From Bedford-Stuyvesant to the Boardroom: Year Two of Elevating Brooklyn’s Voice in Philanthropy

Brooklyn Org is pleased to share the article below from Dr. Robert Simmons III, Executive Director of the National Grid Foundation

There’s a reason Biggie Smalls’ “Juicy” still resonates decades after its release. It’s a story about rising from struggle, about a kid from Brooklyn who refused to let his circumstances limit his ceiling. It’s about possibility — the idea that where you start does not determine where you end. For the National Grid Foundation, that story is more than nostalgia. It’s a blueprint. That’s why we are proud to announce year two of our collaboration with Brooklyn Org, a partnership based in the same Brooklyn ethos Biggie embodied: the belief that the people closest to a community’s challenges are also closest to its solutions. Biggie’s narrative — a young person from Bedford-Stuyvesant who transformed his lived experience into something that moved the world — mirrors what we believe young people across Brooklyn are capable of when given a real seat at the table.

Year one laid the foundation: investing directly in trusted, community-rooted organizations that advance workforce development and household stability across the borough. Year two sharpens that focus through public engagement & community energy education — the part of this work most explicitly designed to put voice, visibility, and policy-making power into the hands of Brooklyn’s communities and especially its young people.

Spotlight: The Brooklyn Energy Innovation Challenge

At the heart of Year Two is the Brooklyn Energy Innovation Challenge, a boroughwide call to community-rooted creativity. Participating nonprofit organizations design and implement their own internal energy-efficiency projects, document their process and results, and compete for meaningful investment — a $50,000 Grand Prize, two $25,000 runner-up awards, and participation stipends for every organization that takes part. The Challenge is more than a competition. It models a core conviction of this partnership: that innovation does not have to be handed down from the outside. It can — and should — come from within Brooklyn’s own institutions. By elevating homegrown solutions and trusting community organizations to lead, the Challenge turns Biggie’s story of self-made possibility into a structure others can step into. It’s the difference between funding programs for a community and investing in the leadership of one.

Spotlight: The Brooklyn Energy Forum

Year two also centers on the Brooklyn Energy Forum, a boroughwide convening that brings together residents, nonprofit leaders, youth, energy experts, and representatives from the National Grid Foundation for transparent, multi-perspective dialogue. In partnership with trusted cultural and affinity organizations, the Forum expands community access to accurate, culturally grounded information — and just as importantly, it creates space for the community to be heard. The Forum is where youth voice and community wisdom move from principle to practice. It’s a table where young people don’t just receive information about the borough’s evolving power landscape — they help shape the conversation. Biggie celebrated his roots even after his success; he never erased where he came from, he amplified it. The Forum carries that same spirit: boosting the voices of the people who know Brooklyn best.

From Brooklyn, For Brooklyn

Too often, philanthropy decides for communities rather than with them, and young people in particular are treated as recipients of programs rather than architects of them. Year Two of our cooperation with Brooklyn Org is built to flip that script — focusing on engagement, dialogue, and homegrown innovation that put decision-making power and a calculated voice directly into the hands of Brooklyn’s youth and the organizations that serve them.

From Brooklyn, for Brooklyn. That’s the inspiration. And in Year Two, that’s the promise the National Grid Foundation is doubling down on.