shape, with people bringing in their flats of tiny seedlings, children chasing each other with watering cans, and the first tomatoes being harvested.

While it is true that, on paper, we’re a small organization, but walking in Morristown you wouldn’t know it. People talk about the work of Grow it Green Morristown. Just this fall, we’ve been the recipient of both a Grassroots Award from the Daily Record and an Environmental Achievement award from Governor Chris Christie and the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. And while we are grateful for such recognition, the “organization” of GIGM is really just a vehicle for people in our community to come together to create change – without the people, there is no community garden, or educational farm. They would still just be lonely plots of land.

So, thank you to the people of Morristown. Thank you for being who you are and what you are. Thank you for your help, from shoving dirt, picking up trash, building new beds, and tilling new ground, to having faith in an idea that grew into an organization and supporting GIGM along the way.

Happy New Year!

Images by Carolle Huber / Grow It Green Morristown

We’ve all been there…we decide that it’s time for planning at our organization, so we carefully set up a retreat meeting and craft an agenda designed to help us “be strategic” in our thinking about our future. As soon as everyone has gotten their first cup of coffee, however, the process starts spinning out of control. Board member Bob decides that he wants to change the entire mission of the organization before noon, and refuses to move on until everyone agrees with him. Betty hasn’t been to a board meeting for three years, but shows up to the strategic planning retreat to talk about how they do it on the other six boards she’s on. The Board Chair and Executive Director try valiantly to get everyone talking about the key challenges the group is facing, but diverging focus and personal agendas eventually wear them down. So, they write up a summary of the retreat discussion, label it “strategic plan,” and file it in its rightful place at the bottom of a desk drawer underneath several boxes of binder clips and a bottle of white-out that no one uses anymore.

These kinds of experiences have given strategic planning a bad rap among nonprofit leaders. Too often, the process leaves board and staff members feeling tired and disappointed. Where does this feeling of time wasted come from? I think it’s from planning processes that:

• Are not grounded in the reality of the current situation that your organization is facing. These are the processes that start with false questions like, “if money were no object and you could do whatever you want, what would you do?”
• Don’t offer board, staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders the chance to collaborate in determining what’s most important to the organization and how we will work together to achieve it.
• Stir up conflicts about key issues like mission, programs, and constituents – but don’t do anything to resolve these important questions.
• Include every idea in the final plan, rather than determining the best ideas and prioritizing them. This lack of decision-making results in a plan that is too large to realistically be implemented.

If you’ve been involved in a planning process like this, chances are your strategic plan is also filed in a bottom drawer under the old white-out. And you’re relieved that it will be awhile before you have to “plan” again.

This sense that strategic planning is just a waste of time is such a missed opportunity, however – both for the organization and for its board and staff members. Done right, strategic planning is the fun part! It’s the moment when you actually get to influence the organization’s direction, what it will do for the community, and how that will happen. These are probably the things you wanted to do when you got involved with the nonprofit in the first place, but most of us spend most of our time thinking about far more mundane, everyday matters. Planning is the moment when passion for the mission and the community can be at the center of our discussion – and even if that’s not as fun as a day at the beach, it should be meaningful and enjoyable for all of us.

So, what kind of planning process will actually result in decisions you can use?

1) Before you do anything else, take the time to look at where you are.

Good strategic planning is a process – it takes time, asks hard questions, and aims to make everyone smarter about the organization and its situation. Start your analysis by giving board, staff, key volunteers, and constituents the chance to contribute their thoughts, so people know that their ideas matter. This initial roundup of people’s opinions will also identify key issues that need to be part of the planning discussion.

2) Ask hard questions.

Planning is not the moment to embrace the status quo. It’s the time when we should bring up third rail questions such as, “are all of our programs functioning well?,” or “what does the economic situation mean for us?” or even, “ how will the demographic shifts in our community affect the need for our work in the future?” The most effective planning processes tackle these questions in a deliberate, structured way designed to give you facts that you can act upon. Here are some ideas about questions to ask about your external environment and a simple method for evaluating your programs:

3) Use what you learn from evaluating your current situation to answer big questions about your mission, vision, and programs.

Our organizations don’t live in a vacuum, and we shouldn’t make key decisions about our mission, vision, and programs based on the opinions of the small number of people on our board and staff. What do we want to do? is only part of the question – we should really be thinking what do our constituents need us to do? and what can we be really, really good at? We can form more meaningful answers to these questions when we look at our current successes, feedback from our constituents and stakeholders, and the conditions in our environment that are likely to interact with our work. Really strategic planning takes all of these factors into account when defining mission and vision.

