Robin Hood Makes $35 Million in Poverty-Fighting Grants in First Half of 2024

NEW YORK, NY — Today, Robin Hood, New York City’s largest local poverty-fighting philanthropy, today announced details of its grantmaking for the first half of 2024 aimed at fostering economic mobility and stabilizing low-income households in a moment when poverty is increasing by record numbers year-over-year across the city. The grants awarded total over $35 million, keeping pace with average grantmaking totals of roughly $130 million annually. Funding supports programs that respond to the urgent needs of low-income New Yorkers – exacerbated by a persistent local affordability crisis – and invests in high-opportunity, enduring solutions that fuel permanent pathways out of poverty.

“Across all five boroughs, $218 million in active Robin Hood grants are at work fighting poverty. During a period when government dollars are constrained, Robin Hood is pleased to add more than $35 million in new resources that will bring hope and opportunity to New Yorkers in need by funding nearly 100 community-based nonprofits working on the front lines who provide immediate relief like food and shelter, and strengthening programs like child care, student literacy, housing vouchers, and mental health to sow the seeds of long-term economic mobility. We’re investing in the most capable organizations, doing the most effective and innovative work, with the potential to scale, and, always, the ability to deliver measurable impact – this is the Robin Hood way,” said Richard R. Buery, Jr. CEO of Robin Hood.

Our Grants Serve New Yorkers in Need in Every Borough

Among the community-based, direct service organizations we funded during the first half of 2024, about half have a citywide footprint, providing services to New Yorkers in need in every borough, and about half of the community organizations target their services within a specific borough to achieve a concentrated impact. This allocation of resources is consistent with the evolving needs of a population where 56% of New Yorkers either live in poverty or are considered low-income.

Among borough-focused organizations, about a third are based in and exclusively serve residents in the Bronx, the New York City borough with the highest concentration of people living in poverty.

“Making high-quality child care accessible to families is one of the highest impact investments we can make, and Robin Hood is pleased to commit an additional $5 million in grants that will improve home-based child care services utilized by low-income New Yorkers in high-need communities. Our full portfolio of grants supports organizations using evidence-based practices and innovative approaches to help New Yorkers achieve their full potential, and includes funding for direct services, policy advocacy, technical assistance, and mission investing to increase upward mobility from poverty in New York City,” said Matt Klein, Chief Program and Impact Officer at Robin Hood.

Child Care/Early Childhood Investment – $5,330,000 total investment

Over 85,000 young children attend home-based, licensed, child care programs, and 80% of families that utilize home-based care receive child care subsidies. To better meet the needs of this population, in late 2023, Robin Hood launched a request for concepts focused on improving the quality of child care programming in these settings. The concepts received focus on improving socio-emotional and mental health among children and providers, strengthening language and literacy outcomes for children, and fostering healthy adult-child interactions to promote strong attachment styles.

Last month a cohort of five organizations were selected to receive funding in response to the request to improve the quality of family-based child care programs operating in high-need communities such as the Bronx and the Rockaways. Each of these organizations will also be supported with technical assistance from the American Institutes for Research to get their pilot programs up and running. Grantees include:

• All Our Kin ($1,600,000) (Citywide & Bronx Only) – Creates a remote coaching pilot program for child care providers to increase language skills for children under five years old. Further funding will support educator training for over 4,000 family child care providers in the Bronx, improving the learning environment for over 3,200 infants and toddlers. Robin Hood funding will also continue to support ALL Our Kin’s Educator Leadership Series, a technical support and civic engagement training for 350 family child care providers in the Bronx.
• American Institutes for Research ($552,000) (Citywide) – Provides technical assistance to five Robin Hood grantees funded through the Child Care Quality and Innovation Initiative to pilot projects aimed at enhancing literacy, social-emotional development, and healthy attachment in family child care settings.
• Docs for Tots ($926,000) (Queens) – Pilots an onboarding and training model for assistant child care providers in the Rockaways to improve program quality, continuity of child care, and stabilizing the child care workforce. During the first quarter of 2024, Robin Hood awarded Docs for Tots a $350,000 grant to improve the social-emotional outcomes of infants and toddlers in family child care settings.
• Kingsbridge Heights Community Center ($603,000) (Bronx and Manhattan) – Pilots a new strategy for addressing the mental health needs of children ages 0-3, families, and family providers by reducing barriers to accessing care.
• Lutheran Social Services New York ($507,000) (Bronx) – Rolls out the IT-CHILD program to provide mental health consultation services as part of ongoing professional development and coaching to family child care providers contracted with NYCPS and evaluates the effectiveness of these programs on child outcomes.
• MARC Academy and Family Center ($1,142,000) (Bronx) – Pilots the Video Interaction Project in family child care, an evidence-based 1:1 coaching tool used to improve caregiver-child interaction and enhance children’s language, social-emotional, and cognitive outcomes.

