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Wealth Opportunities Realized Through Homeownership (WORTH): Baseline Report

May 15, 2023

This report is part of an evaluation of the Wealth Opportunities Realized through Homeownership (WORTH) initiative. Led by the Wells Fargo Foundation, WORTH supports efforts to close persistent disparities in homeownership in Atlanta, Houston, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, San Diego, and rural and tribal areas. In each market, we examine housing supply and demand, homebuying activity, homeownership trends, and preservation conditions. We found that in almost every market, white households have higher homeownership rates than every other racial or ethnic group. Moreover, macroeconomic forces driving market conditions, like higher interest rates and moderating house prices, can significantly dampen or thwart market collaboratives' efforts to boost homeownership rates for people of color. Future evaluation will examine the implementation processes used in each market. The larger body of work contributes to understanding the crucial connection between homeownership and wealth-building and the multitude of barriers that households of color face in achieving homeownership. It also supports research-backed strategies for increasing homeownership for households of color and for reducing racial disparities.

The State of Women and Girls with Disabilities in New York

May 9, 2023

This landscape analysis focuses on existing and emerging disability justice and inclusion efforts at the intersections of gender and racial justice across New York City and State, and areas for funding that would support the work of disability justice leaders and advocates.In alignment with The Foundation's mission and values, the final report of findings includes an overview of organizations leading this critical work, a spotlight on community-based leadership moving this agenda forward, and information on emerging groups supporting gender and economic equity by and for people with disabilities.

Spotlight on Early Childhood Education: Participation in Pre-K before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

April 28, 2023

The earliest educational experiences of children's lives are critical for their development and lay the foundation for their future achievement and well-being. For children from families facing socioeconomic disadvantage, high-quality public preschool (typically referred to as pre-K) is particularly important because of its potential to close educational opportunity gaps. Early childhood programs like preschool are also beneficial for parents because they allow parents to work or pursue education, while ensuring that children are well cared for in an enriching environment.Families in New York City are attuned to the importance of early education in large part due to the emphasis that the city has placed on its full-day universal pre-K program, known as Pre-K for All for four-year-old children. Pre-K for All is one of the largest pre-K programs in the country, serving an average of 70,000 children annually (about 65% of all New York City four-year-olds) prior to 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic tremendously disrupted New Yorkers' lives, and early education programs (including pre-K for All programs) faced difficult challenges during the height of the pandemic and in its wake. The Poverty Tracker surveyed families and their participation in Pre-K programs before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Spotlight on Early Childhood Education: Participation in New York City’s 3-K for All program

April 28, 2023

Universal pre-kindergarten programs—state-funded early childhood care and education programs that provide free preschool to children for one to two years before kindergarten—have dramatically expanded across the United States over the past two decades. This expansion follows years of research showing that high quality preschool participation can reduce income-based school readiness gaps and promote children's cognitive and language development.New York City is a leader in the national universal pre-K effort with its citywide Pre-K for All program. The program launched in 2014 and quickly grew to offer free, full-day pre-K to all four-year-old children in 2015. New York City's universal pre-K programming expanded further in 2017 with 3-K for All, which aims to provide every three-year-old child in the city with free, full-day pre-K.In this report, we examine families' experiences with the 3-K for All program search, application, and enrollment process during the three academic years that began in fall 2018, 2019, and 2020, drawing from a representative sample of New York City families with young children surveyed by the Early Childhood Poverty Tracker.

In Every County, Across All Budget Lines: White Overrepresentation in New York City’s Nonprofit Leadership

April 26, 2023

Nonprofit New York, Candid, SeaChange Capital Partners, and Thomas Economic Policy and Data Consulting, with the support of Robin Hood, conducted a comprehensive assessment in 2022 of the current leadership demographics of the nonprofit sector in New York City using demographic data from nonprofit organizations' Candid nonprofit profiles. This report seeks to establish updated baseline data to inform our understanding of racial and other demographic representation within nonprofit leadership in the New York City area. Eight New York counties are included in the analysis, including Bronx, Kings, Nassau, New York, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties.Our research questions include:What are ways for determining BIPOC-led, as defined by BIPOC communities?What are the current racial, gender, sexual orientation, and (dis)ability demographics of nonprofit sector leaders in New York City?How do the demographics of New York City's nonprofit sector compare to the total population? How do the demographics of New York City's nonprofit sector compare to low-income New Yorkers?How are leadership demographics reflected in various nonprofit subsectors, including poverty alleviating organizations, and organizational sizes?Is there a relationship between the demographic makeup of an organization's leadership and its financial position?This report used a participatory research design to inform our definitions and data analysis. The project sought the perspective, expertise, and thought partnership from Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) nonprofit associations, BIPOC-led poverty-alleviating organizations, nonprofit racial justice researchers, and BIPOC-identified nonprofit capacity builders.

From Nelson Rockefeller to Eric Adams: The Evolving Politics of Crime and Punishment in New York

February 16, 2023

Despite calls for the "defunding" of the police and the reimagining of policing following the death of George Floyd in 2020, many New York politicians, in response to rising rates of violent crime, have begun to embrace "law and order."  All of this bears a great similarity to the politics of crime and punishment during the governorship of Nelson Rockefeller.  Examining several documents in the gubernatorial records of Nelson Rockefeller at the Rockefeller Archive Center, newspaper articles, and public opinion, this report documents the political response to violence and drug addiction in the 1960s and 1970s and compares it to the present, reviewing contrasting arguments of influential Black leaders and "white liberals." It concludes that the present crime context, much like the one during the Rockefeller-era, has divided the left and Black leadership while solidifying Republican commitment to "law and order." It argues that the history of the Rockefeller drug laws illustrates that these divisions and the legitimate fears of working- and middle-class minorities can produce haphazard policies that harm rather than save these communities.

