since inception
30 Years of
Helping
Philanthropy
Move Forward
For three decades, FJC has helped donors, foundations, and nonprofit organizations turn ideas into impact. This anniversary experience highlights the partnerships, innovations, and solutions that continue to shape the future of philanthropy.
projects
Fiscal Sponsorship
Some Great Ideas Start Small
FJC helped pioneer fiscal sponsorship as a flexible platform for launching and growing mission-driven initiatives. By reducing administrative barriers, organizations can focus on advancing their work and increasing their impact.
For more on how fiscal sponsorship works—and the ideas it’s helped launch—see page 2 of our 30th Anniversary Report.
Funder Collaborative
Bigger Challenges, Shared Solutions
Collective philanthropy allows funders to align resources around shared goals. FJC supports collaborative giving models that enable donors to learn together, act strategically, and achieve greater impact.
Curious how funder collaboratives come together? Read more on page 4 of our full report.
The Agency Loan Fund
FJC’s flagship lending program
Participating donors choose to invest a portion of their donor-advised funds in a diversified pool of nonprofit loans. FJC underwrites each loan using rigorous credit standards, manages the portfolio, and services every loan from origination through repayment. The result is a lending program that seeks market-rate, risk-adjusted returns while providing nonprofits with access to affordable, mission-aligned capital.
How it Works
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Donors participate. Donors choose to invest a portion of their charitable assets in the Agency Loan Fund. The investment earns a market rate of return on a risk-adjusted basis, generally between 3–5% per annum.
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FJC lends. FJC pools those investments and makes carefully underwritten loans to qualified nonprofits.
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Nonprofits grow. Organizations use the financing to acquire property, bridge delayed government payments, advance capital projects, refinance debt, and address other business needs.
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Capital is recycled. As loans are repaid, the capital remains in the fund—ready to finance another nonprofit while continuing to support future charitable giving.
Nonprofit Capital Solutions
Creative Capital Solutions for Nonprofits
FJC works with willing donors to create customized loans, revolving funds, and other affordable financing solutions that help nonprofits solve business problems traditional finance often can’t. Whether it’s bridging a cash-flow gap, launching an ambitious capital project, or restructuring a nonprofit’s debt, these mission-first investments give nonprofit leaders access to the right solution at the right time.
Read more about how FJC structures creative capital solutions on page 9 of the report.
Complex Assets
Donors Going All-In for Impact
For many donors, the most significant wealth isn’t sitting in a bank account—it’s tied up in real estate, private business interests, or other complex assets. Donating those assets directly rather than selling them first can reduce capital gains taxes and put more resources to work for charity. FJC has the expertise to accept, manage, and convert complex gifts, and a track record of moving quickly when timing matters.
For the full picture on complex asset giving, see page 12 of the report.
Generational Continuity
Preserving Legacy. Expanding Impact.
A donor’s mission doesn’t have to end with them — or with the structure they built.
For some donors, philanthropy is more than a financial decision—it’s a lifelong commitment. FJC works with donors and families to make sure that commitment carries forward: through transitions between generations, through changes in how giving is structured, and ultimately through the legacies donors leave behind. The goal is always the same—to keep the mission alive and the impact growing.
FJC’s approach to multigenerational giving is covered in more depth on page 14 of our 30th Anniversary Report.
The Right Support at the Right Time
A Few Of Our Catalytic Investments Over the Years
“In 2008 we launched a citywide Foreclosure Prevention Gap Loan Program, geared to low income NYC homeowners harmed by predatory lending. FJC enabled us to make extremely flexible, deferred-repayment loans to very low income homeowners who were at greatest risk of foreclosure and displacement — many of whom remain in their homes to this day. Alongside our coalition building, state and federal policy advocacy, and organizing support, the loan program added a powerful new tool to our work and that of our community partners.”
“In 2003, during our second year of operations, FJC financed Civic Builders’s first charter school development project, Bronx Charter School for the Arts. FJC’s support established Civic Builders as a true real estate developer dedicated to serving charter schools, laying the foundation for more than two decades of impact. Today, Civic is the nation’s leading nonprofit lender and developer of public charter schools, having supported more than 100 schools and surpassed $2 billion in investment in charter school facilities nationwide.”
“FJC’s first grant to NYCEEC goes back to 2013, at a formative point in the organization’s history when it was still building its track record as a specialized nonprofit lender focused on financing clean energy improvements in the built environment. Structured as loan capital (and growing over time), FJC’s support helped NYCEEC move from concept and early execution toward sustained impact, ultimately contributing to cleaner, safer, and more affordable homes.”
“Since shortly after our founding a decade ago (then as Brooklyn Community Bail Fund), FJC has been a steadfast partner, allocating over $3,000,000 to our bail and bond funds. In our early years, we were a local fund just beginning to build our model; today, we are the largest bond fund providing immigration bonds in the country and the only one operating in New York State. FJC’s revolving grants haven’t just funded our growth, they've funded our ability to meet the moment, again and again, helping us keep pace with the scale of need we were seeing.”
“Since its first loan in 2009, FJC has been instrumental in preserving and strengthening local public media outlets across the country. In partnership with Public Media Company, FJC has provided over $33 million in loans to over a dozen local public media organizations across the United States. Access to capital was essential to preserving stations at risk of being sold, and to preventing the loss of local news outlets in the communities they served.”
“Back in 2014 we chose FJC as our fiscal sponsor when the Climate Museum was just getting started. The FJC team received our tax-deductible donations and managed all administrative and fiscal back office aspects of our operations for several years. Our model of climate engagement was new when we started - using arts and cultural programming to help people feel and act on their own civic agency. Now it’s commonplace. We simply could not have handled this on our own, even setting aside the wait for 501(c)(3) status.”
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