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Education – $1,070,000 total investment

Since 1988, Robin Hood has translated innovation into the fight against poverty. The disruption by generative artificial intelligence is and will be significant, as are opportunities to harness its abilities for social good. Through the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund, Robin Hood is investing in four organizations this spring that deploy A.I. to supercharge student learning across NYC schools.

• Center for Education Market Dynamics ($120,000) (Citywide) – Pilots the use of artificial intelligence to extract data on core and supplemental curriculum usage in New York City schools in order to evaluate the impact of curricula on student outcomes.
• Joan Ganz Cooney Center ($250,000) (Citywide) – Leverages artificial intelligence to enhance early STEM learning among elementary school students in New York City.
• Playlab.ai ($200,000) (Citywide) – Improves the Playlab program and digital platform to build artificial intelligence knowledge and capacity among educators and nonprofits in New York City.
• Tech:NYC ($500,000) (Citywide) – Conducts a landscape analysis uncovering the artificial intelligence needs of, and resources available to, education nonprofits in New York City and pilots solutions to build their artificial intelligence skills and knowledge.

See our appendix to view details of all grants approved during the first two quarters of 2024 and visit our website at www.robinhood.org to learn more about our grantmaking strategy.

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About Robin Hood:

Robin Hood is New York’s largest local poverty-fighting philanthropy. Last year, Robin Hood celebrated its 35th year of funding, supporting, and connecting New York’s most impactful community organizations at the forefront in the battle against poverty. We are NYC’s largest local poverty-fighting philanthropy and since 1988, we have invested nearly $3 billion to elevate and fuel the permanent escape of New Yorkers from poverty. In 2023, through grantmaking with 250+ community partners, we created pathways to opportunities out of poverty through our strategic partnerships on childcare, child poverty, jobs, and living wages. We are scaling impact at a population level for the nearly 2 million New Yorkers living in poverty. At Robin Hood, we believe your starting point in life should not define where you end up. To learn more about our work and impact, follow us on X @RobinHoodNYC or go to www.robinhood.org.

MEDIA CONTACT

Crystal Cooper, Deputy Director of Communications
press@robinhood.org

Appendix: Details of Grants Made by Robin Hood During Q1 and Q2 2024

May 7, 2024

Education – $16 million total investment ($16,057,000)

Education is a key determinant of economic mobility – dictating future job prospects and lifetime earning potential. In New York City, where a quarter of all children live in poverty and over two-thirds of the public school population is economically disadvantaged, Robin Hood-funded interventions offer an onramp to real opportunity. Year after year, most grant dollars are put toward improving education outcomes, from cradle to college, and 2024 is on pace to maintain the trend by supporting college access and completion, improving student literacy, accelerating learning, and training educators.

Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) – ($1,070,000)

Since 1988, Robin Hood has translated innovation into the fight against poverty. The disruption by generative artificial intelligence is and will be significant, as are opportunities to harness its abilities for social good. Through the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund, Robin Hood is investing in four organizations this spring that deploy A.I. to supercharge student learning across NYC schools.

• Center for Education Market Dynamics ($120,000) (Citywide) – Pilots the use of artificial intelligence to extract data on core and supplemental curriculum usage in New York City schools in order to evaluate the impact of curricula on student outcomes.
• Joan Ganz Cooney Center ($250,000) (Citywide) – Leverages artificial intelligence to enhance early STEM learning among elementary school students in New York City.
• Playlab.ai ($200,000) (Citywide) – Improves the Playlab program and digital platform to build artificial intelligence knowledge and capacity among educators and nonprofits in New York City.
• Tech:NYC ($500,000) (Citywide) – Conducts a landscape analysis uncovering the artificial intelligence needs of, and resources available to, education nonprofits in New York City and pilot solutions to build their artificial intelligence skills and knowledge.

