North Star News: 2010
Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities (RIPPD)
On September 24, 2008, Iman Morales's mother called 911 because her son, a 35-year-old man with a mental illness, would not open the door to his apartment. Iman was having a bad reaction to a new psychiatric medication. When...
Rights, Respect, Recognition for Domestic Workers
Jocelyn Gill-Campbell's first job in her adopted land came with a rigid list of rules from the investment banker and full-time homemaker who employed her: Never be even a minute late for work. Enter through the back door, unless...
Gene Carroll: Why I Give
When I was approached by North Star to serve on their advisory board I didn't play hard to get. Simply put, North Star is a serious operation devoted to, at its core, a deeply held value of my own:...
What Victory Looks Like
On August 31, 2010, Governor Paterson signed into law the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Domestic workers had purposefully been excluded from federal wage and working condition protections, including the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The new...
Jackie Mann: Why I Give
My career as a psychotherapist helped me see that change only happens in a meaningful way when people create it themselves and are personally involved in opposing structures that oppress them. That experience informed the genesis of my own...
NYC Venture Philanthropy Fund RFP
Each year, the NYC Venture Philanthropy Fund offers a grant to an innovative, start-up nonprofit that is addressing a major social problem facing New York City. VPF members vote to determine the area of focus for each year's grant....
Spring 2010 Grants Announced
For our spring grant cycle, we awarded $250,000 to 26 groups. Eight of those are first-time grantees: Bronx News Network, Brooklyn Movement Center, Right to the City NYC, Committee for Transit Workers' Rights, Jahajee Sisters, New York City Community...
Greening Western Queens Fund Request for Proposals
North Star Fund is proud to announce the release of the RFP for the Greening Western Queens Fund. The Greening Western Queens Fund is a new $7.9 million initiative to invest in energy-efficiency and environmental projects in the Western...
Webinar on Lessons from 2010 Proxy Votes
It's been an extraordinary year for shareholder activists concerned about social and environmental issues. Register now and get the insider scoop on key shareholder campaigns that include new shareholder resolutions on environmental health and water scarcity, sexual orientation and...
Elise Boddie: Why I Give
For over thirty years, North Star has been investing in community organizations that are creating positive, sustainable change on the ground, where it matters most. It carries out its investment through an activist-led grantmaking process. Although I now teach...
Community Gala on Video
The 2011 Community Gala was our most successful ever. The evening featured inspiring speeches, an engaging panel discussion on the role of philanthropy in grassroots community organizing, and spirited dancing. We're proud to a short video of the evening's highlights...
United States Social Forum Travel Grants
North Star Fund is pleased to announced that we awarded United States Social Forum travel grants to 36 organizations. In total, we awarded $30,000 to 13 organizations. The groups used these funds for support members and leaders of grassroots...
Women on the Rise Telling HerStory
From the 2010 Community Gala Program Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH) is being recognized [with the North Star Fund Frederick Douglass Award] for its achievements in empowering currently and formerly incarcerated women to bring about changes in...
New Grantmaking Vision and Guidelines
What have we learned from thirty years of funding the most courageous and innovative grassroots leaders and organizers? How do we help more communities to get their voices heard and needs addressed? What do we keep doing? And what...
Peter Brest: Why I Give
I'm from New York. I grew up in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side and have lived in the Village for 35 years. In late 1978, Martin Bunzl, one of North Star Fund's co-founders, approached me to become part...
Movement Leadership Grants: VOCAL
Voices of Community Activists & Leaders (VOCAL) is a statewide grassroots organization that aims to empower low-income people who are living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, drug use and incarceration. VOCAL NY accomplishes this through community organizing, leadership development,...
Movement Leadership Grants: NICE
Recent immigrants face multiple challenges in their effort to survive and prosper in a new country. New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) responds to those multiple challenges of recent immigrants from Central and South America. The organization organizes to prevent...
Movement Leadership Grants: Families for Freedom
Family separations are a heartbreaking consequence of this country's immigration policies. Two million people are currently at risk of being deported from the United States. Most would leave behind loved ones and community ties, to live in a country...
Movement Leadership Grants: Domestic Workers United
Domestic Workers United (DWU) was founded to raise the level of respect for domestic work, establish fair labor standards in the domestic work industry, and build the power and unity across diverse communities of workers. Last year they had...
Movement Leadership Grants: Brandworkers International
While corporate employers in the food and retail sectors earn considerable profits, rank-and-file employees are frequently underpaid. As a result, they often don't receive or cannot afford health insurance and grapple with work schedules that can change on a...
Families for Freedom
"People talk about the deportation of a loved one in the same way that they talk about the death of a loved one," says Janis Rosheuvel, the executive director of Families for Freedom, a group that organizes families with...
Leveraging Privilege: Transforming the Debate About Taxes and Philanthropy
The unemployment rate in the United States continues to hover around 10%. Four out of ten unemployed people have been looking for work for six months or longer. And the country continues to face the worst economic challenge since the...
Visioning Sessions for a Greener Western Queens
North Star Fund today announced the launch of the Greening Western Queens Fund, an $8 million, three-year initiative to create greener neighborhoods in the Western Queens communities affected by the July 2006 power outage. Residents and business owners in Woodside,...
Historic Step for Immigration Reform
On December 19, 2009, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) introduced a progressive immigration reform bill and North Star Fund rapid response grants were a small part of making that happen. In preparing the bill, Rep. Gutierrez called a meeting in...
Envisioning a Greener Western Queens
Join us for a lively day of visioning for a more sustainable and green future in Sunnyside, Astoria, Woodside & Long Island City -- Help guide funding that will be used for tree planting and other environmental projects in...
Brandworkers Win Victory for Fair Wage and Workplace Respect
North Star Fund began supporting Brandworkers International and their Wild Edibles campaign since soon after their inception in 2007. This week, they announced a huge win for two-dozen recent immigrant workers, who can now count on respect and legally...
Act Now on Haitian Earthquake
Like so many of us, we are shocked and saddened by the scope of devastation in Haiti following yesterday's 7.0 earthquake that struck near Port Au Prince, the Haitian capital. North Star Fund grantee Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees...
