Our Communities
FROM THE GROUND UP
Brooklynites hold the solutions to our borough’s challenges and provide powerful models for places beyond
Brooklyn is a borough of nearly 3 million people living across 70 neighborhoods, speaking hundreds of languages. Our communities are distinct, rich with diversity, and share immense pride in calling Brooklyn home.
At Brooklyn Org, we believe Brooklynites hold the solutions to our borough’s challenges and that ideas born here can serve as models for other communities. We listen, engage, and partner with Brooklynites across the borough to ensure that we are informed on local issues and investing in community-backed change.
Video courtesy of the Fund for Shared Insight
Annual Listening Tours
Our support and grantmaking for Brooklyn nonprofits is informed by our commitment to listening to and engaging with communities at every level of our work. Our annual Listening Tours series helps us build relationships with neighborhood leaders and grassroots organizations and stay informed on challenges and opportunities for investment across our borough.
2024 Listening Tour
Our 2024 tour visited these communities:
- Downtown Brooklyn
- Flatlands
- Industrial Zones
- Mill Basin/Marine Park/Bergen Beach
- New Lots
- Park Slope
- Columbia Street Waterfront
- Sheepshead Bay / Gerritsen Beach
- South Williamsburg/Broadway Triangle
2023 Listening Tour
Our 2023 tour visited these communities:
- Carroll Gardens / Gowanus
- City Line / Cypress Hills
- Crown Heights North
- East Flatbush / Wingate
- Fort Greene / Clinton Hill
- Greenpoint / North Williamsburg
- Kensington
- Lefferts Gardens/Crown Heights South
- Midwood
- Red Hook
2022 Listening Tour
Our 2022 tour helped us to connect with nearly 200 passionate Brooklynites in the following communities:
- Bay Ridge
- Bedford-Stuyvesant
- Brownsville
- Bushwick
- Canarsie
- Coney Island
- Crown Heights
- East New York / Cypress Hills
- Flatbush / East Flatbush
- Sunset Park
Learn about our findings here: Watch Here | View and Download Slides
Grantmaking Advisory Council
We work in close partnership with community members through our commitment to participatory grantmaking, in which Brooklynites on our community advisory council review funding applications from nonprofits, attend site visits with our staff, and recommend which organizations should receive grants from us.
We first implemented participatory grantmaking in 2015, and fully transitioned to having community advisory councils for all of our strategic grantmaking in 2021 – making us the first community foundation in the country to do so.
