Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn

Brooklyn is a place of opportunity, compassion, and welcome — where neighbors support neighbors, and equity and justice are not only aspirations, but shared commitments.

In a time of deep political polarization, economic instability, and federal funding cuts, Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn is our bold response—a campaign rooted in radical localism, collective action, and unwavering care for our neighbors. Brooklyn isn’t just where we live. It’s how we show up for each other.

Through this campaign, we are supporting frontline nonprofits that are lifelines to our communities: addressing urgent needs, defending democracy, and ensuring no Brooklynite is left behind. We are meeting the moment with urgency, intention, and care.

Brooklyn Org committed to raising $5 million for Brooklyn in the first year of the campaign, so that we could expand our community grantmaking by 25%. We met our initial goal, and thanks to the increased support of our donors we’ve been able to back work to help families meet basic needs, defend the fundamental civil liberties of Brooklyn’s older adults, justice-impacted individuals, and immigrants, and invest in the stability and future of our borough’s arts and cultural institutions. But despite reaching this milestone, the work is far from over.

Your support helps power this movement—directly fueling grants, programs, and impact across the borough, showing what’s possible when Brooklyn Backs Brooklyn.

THE CRISIS

Since January 2025, nonprofit lifelines to our communities have endured significant government funding and staffing cuts, and far more is on the horizon—all told, millions of dollars designated to our communities have been revoked.

With our donors, we will stand up for all our neighbors—those who have called our borough home since birth and those have recently arrived—and we will continue to be a defender and backer of the frontline nonprofits.

We are witnessing the dismantling of the federal social safety net, including lifesaving programs—like SNAP, Medicare and Medicaid, and FEMA—that will yield unimaginable hardship to our neighbors. Emergency food providers are being decimated. Organizations working for racial and economic justice have been blacklisted. Neighborhood cultural institutions and parks are being stripped of grants that sustain vital local infrastructure. All while our our communities are targeted by ICE raids, family separations, and disappearing lawful residents.

Together, we will stand in the gap to support one another and our essential local nonprofits. Focusing on our local communities has never been more essential. When national solutions dissipate, local action becomes our most powerful tool for change.

Contact giving@brooklyn.org to explore ways to give.