New York City Good Neighbor Committee

The New York City Good Neighbor Committee seeks to strengthen the Ford Foundation’s ties and support for local organizations working on issues related to the foundation’s mission. It also serves as an opportunity to provide Ford staff who are not grantmakers to experience the core work of the foundation. As part of this work, we seek to employ the Ford Foundation’s values and approaches to effective grantmaking practices by supporting our grantees through flexible support, approaching relationships with transparency and trust, and striving to keep burdens light.

Funding Opportunities Every year, the Good Neighbor Committee provides unrestricted funding to a small group of community-based organizations working locally in New York City in three focus areas:

Arts and Culture Education Human services Within these areas, we prioritize funding for initiatives that reduce the barriers of inequality, create opportunity, and improve the overall quality of life and well-being of those most marginalized in New York City, including communities of color, women, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, people of low socioeconomic status, and other underserved groups.

Selection criteria Due to our extremely limited budget and scope, the New York City Good Neighbor Committee can only consider funding for between 10-15 organizations every year. Grants vary between $30k-100k, typically last one year, and are generally unrestricted in nature.

To be eligible for funding, applicant organizations must:

Be based in New York City and primarily support local work within the five boroughs Have 501(c)3 status or work with a fiscal sponsor who does Work in one of the three priority thematic areas of the GNC Not be a current grantee of other Ford Foundation programs Be led, informed by, and accountable to the communities they support Organizations that do not fulfill these minimum criteria will not be considered for funding.

How to Apply Applications for our 2025 grants cycle are now closed. We will begin to reach out to prospective grantees between December 2024 and January 2025.