Expanding Inclusion in the Social Safety Net: Impacts of New York’s Excluded Workers Fund

January 10, 2023

Response to the COVID-19 pandemic and recession spurred a wave of policy innovation around the country. Although federal efforts typically carved out undocumented immigrants, many states and localities around the country tried to bring immigrants and others who were excluded back in. New York's Excluded Worker Fund (EWF) was the largest of these efforts. The $2.1 billion program allowed 130,000 immigrants without work authorization, and some others who fell between the gaps of federal aid, to get unemployment compensation if they lost work during the pandemic recession.To better understand the successes and shortcomings of the program, the Urban Institute and Immigration Research Initiative surveyed individuals in the population targeted for aid by this fund.Findings from this survey are intended to help inform advocacy efforts and future legislation, as New York advocates urge inclusion in the 2023 budget and states and localities across the nation consider the implementation of permanent unemployment benefit programs for excluded workers.

Revitalizing Civic Engagement through Collaborative Governance: Stories of Success From Around the United States

December 16, 2022

A growing level of political dysfunction and hyper-partisan polarization has led us to a critical point in the way we govern. With democracy under threat and deep distrust of democratic institutions, how can we instill innovative reforms centered around real influence and decision-making power? At a moment of extreme vulnerability, communities and civic organizations need to have genuine political agency by directly influencing policy decision-making. Collaborative governance—or "co-governance"—offers an opportunity to create new forms of civic power. This report offers lessons from across local, city, state, and federal policymaking and highlights effective models of co-governance from community leaders and those in government.

Blanchette Rockefeller, Engaged Leadership, and MoMA, 1949-1987

December 12, 2022

This essay aims to highlight Blanchette Rockefeller's leadership style, which emphasized artistic appreciation, collaborative leadership, and institution building. As both a prominent donor to the museum as well as a fixture in leadership during the mid-twentieth century, Mrs. Rockefeller's leadership style falls somewhere between what we would think of as philanthropy and management. Not coincidentally, her husband, John D. Rockefeller 3rd, was engaged with public institutions in the sphere of Asia-US cultural and social relations and pioneered a type of philanthropy denominated "venture philanthropy," which entailed an intellectual and social commitment to favored causes that complemented financial support.[i] In some sense, Blanchette's approach to leadership drew on three key areas: an intellectual emphasis, evident in her passion for promoting artistic appreciation; a social component, manifest in her use of collaborative efforts to advance the mission of MoMA; and, finally, an investment of time, which arguably, in addition to financial support, represented a scarce resource she lavished on the various programs and institutions that she was called to pioneer within MoMA.

Historic systemic racism plagues East Buffalo’s growth

November 30, 2022

The legacy of segregation and systematic racism impacted East Buffalo, long before a gunman walked into the TOPS Supermarket on May 14th, 2022 - unleashing a racist rampage inside the one grocery store that served the neighborhood. The shooter not only destroyed lives but also destroyed one of the few accessible and affordable options for healthy food. This series explores how the East Buffalo community is actively working to heal from the ongoing racial trauma they face, and showcases young leaders who are working to #ChangeTheNarrative and make their community a better place with funding from our sponsor W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Claretta Bellamy reports for NBC News.

In East Buffalo, racial healing alongside a food insecurity crisis

November 30, 2022

The legacy of segregation and systematic racism impacted East Buffalo, long before a gunman walked into the TOPS Supermarket on May 14th, 2022 - unleashing a racist rampage inside the one grocery store that served the neighborhood. The shooter not only destroyed lives but also destroyed one of the few accessible and affordable options for healthy food. This series explores how the East Buffalo community is actively working to heal from the ongoing racial trauma they face, and showcases young leaders who are working to #ChangeTheNarrative and make their community a better place with funding from our sponsor W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Claretta Bellamy reports for NBC News.

Agricultural Conservation Practices: Clean Water and Climate Smart Investments

November 2, 2022

The six states and the District of Columbia that share the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed are currently carrying out plans—called Watershed Implementation Plans (WIPs)—to achieve the pollution reductions called for in the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint, the science-based plan designed to restore the health of the Bay. The 2025 deadline for implementation is fast approaching and more than 90 percent of the remaining reductions must come from agriculture. Though progress has been made, it is still far short of what is needed. Increased funding for conservation practices, as outlined in the state plans, is therefore critical to success.The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) worked with natural resource economists to estimate the economic impact of implementing the remaining agricultural conservation practices in the state plans. The analysis shows that investing in these conservation practices is truly that—an investment with positive economic effects above and beyond the cost. For every dollar spent implementing additional agricultural conservation practices under the Blueprint, the Chesapeake Bay region can expect $1.75 in economic returns to local businesses and workers through additional sales of goods and services and greater earnings, totaling $655.2 million annually through 2025. This investment will also support an estimated 6,673 jobs a year between 2020 and 2025.