We hope you all had a great and healthy summer! It’s hard to believe the summer is over and we are now into the fall. As they say, “time flies when you’re having fun” and time has certainly been flying at the Grunin Foundation. Here’s what we have been up to…
We’ve Moved!
We are excited to announce that our Ocean County office has moved to a new location - 432 Lakehurst Road, Suite 1, Toms River, NJ 08755. Our phone number and Monmouth County office in Red Bank remain the same. All of our contact information is below.
Ocean County Office - NEW LOCATION!
432 Lakehurst Road, Suite 1
Toms River, NJ 08755
Monmouth County Office
1 Bridge Ave, Unit 005
Red Bank, New Jersey 07701
Phone: 732-244-4010
While our location has changed, our mission and vision have not. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners and the community to improve the quality of life for all members of our community by using philanthropy to drive economic excellence at the Central Jersey Shore (CJS).
Grunin Capacity
We took a short, summer hiatus in August, but we are back in full force with some great Grunin Capacity Catapult Institute sessions!
On September 15th, we were joined by writer, speaker, vegan and Pisces, Vu Le at the Count Basie for the Arts Vogel Theater for his exciting Plenary Session, A Time for Boldness: Reimagining Nonprofits and Philanthropy. Vu talked about re-examining many philosophies and practices that nonprofits believe are unchangeable.
The second half of our Catapult Institute Workshops also began this month with the topics, Shared Leadership and Fundraising & Communications. The Shared Leadership sessions will look at key issues such as board succession planning, the evolving role of the board and the board/staff partnership. Fundraising & Communications will look at the use of data for tracking & performance measurement, key communications trends & tools and resources.These 1.5-hour workshops are held at New Jersey City University at Fort Monmouth. We look forward to continuing learning with our nonprofit partners and friends.
EDIB Working Groups Updates
Empowering Youth Changemakers
The Empowering Youth Changemakers program was launched with 19 teens in attendance, under the direction of Boys & Girls Clubs of Monmouth County. BGCM is collaborating with Teen Think Tank, Project Write Now, Trenton Circus Squad, RWJ Barnabas Health and Lead U, along with the Empowering Youth Changemakers Working Group members. Moving forward, BGCM is putting together a program calendar that will include dates, times and locations for future sessions and will have the partner agencies plugged in. They held their first session, “Teen Leadership” which introduced key leadership concepts to the participants. In addition, the teens voted on leadership positions for the group. The next session is scheduled for October 19th and the topic will be, "What is your passion?" More updates to come.
Amplifying BIPOC Leadership
We are continuing with planning and will share more information once the Amplifying BIPOC Leadership strategy is solidified.
Empowering Communities to Center Equity
This strategy will focus on advocacy for 2022-23. We have many partners in this work, including BolderAdvocacy, Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, New Jersey Center for Nonprofits and consultant, Orville Morales of The People’s Lobbyist®.
On September 8, we hosted a Let’s Talk About Advocacy Breakfast and Discussion and had a great turnout of Ocean and Monmouth County nonprofits and businesses who came to learn how they can get involved to create change in the community and the world. Orville Morales of The People’s Lobbyist® and Linda Czipo of New Jersey Center for Nonprofits spoke about the whys and hows of advocacy. Orville also talked about an exciting Pragmatic Activism Cohort opportunity presented by the Grunin Foundation in partnership with The People's Lobbyist® beginning in September.
The Pilot Pragmatic Activism Cohort will accept 20 individuals from the Ocean and Monmouth County nonprofit and business community, who will work together through six phases of pragmatic activism which is a strategic approach to social change that allows for intentional and reasonable action that is sustainable over time. We will have more updates as the Cohort moves forward.
Nonprofit Partner Highlight - Rutgers Summer Service Internships
As a proactive grantmaker, we identify organizations primarily at the Central Jersey Shore (CJS) to implement projects in the arts, education and healthcare that drive economic excellence, have a measurable impact, and align with one or more of our equity commitments. Our nonprofit partners are on the frontlines working tirelessly to equitably improve the quality of life for all members of the CJS community. We love to highlight the work of our partners that we support through grantmaking, and this quarter, we introduce to you to the Rutgers Summer Service Internships (RSSI) program.
RSSI connects Rutgers sophomores and juniors with unpaid public service internships and provides them with a stipend, making it possible for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to participate in civic and nonprofit life in vital, dynamic ways – giving them life-changing education and new perspectives that help them better the world during their time as a student and beyond.
Rutgers is committed to eliminating barriers that discourage students from exploring the path of service. Rutgers Summer Service Interns will each receive a stipend for participating in the internship that also covers the cost of tuition for the internship course. The program is statewide, which includes serving nonprofit organizations and direct-service government offices in Ocean and Monmouth counties. The Rutgers students placed in these internships across the state will also include undergraduates who hail from Ocean and Monmouth counties.
RSSI’s first-year objective is to meet a goal of matching 100 students with substantive internship opportunities. In years two and three, Rutgers will continue to assess and refine the program while gradually increasing the number of participants. They expect to serve 150 students in each of the next two years. If that is successful, Rutgers envisions scaling this up to 200 students by years four and five.
You can stay current with our grantee partner updates by visiting https://gruninfoundation.org/grantmaking/.
Director of Thriving Communities
We are excited to announce that we have hired a Director of Thriving Communities, who will be starting in November. The Director of Thriving Communities will work closely with members of the nonprofit community and strategic partners to co-design and implement programming that advances the goals of the Grunin Foundation’s capacity pillar and EDIB strategic framework and is an integral part of the team. We will make an official announcement soon so stay tuned!
What’s to Come
We have so many exciting initiatives in place to end the year on an impactful note. As always, we could not do any of this work without our Board members, nonprofit partners, business friends and community members. We are so incredibly grateful for all of you and look forward to continuing working together to improve the quality of life for all at the Central Jersey Shore.
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With Gratitude,