Child Care/Early Childhood Investment – ($5,330,000)

• All Our Kin ($1,600,000) (Citywide & Bronx Only) – Creates a remote coaching pilot program for child care providers to increase language skills for children under five years old. Further funding will support educator training for over 4,000 family child care providers in the Bronx, improving the learning environment for over 3,200 infants and toddlers. Robin Hood funding will also continue to support ALL Our Kin’s Educator Leadership Series, a technical support and civic engagement training for 350 family child care providers in the Bronx.
• American Institutes for Research ($552,000) (Citywide) – Provides technical assistance to five Robin Hood grantees funded through the Child Care Quality and Innovation Initiative to pilot projects aimed at enhancing literacy, social-emotional development, and healthy attachment in family child care settings.
• Docs for Tots ($926,000) (Queens) – Pilots an onboarding and training model for assistant child care providers in the Rockaways to improve program quality, continuity of child care, and stabilizing the child care workforce. During the first quarter of 2024, Robin Hood awarded Docs for Tots a $350,000 grant to improve the social-emotional outcomes of infants and toddlers in family child care settings.
• Kingsbridge Heights Community Center ($603,000) (Bronx and Manhattan) – Pilots a new strategy for addressing the mental health needs of children ages 0-3, families, and family providers by reducing barriers to accessing care.
• Lutheran Social Services New York ($507,000) (Bronx) – Rolls out the IT-CHILD program to provide mental health consultation services as part of ongoing professional development and coaching to family child care providers contracted with NYCPS, and evaluating the effectiveness of these programs on child outcomes.
• MARC Academy and Family Center ($1,142,000) (Bronx) – Pilots the Video Interaction Project in family child care, an evidence-based 1:1 coaching tool used to improve caregiver-child interaction and enhance children’s language, social-emotional, and cognitive outcomes.

All Other Early Childhood Grants – ($2,330,000)

• 3k/Pre-K Outreach Campaign ($300,000) (South Bronx) (Central Brooklyn) (East Harlem, Manhattan) (Flushing, Queens) – Conducts a targeted outreach campaign sponsored by the New York City Child Care Resource & Referral Consortium to increase applications and enrollment into New York City’s free 3K and Pre-K program in community districts that have shown low rates of enrollment.
• Arab-American Family Support Center ($275,000) (Citywide) – Funds culturally relevant and linguistically accessible infant and toddler development.
• BronxCare Health Systems ($255,000) (South Bronx) – Funds Early Head Start home visitation and parent training for families with an infant in the neonatal intensive care unit.
• Brownsville Partnership ($650,000) (Brooklyn) – Supports community coalition focused on improving access to early childhood intervention and access to public benefits for Brownsville families.
• Fund for Public Schools ($500,000) (Citywide) – Conducts a comprehensive citywide assessment and forecast for early childhood education services to inform equitable seat and budget allocation across the city to improve access to and uptake of child care, Pre-K, and 3K programs. (Funded through the Child Care Quality and Innovation Initiative).
• New York City Muslim Center ($350,000) (Citywide) – Funds investment in the UPLIFT model, a community-driven strategy grounded in evidence-based practice, using workshops and 1:1 coaching to improve language skills, literacy and social-emotional outcomes for children aged zero to five years old within NYC Muslim communities.

All Other K-12 and Higher Education Grants – ($7,327,000)