4) Choosing everything is the same as choosing nothing.

Often, so many exciting ideas are generated during brainstorming that we decide we can’t choose – we want to include all of them! But this is a surefire way to make it impossible to implement your plan. You have to make decisions about where you will focus your energy in the coming years. This is what will make your organization more strategic (and your plan more readily implemented). Not sure how to make these tough choices? There are a million decision-making techniques, but here’s a description of one of my favorites:

Once you decide on your goals, make sure you also decide on your objectives – the results that you want to achieve. Too often, we build plans that emphasize the activities that will fill up our to-do lists. But we only work on our activities in order to achieve results for our mission, constituents, and community. What are the results you really want? Knowing this will make your organization more strategic every day, even if you’re not “planning:”

5) If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.

The most common complaint I hear about strategic plans is, “we did all this planning, but then we never did anything about it.” Usually, this is a symptom of a planning process that was not inclusive enough (so people don’t feel ownership over the decisions and won’t implement them), or a plan that is not grounded in reality (so we could never possibly have the money or human resources to implement it). You can make it more likely that you will actually implement your plan if you:

• Have board and staff collaborate in the process so they feel enthusiastic ownership about plan decisions.
• Force yourselves to prioritize all the good ideas that will come up, so that your plan focuses on the most important things the organization can do.
• Create a budget that outlines what it will cost to implement the plan, and how you will obtain those resources. These financial projections can inform your annual budgeting.
• Focus on implementation right out of the gate – if you don’t implement initial work in the first six months, the opportunity is lost. Make sure everyone knows what they should do, and make sure they do it!

Most importantly, remember: if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. If you want to change something about your organization, you have to change the way you approach your work. You can choose to make plan priorities essential to your work – and hopefully spend more of your time and energy focusing on the interesting, challenging, fulfilling projects that emerged during your planning process.

Thinking about starting a planning process at your organization? Here are some resources to help:

Allison Trimarco is the founder and principal of Creative Capacity, a consulting firm that collaborates with nonprofits to find creative solutions to management challenges. She is also an affiliated consultant and instructor at The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University.

Creating Opportunity Along the Entire Food Chain

By Nessa Richman
Brightseed Strategies Founder and President

The goal of the federal Healthy Food Finance Initiative (HFFI) is to increase the availability of healthy food in low income communities. Most visible to the consumer is the matter of increasing the number of supermarkets, grocery stores, and corner stores in underserved communities, and the healthful food choices they provide therein. The role of Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) in this scenario is to support the development of new retail food stores and to expand and improve existing stores in their target communities.

But retail is not just about the storefront, it’s about how products get to market. What if the money spent on food at the retail level also helped develop the local economy?

Retail is just one link in the “food marketing chain.” This chain comprises a possible six segments, each of which houses many types of food enterprises.

1. Retail/Food Access; e.g., grocery stores, corner stores, farmers’ markets, Internet-based ordering platforms.
2. Distribution; e.g., Food Hubs: centrally-located facilities designed to aggregate, store, process, distribute, and/or market locally produced food.
3. Processing; e.g., commercial kitchens, value-added producer cooperatives, fresh-cut produce operations, meat processing facilities.
4. Agricultural Production; e.g., farms and ranches.
5. Technology and Infrastructure; e.g., fertilizer/pest management companies, farm equipment companies, seed and feed businesses.
6. Waste Management; composting facilities and recycling operations.

Brightseed Strategies is working with the CDFI Fund, the co-writers of this Food Finance mini series, Opportunity Finance Network (OFN) and The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), and other strategic partners, to help CDFIs understand why it is important to think about the whole food system when developing a national financing initiative. Educating CDFIs about the full spectrum of healthy food enterprises within healthy food systems increases their lending opportunities, and maximizes the positive impacts of these businesses on their communities.

