Investing in Vaccine Equity

$250,000 from our Brooklyn COVID-19 Response Fund will support community-based organizations to address inequities in access to information and health care services—including vaccines

We are pleased to launch the next phase of our Brooklyn COVID-19 Response Fund, beginning with grants for culturally relevant, medically accurate COVID-19 health outreach and support in communities of color.

This funding commitment is informed by conversations with Brooklyn residents through our Brooklyn Insights 2020 community engagement process, who indicated a continuous scarcity of trustworthy information and resources on COVID-19, including transmission, treatments, and vaccines. Their comments underscore the heightened vigilance and trauma in these communities, which are the result of the American healthcare system’s historical abuse and neglect of Black, indigenous, and other people of color.

“We know that community-led, community-embedded organizations are the most trusted messengers, and therefore the most effective agents for helping residents feel informed and able to access the prevention and care they need. Frontline nonprofits have the relationships and understanding needed to support communities on the margins of power and access. We must ensure these organizations have the support and funding to do this essential lifesaving work now.”  

Foundation Featured in NY Times

What More Can We Do?

Our Guest Blog for the Center for Effective Philanthropy:

Brooklyn is home to the largest Black community in North America. Nearly 70 percent of the borough’s residents are non-white. For our staff at the Brooklyn Community Foundation, the events of the past year have revealed in the starkest terms that systemic racism is the greatest threat to the health and well-being of our communities.

As we approach one year of COVID-19 in America, and as we reflect on the record grantmaking we’ve done and the countless changes we’ve made to how we support our grantee partners, we can’t stop asking: What more can we do?

This spring, we are expanding our commitment to community-led grantmaking to our Immigrant Rights Fund!

The new Immigrant Rights Fund Advisory Council will work alongside our staff to invest in organizations ensuring that immigrants in our borough have the opportunity and agency to achieve social and economic success.

We invite immigrant community members to apply for this a paid opportunity. Applications are due Friday, March 12, 2021.