With a $3.5 million loan from FJC, Life of Hope, a community organization in Central Brooklyn, acquired a property that will be transformed into central hub of its programs serving youth and immigrant families.

“The acquisition of this new building is not just a real estate transaction,” explained Porez Luxama, Founder and Executive Director of Life of Hope.  “It is the beginning of a transformative chapter for our organization and the entire community.”

Life of Hope was founded in 2006 by two brothers who were raised with a strong sense of service for those in need.  In the late nineties they were brought by their mother to the United States and experienced firsthand the challenges faced by their mother as a Haitian immigrant working to establish a new life for her family.  At that time, there were no services available to help her adapt to daily life in the United States. Recognizing the need for immigrant services in NYC, the brothers founded Life of Hope.

Today the organization serves over 65,000 youth and immigrant families with an array of services, while also championing the legacy and contributions of Haitian-Americans ​in the Diaspora.

As one of the few Haitian-serving (and Haitian-led) organizations in New York City, Life of Hope enjoys support from elected officials at federal, state and local levels of government and has secured over $12 million in public funding to build its community center.  FJC’s loan helps the organization solve a timing issue, relative to the flow of funds from public sources and their need to move quickly to acquire the property from the seller, who provided the organization with an aggressive timeline within which to close. FJC was able to move from intake to approval to closing and funding within seven weeks.

The loan was made from FJC’s Agency Loan Fund, a program that allows FJC donors with Donor Advised Fund (DAF) accounts to invest in a pool of nonprofit loans as an impact investment.

“Without a lender with the speed of FJC, Life of Hope could very well have lost the opportunity to develop this site,” said Steven Polivy, Partner at Akerman LLP and pro bono counsel for the project.

The acquisition of the property prompted an outpouring of public statements from the officials that have committed funding to the project, including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, NYC Pubic Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, -Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, NYC  Council Member Rita Joseph, and NYC Member Mercedes Narcisse.

We invite you to read this blog post by FJC CEO Sam Marks about the existential threats facing nonprofits as a result of delayed government payments – and the role philanthropy can play in helping nonprofits manage through these challenges. The blog post was published in Alliance’s online magazine, and is excerpted here.

Imagine being charged with critical life-changing responsibilities while being starved by the same public actors to whom you are accountable. This is the crazy-making situation nonprofits are finding themselves in, whether they are housing the unhoused, providing safe spaces for women fleeing intimate partner violence, or providing childcare, many of society’s most critical services rely on timely, predictable funding from government agencies. The problem is that payments for contracted services have become anything but reliable for too many organisations.

For too long, nonprofits’ business needs have been woefully misunderstood and undervalued, and the bill is now coming due.

Not-for-profit operations face the same financial challenges as their for-profit counterparts — managing cash flow, planning payroll, and navigating financing relationships. However, the segment of the nonprofit sector that carries out necessary services funded by the public sector faces unique challenges.

Public contracts come with immense upfront costs of delivering services, and oft-delayed payments are gumming up the underlying financial machinery for many service providers. As my friend John MacIntosh wrote in City & State last year, ‘Nonprofit vendors regularly complain that the procurement system is complex, antiquated and creates lengthy payment delays that are costly, sometimes even fatal, to organizations waiting for their money.’

The fundamental problem for nonprofits is that without reliable access to capital and credit, something as basic as delayed contract payments can pose an existential risk. To be clear, committed officials at every level of government are delivering important reforms to the public contracting process. Bureaucratic reform, however, is slow. In the meantime, foundations, which provide grants and help nonprofits build capacity in myriad ways, can and must develop creative new ways to support nonprofits and rally the support of committed philanthropists.

Increasingly imaginative philanthropists and foundations are developing creative solutions to help nonprofits navigate unreliable cash flow, providing a model for others to follow.

Please read the full blog post at Alliance Magazine, which includes examples of recent solutions FJC has executed, including a bridge loan to Brooklyn Defender Services, and low-interest revolving loans for Brighter Tomorrows and an LGBTQ youth-serving organization.

FJC congratulates Queens Community House on the ribbon-cutting ceremony at its Forest Hills Community Center, following a two-year, $16 million renovation.  The project was made possible in part by a $3.9 million loan from FJC, which bridged public capital grants.

The ceremony drew local elected officials and dozens of Forest Hills community residents, including stakeholders whose connection to the community center goes back over its nearly fifty-year history. 

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said, “We know what this center means to Queens, and I think it’s more important than ever that we have spaces like this in our borough.”  

More than 500 neighbors pass through the center on a typical day, as it transforms itself from a senior center in the morning to an after school site in the afternoon and a Teen Center in the evening.  The center hosts numerous immigration services, free English classes, youth workforce initiatives, services for older adults and much, much more.

Speakers at the event included Queens Borough President Donovan, NYS Assembly Member Andrew Hevesi, NYS Senator Joseph Addabbo, NYC Council Members James Gennaro and Lyn Schulman, and former NYC Council Members Danny Dromm and Karen Koslowitz, and Robert Rodriguez, CEO of DSNY. See NY1 News coverage of the ceremony here.

Earlier in November, FJC’s CEO Sam Marks was a guest on Get Connected with Nina Del Rio, New York City’s 106.7 Lite FM’s weekly talk show featuring NYC’s influencers, experts, and vibrant non-profits.

Del Rio interviewed Marks about his background and the world of Donor Advised Funds, as well as the creative ways that FJC puts philanthropic resources to work. 

He spoke about FJC’s Agency Loan Fund, an impact investment vehicle that allows donors to invest some or all of their accounts in a pool of loans to nonprofits, so that funds are actively supporting nonprofits even before they are disbursed as grants. He cited capital grants and contract receivables as payments FJC’s loans typically bridge. “We do a lot financial intermediation, during these timing gaps for nonprofits,” said Marks.

He also spoke about innovative transactions with nonprofits like The Fortune Society and the Tenement Museum. 

From the interview:

People typically think, my philanthropy is to make grants to help an organization hit their goals to operate in the black for the year. But you could also use philanthropic dollars to help organizations be more entrepreneurial and take on more exciting projects that will help them grow and expand their services.

The nonprofits we work with understand the challenges that their businesses face, whether it’s cash flow issues because of late payments or a dearth of capital to take on new, exciting projects.  The nonprofits really know where their gaps are.  The challenge for us is finding donors with the imagination to put their philanthropic dollars to work to fill those gaps. If we could get more of our donors to think about, while the dollars are with us, how they could be invested for the benefit of nonprofits, we could really help nonprofits worry less about where their next dollars are coming from. We could go to the heart of what makes these nonprofit businesses challenging.

You can listen to the whole interview at this link.

We invite you to read this guest essay by CEO Sam Marks published in Inside Philanthropy.  The article suggests that “this is a time to experiment with deploying philanthropic dollars more strategically to help nonprofits address those issues more effectively and spend more effort on mission-critical work.”

The essay recommends that donors look beyond grantmaking for their philanthropy and consider other approaches to using philanthropic capital.  Examples cited include the revolving predevelopment fund FJC arranged for the Fortune Society, and the refinancing of the Tenement Museum’s mortgage through a DAF investment.

From the essay:

The conversation between philanthropy and nonprofits very often begins and ends with grantmaking, and there is no question that grants are a key component of nonprofit business models. But the nonprofit sector could surely benefit if this conversation were more expansive — on both sides. Nonprofit practitioners could be more explicit with their philanthropic partners about their cash flow challenges that distract senior management from a full focus on their missions, or the capital resources they need to grow and be truly transformative. Donors could consider more inventive and mission-focused uses of the philanthropic dollars that are currently invested in the private sector, whether in foundation endowments or in DAF accounts. These approaches depend on donors and nonprofits engaging more deeply and finding a common cause.

Simply put, there’s an opportunity to grow beyond the conventional relationships between donors and nonprofits by elevating creative, entrepreneurial thinking. Sponsors of DAFs, in particular, can play a role in helping small donors align their funds and execute some of the more inventive uses of their philanthropic dollars, such as loans, recoverable grants or impact investments. DAF sponsors have always offered donors operational scale and efficiency; why not also offer technical and legal assistance to facilitate these more complex transactions? Or to pull together multiple donors that want to work collectively to create a solution?

This vision for DAFs is not just about more effective donations; it’s about building a more robust philanthropic ecosystem where the interests of donors, nonprofits and beneficiaries converge.