Healthy food systems are critically important to increasing healthy food access and affordability. This is true in communities of all income levels. Vibrant food production, processing, and distribution enterprises support healthy retail options and a healthy local economy. If these enterprises are locally owned, they provide more benefit to the community in at least three measurable ways:

1. Better jobs. Local ownership of small businesses matters for economic growth. On the community level, more locally owned small (10-99 employees) businesses mean higher individual per capita income growth. Conversely, a high density of large (more than 500 employees) firms that are not owned locally leads to lower individual per capita income growth. This is true for both rural and urban areas.
2. Bigger economic return. Local businesses are better for the local economy. When compared to leading chain competitors, local stores generate twice the annual sales, recirculate revenue within the local economy at twice the rate, and, on a per square foot basis, have four times the economic impact.
3. More community pride. Markets exist within social and cultural contexts, and these contexts affect how resources are allocated. A greater density of locally owned businesses increases the likelihood of community members voting and participating in community civic, political, religious organizations, and even sports clubs, a noteworthy point for those interested in improved health outcomes

HFFI will increase food access in targeted communities, and do much more. If the national initiative’s vision includes goals to encourage or develop economically vibrant, socially equitable, and environmentally sustainable food systems, investments made by CDFIs will benefit agricultural producers, healthy food enterprises of all sorts, and consumers of all socioeconomic levels.

In order to do this, a CDFI can develop a go-to-market strategy in collaboration with potential borrowers, intermediaries, investors, and partners. This may be the best way to develop a customized plan responsive to community needs. In the government and non-profit sectors, we may phrase this work differently: the national HFFI is really an opportunity to develop a HFSFI, a healthy food system financing initiative. And some regions, cities, and communities are creating innovative programs – from TRF’s growing interest in investing in the local food system to Boston-based The Carrot Project, with its focus on supporting small and midsized farms and farm-related businesses.

images courtesy Brightseed Strategies

For the complete series, please visit these links:

Food Financing 101: Introduction
Food Financing 101: Part 1
Food Financing 101: Part 2

Special thanks to Alison Hastings of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), who coordinated the Food Finance series, and to Patricia Smith of The Reinvestment Fund, Pam Porter of the Opportunity Finance Network, and Nessa Richman of Brightseed Strategies for contributing.

DVRPC and their partners are regular contributors to the Dodge blog on issues of food policy and regional food systems.

According to the Council on Foundations, in 2008 there was nearly $18 billion in philanthropic assets in the state of New Jersey. We don’t have a clear sense of where those assets are today with the stock market’s rollercoaster recovery of late. Whether up or down, the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers’ (CNJG) mission remains the same: to strengthen and promote effective philanthropy. As the state’s forum for learning, sharing ideas, and advancing the field, CNJG worked throughout 2011 to inspire our members to be responsive, proactive and effective funders.

CNJG offered grantmakers over 50 roundtable and panel discussions, workshops, teleconferences and webinars in 2011. We hosted 140 New Jersey non-profit and foundation leaders at our annual conference where we explored the powerful role philanthropic networks play in advancing issues and causes. During our popular Conversations with the Cabinet sessions, CNJG members discussed opportunities to partner with state government on mutual issues of concern with Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez, Community Affairs Commissioner Lori Grifa and Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf. And, last week, our 2011 Annual Meeting featured Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, a Camden doctor in the national spotlight for his work to reduce healthcare costs by “hot spotting” or “super serving” chronic healthcare system users. The Nicholson Foundation‘s Charles Venti and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation‘s Gretchen Hartling offered their insight into seeding this type of work and rewards of working with such an innovative champion.

In addition to our programming and services for grantmakers, work progressed significantly on several CNJG leadership initiatives this past year. For example, the Board Bank, which I’ve written about on this blog before, is just about ready to launch with our partners, the American Conference on Diversity, at the helm. Facing Our Future, the groundbreaking initiative that has objectively examined New Jersey’s long-term fiscal problems, is heading into a second phase of its work. I’ve outlined the findings of our first report as part of Facing Our Future in this column before but in the next few months we’ll be releasing an update to the findings, along with some options or best practices that are underway in New Jersey and elsewhere that could prove promising to help address the fiscal crisis we face.

And we saw the continued advancement of a truly successful partnership with the Council’s Newark Philanthropic Liaison Jeremy Johnson, now in place for 5 years. Among the notable achievements: the rollout of Living Cities $15 million blended investment in the “Strong, Healthy Communities Initiative,” submission of a multi-partner application to the White House-endorsed “Promise Neighborhood” program for the Fairmount section of the city and a commitment by the Mayor’s office for a six-community neighborhood revitalization project. The Newark Funders Group grew to over 25 members and it’s Education Subcommittee created the Newark Public Schools Innovative Investment Fund – a pooled fund to support the school district’s strategic plan priority of building “a system of great schools that serve students, their families and the community.”

