Happy New Year! We hope you had a joyful holiday season and were able to relax and recharge for 2026. We are preparing for an impactful year ahead but before we get to that, here’s what we were up to in each of our strategic priorities during the last quarter of 2025.

Funding - Funding and supporting organizations, partnerships, coalitions, and other structures whose work aligns with the Foundation’s prioritized outcomes and who have a strong connection to the community.

We have been meeting weekly with new organizations and learning about the work they do to advance an equitable, just, and vibrant Central Jersey Shore. We value building and fostering deep and meaningful relationships within the community, so while these meetings don’t always result in funding, we try to help in any way we can – whether by connecting to other funding sources, sharing resources, or having a brainstorming session. Our doors and lines of communication are always open. If you have questions, need a thought partner, or just want to say hi – we are here.

As a relational funder we don’t have a formal application process, but we do believe clarity is important. Here’s how to how to initiate a funding relationship with us:

If you are a Central Jersey Shore nonprofit organization (Monmouth/Ocean Counties) and feel like there is an alignment with our funding outcome focus areas, we would love to learn about you and your mission. You can schedule a 25-min virtual introductory meeting with our executive director, Heather Barberi. (Once you click the link, enter your email address and click sign-in. If you don’t have an account, you will be prompted to create one). This is a come as you are, casual discussion. You can learn more about our grantmaking process and building a funding relationship with us, here.

To stay current with what we are funding, you can search our grants directory on our website by keyword and year, showing grants we’ve made from 2020 to the present. This will be updated quarterly. You can also learn about our grantees by following us on LinkedIn and Facebook as we highlight a grantee partner (that we’ve funded in the previous quarter) each week.

Capacity Building - Investing in the capacity building of organizations and individuals to enhance their impact, effectiveness, and sustainability.

Here are some quick Capacity Building event recaps from Q4 of 2025!

Fundraising Day Plenary

On November 20^th, we hosted our 2^nd annual Fundraising Day Plenary, facilitated by Rhea Wong, at Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore - Program Activity Center (PAC). This was a hands-on work session for fundraisers, focusing on the increasingly popular topic of AI. The session catered to all levels of AI-users, even those who hadn’t yet tried it. Rhea had attendees use their own data to create real-life scenarios to help with their fundraising. The best part of the day was building connections. These events are not only opportunities for learning and advancing skills, but for growing and strengthening relationships in the sector.

Check out photos from the event, taken by Joshua Reed: https://www.joshuareedmedia.com

Virtual Lunch Hours (VLH)
We had two Virtual Lunch Hours in the 4^th quarter. November’s VLH explored sustainability and options of creative organizational redesign. December was a Virtual Holiday Tea Party where we talked about favorite holiday traditions/meals/ activities, what brought joy in 2025 and what we hope for in 2026. We sent attendees a special tea package prior to the event so we could all cheers to the New Year. It was a tea-rrific way to end the year!

Planning for 2026
We are already deep into planning for the 2026 Capacity Building year which will include:

• Catapult Institute events – one-day programs, webinars, board retreats, and any other programs that individuals can sign up for on our events page – more events will be added as we plan!
• Capacity Clinic – 1:1 opportunities for individual leaders, invitation-only activities, custom training, and initiatives that require an application. Many are also collaborations with other groups.

We receive feedback throughout the year that we use to shape our future offerings. We look forward to jumping into another impactful capacity building year with our Central Jersey Shore nonprofit partners and friends.

Just to give you a little Capacity Building sneak peek…in addition to the Virtual Lunch Hours, New Way Forward series, and 1:1 opportunities, we’ll be hosting an “out of this world” Nonprofit Board Retreat this spring, a Fundraising Day Plenary session in the summer, and a Wellness Retreat this fall. More details to come soon!

Vicki Fernandez, Director of Thriving Communities, recently spoke at the Nonprofit Committee meeting of the Greater Toms River Chamber of Commerce about Grunin Foundations offerings and opportunities for nonprofits (such as those above). If you are interested in learning more and would like Vicki to speak to your board or team, you can book time with her to discuss.

Coalition Building – Engaging in coalition building and advocacy at the regional and state levels to impact systemic issues.

Monmouth & Ocean Roundtable of Funders (MORF)
The Monmouth & Ocean Roundtable of Funders (MORF), led by the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers in partnership with the Grunin Foundation, hosted a virtual speed networking event in November. This was a structured, virtual event where funders had one-on-one-style conversations with nonprofit organizations to learn about their services and possibly make a connection for funding. 

Since this was the first event of its kind for MORF, we tested it with a small group of about 15 organizations. We learned some valuable information, most importantly about the tech. We tried a new virtual event platform that ultimately did not perform the way we had hoped. We were able to improvise on the spot and make it work as best we could. Moving forward, we have a plan on how to make future virtual networking events much smoother. Even with some technical hiccups, it was a fun hour, and many connections were made!

Pragmatic Activism
The Pragmatic Activism cohort for 2025 was our first cohort for youth and is continuing with phase 2 of the work, which will go into 2026. Thank you to our collaborating partners at Teen Think Tank Project, Morales & Associates (Orville Morales), and local nonprofits for making this happen!

For our Pragmatic Activism Cohort Alumni, we hosted the third of three Legislative Updates facilitated by Orville Morales. These virtual events are for cohort alum to learn about current policies, legislation specific to their district, and more.

We also continue to participate in coalitions like Doing Good Better, (a partnership of the Council for New Jersey Grantmakers and the New Jersey Center for Nonprofits, where a community of funders and nonprofits take action against the power imbalances and racial inequities in philanthropy, nonprofits and government) and Exponent Philanthropy’s CLIP: Catalytic Leadership in Philanthropy (a values-driven style of leadership that leverages a foundation’s relationships, non-grant assets, and proven practices to help lean funders make long-term, systematic changes that support the communities they serve). Our participation in these coalitions allows us to drive impact in the Central Jersey Shore nonprofit and philanthropy ecosystems.

Until Next Quarter…
We are busy planning for an impactful 2026, and we look forward to sharing more with you soon. Until then, reach out, follow us on social, and check out our website for more updates!