• Achievement Network ($600,000) (Citywide) – Improves the literacy of high school students in NYC Public Schools through piloting and enhancing tech-enabled assessment and data tools and building teacher and leader capacity to use those tools.
• America on Tech ($300,000) (Bronx) – To prepare high school students for high-paying careers in technology by equipping them with knowledge and skills in the technology field through industry-aligned training and internships.
• Child Mind Institute ($150,000) (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens) – Implements a literacy tutoring program targeting first- and second-grade students in 10 schools.
• CollegeBound Initiative ($580,000) (Citywide) – Boosts the rate of college matriculation for students across at least 26 high schools and implements a near-peer college advising and persistence program across eight four-year and two-year colleges.
• Consortium for Policy Research in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University ($725,000) (Citywide) – Continued qualitative and quantitative research of the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund’s investments through 2027.
• CUNY ACE ($656,000) (Manhattan) – Scales and expands the Accelerate, Complete, Engage (ACE) program at CUNY’s Manhattan-based City College of New York to increase the graduation rate of undergraduate transfer students.
• Fund for Public Schools ($31,000) (Citywide) – Supports a planning grant to develop an implementation plan for the launch of a new, grow-your-own teacher certification pathway in New York City Public Schools in the fall of 2024.
• Good Shepherd Services ($525,000) (Bronx) – Supports low-performing high school seniors and G.E.D. certificate holders to enter and stay in community college.
• Go Project ($225,000) (Manhattan and Brooklyn) – Provides academic and social-emotional skill development to low-income elementary and middle-school students through outside-of-school and summer programming.
• Harlem Children’s Zone ($2,000,000) (Manhattan) – General Operating youth programming and increasing the number of families that enroll in public benefits.
• New York Hall of Science ($100,000) (Queens) – Completes research and codification of a model integrating computational thinking across the K-5 curriculum.
• OneGoal ($150,000) (Citywide) – Increases the number of low-income students who attend and persist through college, by providing school-based college counseling across 18 high schools.
• Partnership Schools ($200,000) (Manhattan and the Bronx) – Provides support services to seven Catholic elementary and middle schools.
• Promise Project ($225,000) (Citywide) – Boosts academic outcomes for low-income children who might have learning disabilities by conducting neuropsychological assessments, providing targeted professional development to teachers, and expanding the Early Promise initiative in collaboration with New York City Public Schools.
• Queensborough Community College ($265,000) (Queens) – Supports persistence and graduation rates for low-income Black and Latinx male college students.
• Sponsors for Educational Opportunity ($120,000) (Citywide) – Increases the rate of college matriculation for students in grades nine through 12 with academic enrichment and college advising services.
• Teach for America NY ($375,000) (Citywide) – Recruits, places, trains, and retains a diverse set of teachers in New York City public school classrooms.
• Throughline Learning ($100,000) (Bronx) – Develops a community educators fellowship in the Bronx that will train school-based staff, family, and community members to tutor students in schools and provide the tutors with a pathway to pursue college credits and teacher certification.

Career Advancement – $5 million total investment ($5,050,000)

Four years from the onset of the pandemic, thousands of low-income, working-age New Yorkers – especially those of color – continue to face setbacks in employment. In April, Black unemployment in New York City remained 1.5% percentage points higher than Black unemployment nationwide and 4.1% percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate. Robin Hood is New York City’s largest funder of workforce development programs. This year’s career advancement grants look to repair and advance educational trajectories and provide training for high-quality career paths that pay livable wages. Grantees during the first half of 2024 include:

