Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn: 16 Nonprofits Get $1.5M Lifeline

When federal funding cuts started hitting Brooklyn’s nonprofit sector in 2025, Brooklyn Org — the borough’s community foundation — responded with a campaign and a check. In December 2025, the organization announced it had committed more than $1.5 million in new, multi-year grants to 16 nonprofit organizations working across the borough on food access, immigrant rights, mental health, youth leadership, and support for older adults on fixed incomes.

The announcement came at a moment the organization described as critical — a time when communities were “navigating unprecedented cuts to federal social service programs while daily cost-of-living rises.” A Brooklyn Org survey of local nonprofits found that 86% reported rising costs in the past year, 60% said they had lost government funding, and more than half feared they would not be financially stable heading into 2026.

The Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn Campaign

Brooklyn Org launched a campaign called Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn last summer, aiming to raise $5 million over one year to increase financial support to frontline organizations by 25% over the previous year. In 2024, Brooklyn Org distributed more than $3.8 million through community grantmaking and over $15.7 million through Donor Advised Funds.

The grants announced in December represent the latest round of that campaign in action. Selected by an advisory council of fellow Brooklynites — a participatory grantmaking model the foundation has used for years — each organization will receive up to $45,000 annually for as many as three years.

Who Is Getting the Money

The 16 organizations represent the full breadth of Brooklyn’s needs. Among them: Black Veterans for Social Justice, which supports veterans with housing assistance, financial coaching, and food access; Brooklyn Rescue Mission Urban Harvest Center in Bedford-Stuyvesant, which combines a grocery-style pantry, benefits outreach, and community farming; and The Campaign Against Hunger, which operates a city-wide pantry network with home grocery delivery and community farms that double as job training sites.

On the mental health and immigrant services side, Global Trauma Research provides trauma-informed mental health care to immigrants and underserved residents, while Mixteca Organization serves Mexican and Latin American immigrants with services spanning migrant rights, economic justice, mental health, and health and wellness. Homecrest Community Services in South Brooklyn offers meals, wellness programming, and civic engagement for older adults in Asian immigrant communities.

Other grantees include Churches United For Fair Housing, working on housing justice and political organizing; UPROSE in Sunset Park, promoting climate justice and environmental resilience; We Build the Block, which offers therapy, restorative justice, and daily-living support for young men affected by gun violence; and QARAVAN, which helps LGBTQ+ immigrants and refugees in South Brooklyn navigate services and reduce isolation.

The full list also includes Immigrant Children Advocates’ Relief Effort (ICARE), NY Birth Control Access Project, Sure We Can, The Circle Keepers, The Family Center, and Volunteers of Legal Service.

Why This Matters Right Now

“At Brooklyn Org we believe that the surest path to transformative change is through local action,” said Dr. Jocelynne Rainey, President and CEO of Brooklyn Org at the announcement. “All of the nonprofits we are supporting today have done the work on the ground to develop solutions that will best serve our communities.”

Of the 16 grantees, 7 have annual budgets of less than $1 million — meaning this grant represents a transformational share of their operating capacity, not just a line item. That’s the point: Brooklyn Org’s model specifically targets organizations that are doing essential work without the institutional infrastructure to survive a federal funding cut on their own.

What You Need to Know

Brooklyn Org committed more than $1.5 million to 16 Brooklyn nonprofits in December 2025, with grants of up to $45,000 per year for up to three years.
The funding was made possible through the Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn campaign, which aims to raise $5 million and increase grantmaking by 25% in FY26.
Grantees work across food access, immigrant rights, mental health, housing justice, youth development, environmental justice, and older adult services.
Brooklyn Org reviews applications on a rolling basis and announces grants twice a year. The next announcement will be in spring 2026.
Nonprofits in Brooklyn can explore funding opportunities and resources at brooklyn.org.
Individual Brooklynites can donate to Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn to directly fund this grantmaking at brooklyn.org/brooklyn-backs-brooklyn.

If you want to understand how Brooklyn holds itself together when the larger systems start to fray, this is a good place to look. Sixteen organizations, hundreds of thousands of neighbors, and a community foundation betting on local answers to citywide problems.