Sharing What We Learned on Our 2023 Listening Tour

Feb 15, 2024

A woman giving a presentation to a group of people. — 2023 Listening Tour

Since 2022, we’ve visited ten neighborhoods a year to meet with community members and give them the space to talk about the issues that impact them the most.

Earlier this month, we hosted a webinar briefing on our 2023 Listening Tour to share everything we learned from our most recent round of conversations across Brooklyn, which took place in the following neighborhoods:

Carroll Gardens / Gowanus
Cypress Hills / City Line
East Flatbush / Wingate
Fort Greene / Clinton Hill
Greenpoint / North Williamsburg
Kensington / Ditmas Park / Windsor Terrace
Midwood / Borough Park
Prospect Lefferts Gardens / Crown Heights South
Red Hook
Weeksville / Crown Heights North

Local issues and insights from our brooklyn neighborhood tour listening. — **Download the 2023 Listening Tour presentation slides**

Local Issues, Big Impact

Though the needs of these neighborhoods are as diverse as the people who call them home, we found that there are a number of issues impacting Brooklynites boroughwide. Across multiple listening sessions, participants repeatedly touched on the need to create solutions around the following issues:

Capacity building and available space
Support for older adults and aging
Community development
Food insecurity
Youth programming

In the foreground a woman stands and speaks to a room of people who are seated listening to her — 2023 Listening Tour in Fort Greene

What’s Ahead

To ensure that we take our listening tour participants’ feedback to heart, we’re moving forward with a number of exciting, actionable next steps.

New Funding Process: Our new, rolling funding model will provide general operating support to nonprofits and place careful consideration on issues raised throughout our Listening Tours.
Neighborhood Collective Impact Project: We’re opening an RFP exclusively for Listening Tour attendees that will provide $25,000 in funding to three pairs of participants who plan to collaborate on issues impacting their neighborhoods.
BKO Policy Agenda: Following the completion of our first 3-year Listening Tour cycle, we will identify key issues & policies to guide our future work.

We may be winding down from last year’s tour, but we’re excited to keep the momentum going. We hope to see some of you at our 2024 Listening Tour, which will make stops in the following neighborhoods: