Through a revolving account at FJC, a donor passionate about the environment has provided financing to create a state-of-the-art transitional shelter for New York City homeless families, through an innovative philanthropic partnership with the New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation (NYCEEC). 

The donor has created a revolving account at FJC that NYCEEC can use to cover critical project activities like energy modeling, feasibility analysis, design drawings, and land-use approvals.  These costs are reimbursable when construction financing closes, allowing funds in the FJC account to be redeployed for NYCEEC’s future worthy projects. 

NYCEEC will use the capital to fund early-stage predevelopment work on the adaptive reuse of a former nurses’ residence on the Greenpoint Hospital campus in Brooklyn. The renovated building will provide state of the art temporary accommodation to 200 of New York City’s most vulnerable residents.  The shelter is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification.  Savings in greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional construction are projected to be 384 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.

The shelter is a component of the $212.7 million redevelopment of the Greenpoint Hospital campus, in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  The redevelopment project is the culmination of years of advocacy by a consortium of neighborhood-based organizations, led by the nonprofit St. Nick’s Alliance.  The development will also include apartments for extremely low-income and very low-income residents and seniors, a community facility, and a network of new open spaces to connect the campus to the surrounding neighborhood. A partnership between St. Nick’s Alliance, Project Renewal, and Hudson Companies was designated by New York City to redevelop the site, which has been primarily vacant since 1982 when the Greenpoint Hospital was closed.

Philanthropic capital from FJC will fund over one-third of NYCEEC’s $1.3 million predevelopment loan. “We allocate capital from a range of public and private sources for projects like this,” explains Jay Merves, NYCEEC’s Director of Business Development. “Many of our capital providers put geographic or other restrictions on the use of their capital, so the flexibility of funds from the FJC donor is vital in allowing NYCEEC to provide financing for clean energy projects in underserved communities.”

It took the collective efforts of a number of people to get it done: a committed donor, a philanthropic advisor, and the staff at FJC. All parties worked together this spring to close a $100,000 cash flow loan to Brighter Tomorrows, a nonprofit working with victims of domestic violence to provide shelter, counseling and legal advocacy to New York’s Suffolk and Nassau counties as well as New York City and the Tri-State area.

The process began with Sandy Wheeler, a longtime donor to Brighter Tomorrows. Over time, Ms. Wheeler developed a trusted relationship with Dolores Kordon, the organization’s Executive Director, who often lamented the difficulties she faced running an organization that relied heavily on state contracts that were typically slow to pay. “It seemed like the chronic cash flow challenges of Brighter Tomorrow could be creatively addressed with philanthropy,” said Ms. Wheeler.

The Wheelers spoke to their philanthropic advisor at a large financial institution, who made the introduction to FJC. “The Wheelers already had a Donor Advised Fund account, but the sponsor wasn’t really set up to originate loans,” their advisor explained. “We appreciated that FJC had the track record and infrastructure to make this proposed loan happen, and quickly.”

Within a few weeks, staff at FJC worked with the Wheelers to open and fund a new DAF account, review Brighter Tomorrow’s financials, and prepare the legal documents with terms customized according to the Wheelers’ wishes. Among other features, the loan carries no interest.

“Brighter Tomorrows is so grateful for this intervention by FJC and the Wheelers,” says Ms. Kordon. “Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when cash was tight due to many competing programmatic demands, having the Wheeler’s loan to bridge our day-to-day expenses provided us the flexibility to be responsive to the families we were serving, like distributing food cards and helping clients pay rent.”

Imaginative FJC donors have created specialized accounts that allow for revolving funds for recoverable expenses, so that nonprofits can recycle grant funds on an ongoing basis.

In 2019 organizations focused on criminal justice reform and impact litigation were particularly active users of these resources, putting nearly $1 million in aggregate to work for their missions. These organizations included: the Government Accountability Project, was able to represent whistleblowers exposing abuses of public trust throughout the federal government as well as corporate employees within the banking, energy, food, and health care industries; the New York Civil Liberties Union, is bringing an important voting rights case to challenge violations of the federal Voting Rights Act; the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has reached a settlement with a private company that will result in the largest coal ash cleanup ever in America; Brooklyn Community Bail Fund secured the freedom of 23 immigrants held in ICE detention and at imminent risk of deportation, and reunited them with their families and communities.