Read the full essay here.

Reflecting on best practices by FJC and its imaginative donors, FJC Chief Executive Officer Sam Marks wrote “Donor Advised Funds and Impact Investing: A Practitioner’s View”, which was accepted for publication by The Foundation Review in their December, 2022 issue focusing on impact investing.  The journal is the first peer-reviewed journal of philanthropy, written by and for foundation staff and boards. 

The article provides a brief overview of FJC’s origin story and the establishment of its Agency Loan Fund as a bespoke impact investing vehicle, which allows participating donors to invest in a pool of loans to nonprofit borrowers that help them bridge cash flow and achieve their missions.

Marks also highlights some of the innovative transactions FJC has executed with its donors, including a 0% interest revolving line of credit for Brighter Tomorrows, the refinancing of the Tenement Museum’s mortgage, accounts that allow foundations to participate in crowd-sourced small business loans, and the recently closed revolving fund for the Fortune Society.    

“In the end,” Marks writes, “the potential for DAF sponsors to accelerate impact investments may also come from their ability to aggregate not just dollars but inspiration.”

Read the full article here.

FJC closed a $3.9 million bridge loan to Queens Community House (QCH) to bridge public sector grants to revitalize The Forest Hills Community Center. QCH has modernized the entire facility by overhauling its programming rooms and constructing new meeting rooms. The organization has also overhauled its recreational area, built a new neighbor’s lounge and installed accessibility upgrades including a new elevator and better walkways.  

FJC’s loan will facilitate the buildout of a new annex, which was built by the nonprofit Phipps Houses and, via agreement with the City, sold to QCH for one dollar.  City capital grants are only available to nonprofits on a reimbursement basis, which often requires them to borrow to start work.  “We were looking for a lender with a straightforward process, who understands how public grants work, and could get this done with the collateral we have,” said Executive Director Ben Thomases. 

QCH is a multi-service settlement house committed to serving the diverse neighborhoods of Queens. QCH serves more than 25,000 children, youth, adults, and older adults every year.  The Forest Hills Community Center played a central role in the organization’s origin story. 

Please find below excerpts from QCH Executive Director Ben Thomases’ s recent essay in This is Queensborough, a publication of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, reflecting on the past, present and future of The Forest Hills Community Center.

The Forest Hills Community Center — a site born from a bitter controversy that gripped our borough 50 years ago — has reopened for programming after undergoing a major renovation. The Center was part of a compromise crafted by little-known attorney Mario Cuomo after a widespread uproar arose from plans to build a public housing development in Forest Hills, then a predominantly white, middle class community. The conflict touched on racial tensions and prejudices, but also demands for government accountability and community input in local planning.

Cuomo’s compromise, which also included establishing the development as the first and only coop in New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA’s) portfolio, received a mixed response, but the process and the result were ultimately deemed a great success. My organization, Queens Community House (QCH, originally Forest Hills Community House) was founded to run the newly-built community center on the site, with a board comprised of neighbors from both sides of the conflict. When the Center’s doors opened in 1976, it hosted only three small programs, but from the beginning these programs were crucial in bringing together new and longstanding residents of the community and helping a divided community to heal. As our organization grew, so, too, did the Center’s activity. Before the renovation, more than 500 neighbors attended the Center on a typical day, and more than 4500 people passed through its doors each year.

As the neighborhoods around the Center (Forest Hills, Rego Park, Corona, Elmhurst) changed and diversified, the Forest Hills Community Center continued to play an important role in community integration and stability. Children, teens, older adults, new immigrants, and families from different backgrounds and walks of life have come to the Center to improve their lives, to learn a skill or get connected to a resource, to get to know their neighbors, and to make a difference in their community. As we have seen in Forest Hills and in the other 14 neighborhoods in which we now operate, community centers are the keystones to healthy, integrated communities and are fundamental to the work that we do as a settlement house. In addition to providing much-needed services, community centers also serve as modern-day town squares, where people can debate opinions, share ideas, and find fellowship. I believe this has been especially true in Queens, which has been at the forefront of what urban communities of the future will look like.