We also saw the membership of the Council grow with 16 new members. These foundations and corporate grantmakers recognize the importance and value of engaging with their philanthropic colleagues to leverage their impact and staying abreast of the latest trends and best practices. On behalf of the CNJG Board and staff, we thank the Dodge Foundation for allowing us to share our story through their blog. Dodge Foundation’s noble commitment to our region has spurred social sector growth and education, and it has nourished New Jersey’s soul through their generous support of the arts. For that and so much more, we are grateful.

Nina Stack is the President of Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, the statewide association for corporate, family, independent, and community foundations. She is a regular contributor to the Dodge blog.

Making it Happen Across the Country

By Pam Porter
Executive Vice President, Strategic Consulting
Opportunity Finance Network

We all agree that too many communities across the country have very limited access to healthy foods. Sometimes called “food deserts” or “limited supermarket access areas,” the dearth of healthy foods undermines the health of residents, and drags on a community’s economic prospects.

Opportunity Finance Network, headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, is leading a national effort to work with community lenders across the country to help them successfully finance healthy food options in underserved communities.

Financing for healthy food businesses is a critical factor for successfully increasing access to healthy food. It gets great ideas off the ground, and keeps them running and growing:

• by financing supermarkets, corner stores, and food cooperatives, we increase the availability of healthy food options in neighborhoods, employ local residents, and serve as a catalyst for other types of business in the immediate community.
• by financing the supply chain businesses that aggregate food, process it and distribute it, we provide economic opportunities for the growers and processors of food, and increase the availability of locally grown food to our communities.
• by financing food producers, such as farmers, ranchers and fisheries, we ensure that the supply of locally grown food continues to increase, producers can invest in new equipment, and farmers can transition their crops to meet new market demand.

Recognizing the importance of financing, especially in low-income and low-wealth communities where access to traditional sources of capital is often limited, the US Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) launched a two-year Capacity Building Initiative to train community-based lenders, or CDFIs, to learn the unique characteristics of Healthy Food Financing. The CDFI Fund contracted with OFN to design and implement this program, based upon its 25-year track record of working with CDFIs across the country.

To design and implement this program, OFN pulled together a roster of experts including the co-writers of this mini series: The Reinvestment Fund and Brightseed Strategies. Other experts include: The Food Trust, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., The Carrot Project, and Mission+Money Matters.

OFN developed and has delivered workshops to help CDFIs learn best practices to support healthy food businesses across the entire healthy food continuum. The first workshop was held in June 2011 in Philadelphia and hosted by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. Twenty-five participants from around the country came together for in-depth training, practitioner panels and networking with others interested in this sector. Subsequent workshops have been held in Madison, Wisconsin and Denver, Colorado.

Just last week, the Capacity Building team released a Resource Bank on Financing Healty Food Options. This online resource makes the training and resource materials used at the workshops available to the general public and members of the community development industry.

In 2012, OFN has already scheduled workshops in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Durham. In addition to workshop training, we also ensure that CDFIs have access to one-on-one technical assistance from our roster of experts to help them implement the programs they have learned about in the workshops.

In case you missed them:

Food Financing 101: Introduction
Food Financing 101: Part 1 (Pennsylvania’s Initiative Becomes the Model for the Nation)

image courtesy Opportunity Finance Network

In this hyper-connected world there are a multitude of online fundraising possibilities now available to non-profit organizations. It’s often dizzying to wade through them (Kickstarter and Razoo are just two) to find the “best fit.” For the last three years the Art Pride New Jersey Foundation has used the online auction as a way to draw attention to not only its programs and services, but to offer a brand new audience a glimpse of the many exciting cultural events happening throughout New Jersey.

Theaters, dance companies, performing arts centers and museums have all donated tickets to help Art Pride continue its work promoting the value of the arts to our daily lives. Art Pride staff took some cues from our astute destination marketing organizations (DMO) by creating tourism packages for the auction that match cultural events with dinners at local restaurants and, in some cases, hotel stays in Cape May, New Brunswick and Princeton. In a few instances, the DMOs donated their own cultural tourism packages, like the one offered by Destination Jersey City that features salon services and an overnight stay along with gala tickets to Art House Production’s annual Snow Ball.

It’s a win-win for all involved. Bidders come from as far as San Jose, CA and Hawaii to bid on getaways, cultural experiences, and unique items autographed by New Jersey artists and entertainers. Savion Glover recently autographed tap shoes for Art Pride’s auction when he performed at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Maplewood resident and Tony-award winning actor Norbert Leo Butz agreed to have dinner with a highest auction bidder at a local eatery. The range of items for auction is diverse geographically and culturally, showcasing the best that New Jersey arts groups offer all year round.