• African Communities Together ($250,000) (Citywide) – Launches a healthcare workforce development program serving unemployed and underemployed African immigrants.
• Avenues for Justice ($600,000) (Citywide): Supports social services to help young people avoid recidivism and to partially support a career and employment program, HIRE UP.
• Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation ($150,000) (Brooklyn) – Provides skills training to prepare low-income residents of Brooklyn for opportunities in advanced manufacturing at Navy Yard businesses.
• Brooklyn Workforce Innovations ($550,000) (Brooklyn) – Trains low-income New Yorkers for careers in commercial driving through the “Red Hook on the Road” project.
• Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art ($225,000) (Citywide) – Trains low-income immigrants with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degrees and places them into technical jobs that pay more than $75,000 annually.
• Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst ($200,000) (Queens) – Enrolls low-income individuals in job placement programs with placements into jobs that pay an average of $18 per hour.
• East Side House Settlement ($510,000) (Bronx) – Provides unemployed, out-of-school youth in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx with academic and employment services.
• FDNY Foundation ($175,000) (Citywide) – Trains disadvantaged young adults for jobs as emergency medical technicians, focusing on placement into positions at the FDNY.
• Fortune Society ($350,000) (Citywide) – Provides skills training and job placement for formerly incarcerated individuals; and will increase the number of families that enroll in government benefits, such as food and nutrition assistance and health-care programs.
• Henry Street Settlement ($300,000) (Manhattan) – Funds job training and college access for young adults through the On Ramps to Opportunity program.
• Jobs First NYC ($300,000) (Citywide) – Supports implementation of sector-based employment networks in the green economy, tech, and healthcare, as a mechanism to train and connect individuals from marginalized communities to high-quality jobs.
• Nontraditional Employment for Women ($375,000) (Citywide) – Trains women for jobs in the construction and building trades, transportation, and utilities sectors.
• Project Basta ($125,000) (Citywide) – Enrolls CUNY students into a soft skills career readiness program and places them into jobs paying above $53,000 annually, with benefits and a career trajectory.
• Project Renewal ($280,000) (Citywide) – Trains low-income New Yorkers for social service careers and supports program alumni in their upskilling and career advancement.
• Pursuit ($280,000) (Citywide) – Enrolls individuals with no more than an associate degree in a job training program that prepares unemployed or underemployed individuals for careers in software coding.
• Rebuilding Together NYC ($130,000) (Citywide) – Trains and places low-income New Yorkers into construction jobs focusing on unionized apprenticeships in the building trades.
• Upwardly Global ($250,000) (Citywide) – Places college-educated and highly skilled immigrant professionals into jobs earning an average of $65,000 annually in high-growth sectors, such as health care, finance, and technology.

Mental and Physical Health – $5.7 million total investment ($5,788,000)

Research underscores linkages between the economic strains of poverty and the incidence of mental health challenges. Robin Hood’s latest annual Poverty Tracker found that a third (33%) of adult New Yorkers faced either a health problem or serious psychological distress within the last year. 2024 investments year-to-date promote the well-being of New Yorkers across every life stage, with most grants supporting mental health specifically. Additionally, programs that serve infants and toddlers received the largest share of funds – as birth to age three is the most effective window to disrupt the generational cycle of poverty.

Infants and Toddler Mental Health

• BronxWorks ($250,000) (Bronx) – Delivers the MOMS Partnership maternal mental health and stress management intervention to mothers in 2 BronxWorks family shelters, adapting and expanding the program to 1 additional shelter serving at least Spanish-speaking migrants.
• Center for Justice Innovation ($400,000) (Queens/Manhattan) – Improves physical and mental health outcomes for infants and toddlers and their families involved in the child welfare system in Queens and Manhattan and supports the expansion and institutionalization of Strong Starts Court Initiative, a project that fosters collaborative rather than adversarial approach to child welfare in cases involving children under the age of two in family court.
• Chinese-American Planning Council ($60,000) (Citywide) – Bridges grant to support 8 home-based child care providers who utilize the IT-CHILD mental health consultation model.
• Grand Street Settlement ($412,000) (Brooklyn/Manhattan) – Funds IT-CHILD mental health consultation for nearly 900 children and their families at child care sites operated by Grand Street Settlement.
• New York-Presbyterian ($700,000) (Citywide) – Supports implementation of a two-generational model of care for mother-infant dyads that integrates a suite of evidence-based models to drive improvements in maternal/child health and mental health.
• Richmond University Medical Center ($450,000) (Staten Island) – Provides comprehensive mental health services to Staten Island children and their families who are enrolled in its preschool programs.
• Rose F. Kennedy Children’s Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center at Montefiore Medical Center ($300,000) (Citywide) – Provides mental health therapy in group and individual formats to low-income parents and children with mental health issues.
• University Settlement Society ($600,000) (Citywide) – Funds IT-CHILD mental health consultation at child care centers operated by University Settlement Society.

School-Age Children

• Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital ($525,000) (Manhattan) – Brings a multi-layered system of mental health support to students and their families at 14 elementary schools in Washington Heights and Harlem.
• Partnership with Children ($550,000) (Citywide) – Provides comprehensive academic and mental health support to students in 33 NYC public schools.

Young Adults and Adults

• Center for Urban Community Services ($550,000) (Citywide) – Provides homeless and formerly homeless individuals with psychiatric and medical care.
• Covenant House New York ($250,000) (Citywide) – Connects young adults to mental health services and other comprehensive benefits.