Since the Forest Hills Community Center was originally owned by NYCHA, it saw few renovations or improvements over the years and much of its infrastructure had become worn down and outdated. Fortunately for us, the need for an upgraded space coincided with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to purchase this site. In 2017, negotiations between NYCHA and the Forest Hills Coop led to the tenants assuming ownership of the property. In turn, the tenants offered QCH the opportunity to purchase the Center in December 2020. Soon afterward, we began the process of reimagining the space to better meet the community’s future needs, and started renovation work in late 2021.

While renovation will be ongoing through spring of this year, the work necessary to reopen for programming was completed in early fall 2022. The new Forest Hills Community Center is brighter and more accessible, with technology-enhanced program rooms, upgraded infrastructure, skylights, gender-neutral bathrooms, an elevator, ADA-compliant doors, and improved walkways. The renovation also freed up space for additional programmatic use, including a Neighbors’ Lounge off the front lobby, small meeting rooms to ensure participants’ privacy, and an expanded food pantry.

The renovation has been supported by a number of public and private sources, including the Queens Borough President, the Council Speaker, Councilmembers Karen Koslowitz and Danny Dromm, the New York State Regional Economic Development Council, and numerous foundations and individual donors. We are grateful for their support and for their acknowledgement of the importance of this site for the communities of central Queens.

The Forest Hills Community Center started out as an experiment, but it has grown into a vital part of the Queens landscape and a demonstration of the good that can come out of conflict, if addressed in the right way. We hope this renovation will enable it to provide another 50 years of service to the borough as it continues to evolve.

The Action Heroes of STREB defy gravity and soar through space; they flip, tumble, leap, and sometimes fly.  The dancers give life to the work of Elizabeth Streb, a choreographer, and MacArthur “Genius” who has broken the boundaries of traditional dance for over 40 years, fusing dance, sports, gymnastics, and the American circus. With its customized equipment and culture of constant invention, the art of STREB can’t happen without an organization undergirding it, a nonprofit business that faces the same challenges of any business: marketing, earning revenues and managing expenses, planning for future growth, and launching new projects.

FJC recently closed a $250,000 bridge loan to STREB, which required a sensitivity to the particular business challenges facing this unique nonprofit.  While more traditional lenders might have secured real estate or hard assets as collateral, FJC looked to government contract receivables and contracts on future commissions.  As with other loans from FJC’s Agency Loan Fund, the source of capital for this loan comes from pooled Donor Advised Fund accounts that have been allocated to a nonprofit loan fund as an impact investing vehicle.

FJC’s loan will, in part, bridge proceeds from a commission that will return STREB to Australia for the first time in 24 years.  STREB’s outdoor festival performances in Australia will feature large pieces of equipment: a gleaming aluminum 21-foot turning ladder, a human-sized hamster wheel, a machine that revolves dancers like blades of a windmill, and an Olympic-sized trampoline. Mounting performances with so many (literal) moving parts is hugely cost-intensive, and a bridge loan from FJC fills the gap between when the work happens and when the organization gets paid.

STREB serves diverse audiences through performances and educational programs that provide access to, and participation in, “Extreme Action,” Streb’s signature movement style that thrills audiences with choreographed feats of physicality.  In a typical year, nearly 10,000 people come to SLAM, including 5,000 audience members at nearly 40 shows; 800 students at over 60 weekly classes; 3,000 school children and community organization constituents; 200 artists who rent SLAM to create and present work, teach and take a class; and 850 children, tweens and teens who attend ACTION CLUBS and summer camp.

“We are grateful to have a longstanding relationship with FJC,” says STREB founder Elizabeth Streb. “We are an organization that prizes speed, agility, and nimbleness, and we appreciate it all the more when we can find these qualities in our financial partners.”

This summer, FJC closed a $50,000 loan to the nonprofit The In[Heir]itance Project, to assist the theater organization’s growth while it waited for committed foundation grants to be paid. The loan represented a satisfying “second act” in the relationship between FJC and the nonprofit, which had previously been incubated at FJC as a fiscally sponsored project.

“It’s always great when one of the programs that ‘graduates’ from FJC’s fiscal sponsorship can become one of our borrowers,” says Laura Hoffman, Program Manager of FJC’s Fiscal Sponsorship Program. 