As with all fundraising special events, the online auction requires board and staff support from hunting down attractive items to answering questions from individual bidders, to assuring that payments are made and items are appropriately delivered. Marketing is essential and Art Pride uses every tool in the box from traditional direct mail, to our blog, to social media channels like Facebook and Twitter to get the word out during an intense two week stretch that includes the annual last minute bidding wars!

Is it all worth it? We think so! The Art Pride New Jersey Foundation has reaped $10,000 from its online auction that is a fun alternative to the traditional annual fund appeal at the end of the calendar year (although you can donate cash through the auction page, too). This year’s auction ends TONIGHT at 8pm on, so check your watch and get your credit card ready to make a bid and give a gift of New Jersey arts this holiday season.

Go to the auction before it’s too late!

Ann Marie Miller is the Executive Director of Art Pride, the premier arts advocacy organization in New Jersey, and a regular contributor to the Dodge blog.

By Patricia Smith
Senior Policy Advisor
The Reinvestment Fund

The Reinvestment Fund (TRF), a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), creates opportunity in low-wealth communities through socially and environmentally responsible development. In 2004, TRF partnered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, The Food Trust, and the Urban Affairs Coalition to create the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative (PFFI).

Leveraging an initial State allocation of $30 million, TRF made $85 million in grants and loans to support grocery stores in communities where infrastructure and credit needs are unmet by conventional financial institutions. By the time the State program closed in June 2010, Pennsylvania’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative had assisted 83 supermarkets and fresh food outlets in underserved rural and urban areas throughout the state, creating or retaining 5,000 jobs.

Kennies Marketplace, Gettysburg, PA

In 2009, TRF partnered with The Food Trust again, and PolicyLink, a national research and policy action institute, to raise awareness on the issue of limited food access in communities across America and the need for a national program to finance the development of supermarkets, grocery stores and other fresh food retail. Together, the organizations developed and disseminated research on areas with inadequate access to healthy food, built a broad coalition of national support and created the policy framework for the national Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI), modeled after Pennsylvania’s FFFI.

The current national campaign has generated extensive media coverage and widespread support for HFFI. More than 90 organizations representing a diverse set of stakeholders (the grocery industry, labor unions, public health and food security advocates, state and local governments, civil rights groups and community development organizations) have voiced their support for a national solution to increase access to healthy food in low-income communities. HFFI is also one of the four pillars of Let’s Move!, First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to reduce childhood obesity.

This advocacy, together with Pennsylvania’s success story, helped fuel President Obama’s launch of an interagency Healthy Food Financing Working Group in February 2010. Instead of attacking inequitable access through separate agency and program silos, the federal departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury, and Agriculture coordinate their review and award processes, as well as mechanisms to track annual investment performance. To date, these agencies have awarded nearly $45 million to support a wide range of interventions that will expand the availability of nutritious foods, including increasing the distribution of agricultural products, developing and equipping grocery stores and strengthening the producer-to-consumer relationship.

Just last week, a bipartisan coalition in the House and Senate introduced legislation that will expand the HFFI to increase access to healthy foods in underserved communities. This comprehensive HFFI legislation responds to issues of limited food access and will invest $125 million to target the number of low-income Americans living without adequate access to healthy food. The legislation calls for critical seed capital to establish new and expand existing healthy food financing partnerships in communities across the United States.

TRF continues to improve access to healthy food in the mid-Atlantic region by providing loans to finance a variety of healthy food retail formats. In addition to financing efforts, TRF has completed a nationwide analysis on low access food areas (available on PolicyMap.com) and researched the benefits of supermarkets on economically distressed neighborhoods. TRF is also developing strategies to broaden a successful food retailing investment program into a diversified sustainable agriculture and local food system funding initiative. As part of this effort, TRF is scanning the landscape of food production, processing and distribution in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern and central New Jersey.

The need for a comprehensive federal policy is critical, particularly in low-income communities and communities of color. With constricting credit markets, grocery store operators face higher obstacles to developing stores and other food-related businesses in underserved communities. Obesity and health-related problems are expected to worsen during these hard economic times. Leveraging combined public dollars and coordinating national policy through HFFI could create new opportunities for improving health and well-being and creating wealth in America’s communities.

In case you missed it, here is the introduction to our Food Financing 101 Series.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2: Making It Happen Across the Country

Image: courtesy The Reinvestment Fund