Physical Health ($741,000)

• New York City Health+Hospitals ($741,000) (Brooklyn/Bronx) – Two distinct grants, one in Brooklyn supporting pregnant women with chronic conditions like heart disease, and the second grant in the Bronx supporting pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) while deepening expected mothers’ understanding of how SUD treatment impacts fetal brain development.

Benefits Access and Legal Services – $1.9 million total investment ($1,975,000)

According to our most recent Poverty Tracker spotlight on food hardship, roughly a third of adults and nearly half of families with children across the city regularly run out of money for food each month or worry that they will. These experiences often “pile up” with other compounding challenges such as having utilities shut off, or not seeing a doctor due to cost. Benefits and cash assistance programs offer immediate relief and are an important supplement to long-term investments in economic mobility. Robin Hood made grants to the following organizations helping New Yorkers access nutrition, housing, health, and legal benefits:

• BronxWorks ($250,000) (Bronx) – Supports a team of outreach workers, caseworkers, and benefits specialists dedicated to helping community participants apply for and secure benefits such as food and nutrition assistance, housing resources such as rental and utility arrears, health insurance and more.
• Fortune Society ($200,000) (Citywide) – Supports enrolling formerly incarcerated individuals in benefit programs, such as food and nutrition assistance, housing supports, income supports, and health care programs.
• Good Shepherd Services ($450,000) (Citywide) – Increases the number of families that enroll in benefits such as food and nutrition assistance, rental assistance and eviction prevention programs, income supports including the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, and health-care programs such as Medicaid.
• Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty ($400,000) (Citywide) – Increases the number of individuals and families that enroll in comprehensive public benefits.
• Public Health Solutions ($350,000) (Citywide) – Funds outreach and referral efforts that increase the number of low-income families that enroll in benefits programs for food and nutrition (SNAP & WIC), housing support programs (rental assistance and eviction prevention programs), income supports (Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, and other programs), and health care programs (Medicaid and other subsidized low-cost programs).
• New Economy Project ($150,000) (Citywide) – Provides direct legal assistance, including a financial justice hotline, to bring impact litigation to help low-income New Yorkers combat predatory debt collection and other abuses.
• New York Legal Assistance Group ($175,000) (Citywide) – Provides immigration and family law legal services to survivors of domestic violence.

Asylum Seekers/Migrants – $550,000 total investment

• Association to Benefit Children ($50,000) (Manhattan) – Supplemental grant that funds emergency assistance to asylum seekers.
• BronxWorks ($400,000) (Bronx) – Provides legal services for migrants living in BronxWorks shelters, assisting them to enroll in eligible government benefits, ESL classes, and job training programs.
• Legal Aid Society ($50,000) (Citywide) – Supplemental grant that funds legal services to newly arrived migrants.
• Make the Road New York ($50,000) (Citywide) – Supplemental grant that funds legal services to newly arrived migrants.

Housing – $3.5 million total investment ($3,565,745)

New York City remains deep in the throes of a housing crisis decades in the making. More than half of households across the city are rent-burdened, thousands are on the brink of eviction and a record number of New Yorkers are living in shelters for an average of 500 days. Robin Hood’s housing strategy in early 2024 emphasizes eviction prevention, expanding affordable housing access, and providing critical care to the city’s most vulnerable who are experiencing homelessness.

• Anthos Home ($1,200,000) (Citywide) – Supports housing placement by streamlining the administration of housing vouchers for tenants, landlords, and government agencies.
• Brooklyn Legal Services ($350,000) (Citywide) – Prevents evictions and preserves affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers.
• Coalition for the Homeless ($400,000) (Citywide) – Prevents evictions, secures housing stability, and provides crisis services for homeless and unstably housed individuals.
• Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) ($65,000) (Bronx) – Addresses housing quality and prevents evictions in the Bronx.
• Fair Housing Justice Center ($210,000) (Citywide) – Conducts fair housing testing in low-poverty neighborhoods to reduce source-of-income discrimination and expands housing opportunities for homeless families with children.
• Housing Rights Initiative ($250,000) (Citywide) – Tests a low-cost approach to reducing source-of-income discrimination by landlords in high-opportunity neighborhoods.
• MSquared ($1,015,745) (Citywide) – Supports creation and preservation of affordable housing through the N.Y.C. Affordable Housing Fund.
• Supportive Housing Network of New York ($75,000) (Citywide) – Supports the creation and preservation of supportive housing services in New York City.

