2020 marked our fourth year of grantmaking in the Hudson Valley, and the year when we finally surpassed $1 million dollars in grantmaking in the Hudson Valley through our Community Funding Committee (CFC) process.
Through the CFC, local organizers volunteer their time to review grant applications and collectively decide which applicants to award. This grantmaking model shifts power in the field of philanthropy to communities directly impacted by injustice.
Not only did we surpass $1 million, over the course of this difficult year, we more than doubled our grantmaking in the Hudson Valley, with well over $900,000 in grants in 2020.
Our Hudson Valley grantees received grants as part of our spring 2020 push to move money to distressed communities as quickly as possible. Most of our grassroots grantees received automatic renewals in the spring of 2020 (that in many cases they were already expecting, since we started a multi-year grantmaking commitment to the Hudson Valley in 2019).
Plus they received multiple grants from our Future of Organizing Fund, and then 22 organizations received an additional renewal grant in late fall of 2020.
Why have we increased our grantmaking so dramatically to support grassroots organizations in the Hudson Valley? The leadership there has proved responsive and effective to the problems facing these communities since the crises created by COVID-19. Many of these organizations were running robust organizing campaigns already, then added mutual aid and direct assistance programs on top of that organizing.
Their intense pace is why most of these grants required no additional applications and have limited reporting requirements. We know that any additional time spent reporting right now takes away from work on the ground addressing the overwhelming level of need facing some communities.
Many of these grantees began to add direct assistance on top of their organizing. Here are a few examples:
- Adelante Student Voices provided laptops for students who were suddenly learning from home, and small stipends to youth when most of the typical summer jobs that they take to support their families had evaporated. And helping people get valid drivers licenses following the victory of the Green Light campaign in 2019.
-
Columbia County Sanctuary Movement
Columbia County Sanctuary Movement provided over $100,000 worth of meals to families while also supporting New Yorkers who were having to go to immigration court during the pandemic and building up a mutual aid network called Mano a Mano.
- Rise Up Kingston and the Newburgh LGBTQ+ Center formed a partnership to create the Black Liberation Fellowship, providing local leadership in the Hudson Valley to address transphobia and homophobia in the local Black community even as these groups press forward against anti-Black racism in the broader community. And… Rise Up Kingston is running a robust food delivery program for people unable to leave their homes during the pandemic. And… Newburgh LGBTQ+ Center also created a Queer eviction relief fund to help people stay in their housing.
- Worker Justice Center of New York provided personal protective equipment (PPE) to farmworkers as they pressured the governor to issue enforceable worker protections for farmworkers (our state government issued guidelines, not enforceable regulations). And… they have also been central in the coalitions calling for the New York Heroes Act and the Fund for Excluded Workers alongside fellow grantees Columbia County Sanctuary Movement and Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson.
Our nearly two dozen grantees are engaging a wide swath of communities who are otherwise overlooked by assistance programs and support from the state: farmworkers, rural LGBTQ New Yorkers and undocumented families, to name just a few.
We’re proud to support them in their struggle as they adapt to the difficult times we’re in and add even more work to their ongoing organizing. Here are the 22 Hudson Valley groups who received a total of $295,000 in grants in the fall of 2020:
#100Sistas, Yonkers
ADELANTE Student Voices, Poughkeepsie
Birth from the Earth, Yonkers
Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, Hudson
Community Governance & Development Council (CGDCNY), Yonkers
Community Resource Center, Mamaroneck
Evergreen Garden, Monticello
Freedom Food Alliance, Germantown
Grace Immigrant Outreach, Millbrook
Hudson/Catskill Housing Coalition, Catskill
In Our Own Voices, Albany
Kite’s Nest, Hudson
MHAction, New Paltz
Newburgh LGBTQ+ Center, Newburgh
Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson, Poughkeepsie
Proyecto Faro, Stony Point
Rise Up Kingston, Kingston
Sustainable Port Chester Alliance, Port Chester
The Underground Center, Saugerties
VOCAL-NY, (Multiple cities)
Worker Justice Center of New York, Kingston
Yonkers Sanctuary Movement, Yonkers
For more information about how you can support our Hudson Valley grantees, reach out to Gabriela Quintanilla.