The In[HEIR]itance Project works with intergenerational, intersectional, and interfaith communities to build relationships across divides through collaborative theater projects inspired by shared cultural touchstones. They are currently beginning work in Memphis on the fifth play in a series exploring Exodus narratives across the United States. Previous stops in the playmaking series included projects in Harlem, NYC working with formerly incarcerated New Yorkers, Omaha working with recently resettled refugees, Cincinnati working with the Black and Jewish communities to explore the rituals of Exodus (resulting in a Juneteenth Seder ritual performance), and in Coastal Virginia exploring displacement and white flight.

Hoffman recalls that Co-Founding Artist and Executive Director Jon Adam Ross joined FJC’s fiscal sponsorship program in 2015.  The initial proposal projected a three-year initial project of modest ambition. (The original budget was $50,000 per year).  During its period as a fiscally sponsored project, FJC acted as the 501(c)(3), receiving charitable contributions on the organization’s behalf and acting as a fiscal back office. 

Over time the organization grew into a national arts organization of artists, scholars and activists that could bring people together to listen, learn and collaborate to create theater. Since beginning operation in January of 2015, In[HEIR]itance Project artists have led projects in over a dozen cities around the country, engaging over 10,000 community participants, paying over 170 local artists, and partnering with more than 400 partnering organizations, institutions, and schools. The In[HEIR]itance Project received its 501(c)(3) status in 2020, and it has been operating independently since.

The loan came at a critical time for the organization. In the summer of 2020, the pandemic, along with the national awakening that occurred in response to the murder of George Floyd, created a surge in demand from community partners for collaborations with the In[Heir]itance Project.  The organization has a 27-city waiting list of project inquiries, and they have had to scale up quickly while maintaining the high quality of their collaborations and productions.  With philanthropic commitments in hand but payments expected later in the year, the organization was in need of some working capital to bridge the timing gap. FJC made the bridge loan from its Agency Loan Fund, an impact investment vehicle that pools together funds from donor accounts and makes loans to nonprofits.

“Our organization wouldn’t exist today without the mentorship, guidance, and incubation time we received from FJC when it served as our fiscal sponsor,” says Ross. “Having that relationship endure after we left the nest is not only reassuring, it’s an exciting next step in our maturation as an organization. And we are so grateful.”

Months after India Home re-opened its elder care centers after a brief closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Vasundhara Kalasapudi still fondly remembers reuniting with the center’s residents.

“When the seniors saw me, they came up to me and started speaking to me in their mother tongues,” recalls Dr. Kalasapudi, co-founder of India Home, which serves the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean immigrant community. “I don’t speak every language at India Home. But the staff who did speak the same language translated every word. They said that the seniors told me they are so happy that we are having our centers re-opened and they feel like India Home is a home away from home for them.”

The organization began when Dr. Kalasapudi struggled to find culturally sensitive care for her father. Undeterred, she started India Home in 2008 as a first step in creating elder care that was culturally competent, community oriented, and that piloted innovative solutions to combat alienation, loneliness and depression in the senior community.

While India Home flourished and became a home away from home for its residents, the organization was itself without a home until 2018. Despite receiving a substantial government grant from New York City, India Home still did not have the means to purchase property for use as an office or program space. That is, until India Home got in touch with FJC.

“The experience of taking the loan from FJC was extremely pleasant and easy,” Dr. Kalasapudi recounts. “With FJC’s loan, for the first time India Home has a home, a central place to coordinate with all of our centers.”

Recently, FJC has collaborated with India Home again to finance the organization’s bold initiative to experiment in New York City with creating co-living spaces for isolated seniors to live together like friends or family. Again, FJC was able to provide an acquisition loan that was responsive to the organization’s needs. 

“When we asked for the loan for this initiative, we thought that we would make a twenty percent down payment and FJC would maybe give an eighty percent loan,” says Dr. Kalasapudi. “We were so pleasantly surprised when we received a ninety five percent loan to close the property.”

 With financing in place for this new co-living experiment, Dr. Kalasapudi has time to enjoy interacting with the senior residents across India Home’s various centers, something that is particularly meaningful to her. “Everyone will have two parents. But at India Home I feel like I have hundreds of parents blessing me all of the time.”

Special thanks to Rachel Goldman, FJC’s Program Assistant, for authoring this post.