Policy-related Grants – $1.7 million total investment ($1,790,000)

• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ($300,000) (Federal) – Advances support for key poverty-fighting, federal policy issues related to housing, refundable tax credits, health care, child care, paid leave, and nutrition assistance.
• Columbia University Population Research Center ($290,000) (Statewide) – Continues novel research examining the returns (Benefit-Cost Analysis) on social policy program investments and conducts quick turnaround analysis of antipoverty effects of policy changes.
• Immigration Research Initiative ($100,000) (Statewide) – Conducts research on immigration and provides policy analysis.
• New York City Employment & Training Coalition (NYCETC) ($200,000) (Citywide) – Supports the New York City Employment and Training Coalition to continue its efforts to increase access to quality jobs and wages by influencing the development of an effective and sustainable workforce development ecosystem in NYC.
• New Yorkers United for Child Care ($200,000) (City & Statewide) – Addresses the reduction in funding to NYC’s Early Childhood Education programs and to secure support for the expansion of these programs.
• The Children’s Agenda ($400,000) (Statewide) – Advances policy and systems change in New York State that reduces the rate of child poverty and increases family economic security, and makes high-quality child care more accessible and affordable.
• The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) ($300,000) (Statewide) – Advances state policies that reduce the college affordability gap in New York State for low-income students and continue advocacy to remediate student loan default among low-income borrowers.

Food Insecurity – $350,000 total investment

• Food Bank of New York City ($350,000) (Citywide) – Supports the purchase of more than 200,000 pounds of food, including culturally relevant items, for distribution to 15 priority neighborhoods with high rates of poverty and food insecurity.

Blue Ridge Labs – $680,000 total investment

In an increasingly digital world, tech-based solutions are key tools to address real-world challenges, like poverty. Blue Ridge Labs (BRL) is Robin Hood’s poverty-fighting innovation lab, focused on supporting, incubating, and scaling community-driven tech solutions that alleviate the obstacles of New Yorkers experiencing poverty. BRL grantees offer both homegrown solutions and big ideas from around the country, with the ability to scale nationally.

• Claimant ($40,000) – A digital platform that simplifies the process of applying for federal disability benefits. It helps individuals with disabilities gather their digital medical records, uses AI to identify relevant evidence of their disability, and generates supporting documentation to strengthen their claims.
• Enlightapp ($40,000) – A digital platform that uses AI to enhance education in underserved communities, with a specific emphasis on Social-Emotional Learning, and whole child.
• Gather ($40,000) – A digital platform that builds white-labeled apps for community organizations, enabling them to efficiently connect members with essential resources, events, and community support.
• Learnyx ($40,000) – An AI-powered reading platform designed to adapt content to the reading levels and interests of students in grades 3-10, promoting enhanced engagement and learning.
• Letterly ($40,000) – A learning intelligence platform that aims to provide every student with a private English tutor.
• Lulo ($40,000) – An online grocery shopping tool designed specifically for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participants that is expected to significantly enhance the efficiency of WIC benefit utilization.
• Pre-Tax Hero, Inc. ($250,000) – A Brooklyn-based startup that focuses on providing tech-enabled payroll solutions to enable desk-less and hourly workers, many of whom are in lower income brackets, to access government-sponsored pre-tax benefits.
• Revival Finance, Inc. ($50,000) – A New York City-based consumer debt venture that allows borrowers to buy out and eliminate their debt for the same pennies on the dollar rates that it gets sold to institutional investors.
• Snappable ($50,000) – Supports Snappable’s digital payment system that solves the challenges of using government-funded nutrition benefits, providing an efficient digital payment and invoice management system.
• Truffle Health ($40,000) – An AI-powered assistant for medical bill management that helps patients understand, reduce, and pay their medical bills.
• Untapped Solutions ($50,000) – A job search platform designed for the justice-impacted community, by providing efficient pathways to reentry services through technology.