One concern with nonprofits and foundations is the question of how much money goes to overhead, and how much to actually helping the cause in question. One of the major features of the Robin Hood Foundation is that as a matter of policy, their deep-pocketed board of directors pays all administrative and fundraising costs. So, a hundred percent of all donations go directly to program, not overhead.
The following list, provided by the Robin Hood Foundation, identifies the first "wave" of Hurricane Sandy relief and recovery funding in Brooklyn in 2012, during which $2,370,000 was granted to the organizations below for storm related work.
That period of time, during Thanksgiving and in the ramp-up to Christmas, was particularly poignant.(Read Thanksgiving 2012: Gratitude but Also Grief.
Robin Hood Foundation Grantees for Hurricane Sandy, Through Dec. 15, 2012
(The list below does not include recipients of funds raised during the 12-12-12 concert.
Also, all descriptions of the projects listed below are based on information provided directly by the Robin Hood Foundation.)
- After Hours Project: For expanded health, social and supportive services to low-income individuals in Brooklyn impacted by the storm and help cover emergency operating costs incurred as a result of the storm. $25,000
- Brooklyn Jubilee : To help pay for free legal services, through a semi-permanent trailer in Coney Island, to people who need legal representation on matters related to Hurricane Sandy. A benefits specialist was also on site to help qualifying families apply for and enroll in food stamps and Medicaid. $80,000
- Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation: To assess Navy Yard businesses damaged by the hurricane (one in five of these mostly relatively recently arrived Navy Yard businesses sustained storm damage), and help them obtain emergency funding. $25,000
- Center for Court Innovation: Specific to Red Hook, to provide expanded services to young adults and their families $25,000
- Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO): For emergency food, supplies and expanded services to its client network of ex-offenders and support for staffing and operating expenses incurred due to the storm. $25,000
- Center for Family Life: Specifically in Red Hook, Coney Island and Brighton Beach: To supports, emergency supplies and emergency cash assistance to existing constituency of vulnerable populations. $50,000
- Coalition for Hispanic Family Services: To cover costs of emergency food, supplies and expanded services to Latino children and families living in poverty who were impacted by Hurricane Sandy and support for staffing and storm-related operating expenses. $25,000
- Common Ground: To help pay for emergency food, supplies and expanded services to homeless individuals across New York City and support for staffing and operating expenses incurred due to the storm. $75,000
- Community Access, Inc.: To assist residents of buildings without power and heat outages with necessary items and food,and expanded mental health services to Sandy-affected areas in Brooklyn. $25,000
- Coney Recovers: Coney Island: To train and place residents in skills needed for storm clean-up. $25,000
- Doe Fund: In Brooklyn's Coney Island as well as Staten Island and Far Rockaway, Queens: To contribute the cost of full-time work crews for cleanup of neighborhood streets, parks and beaches, outfit and transport laborers working FEMA and provide them with supplies including buckets, brooms, masks, gloves and equipment. $35,000
- Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC/BWI Brooklyn Workforce Innovations): To provide emergency cash assistance to displaced New Yorkers. $50,000
- Food Bank for New York City: For emergency food distribution to hungry New Yorkers impacted by the storm. $125,000
- Gary Klinsky Children's Center, Brooklyn Community Services : To underwrite the costs of additional supports and emergency supplies to struggling students (and their families) that were disparately impacted by the storm. $25,000
- Gerritsen Beach Cares: To connect residents of this hard-hit Brooklyn neighborhood to NYC's "Rapid Repairs" program to bring in contractors to restore power, heat and other essentials free of charge. Also to provide free mental health counseling. $25,000
- Good Shepherd Services : In Brooklyn's Red Hook and other areas impacted by the storm: Funds for emergency supplies, food and expanded services to vulnerable children and families ; staff support and operating expenses incurred due to Hurricane Sandy. GSS is operating as one of NYC Restore’s community-based partners, and helping people in the areas most affected by Hurricane Sandy to get information and services for recovery. $25,000
- Grand Street Settlement : To pay cash assistance and emergency food and supplies to immigrants and low-income New Yorkers impacted by Hurricane Sandy and support for staffing and operating expenses incurred due to the storm. $50,000
- Green City Force: To deploy young adults to provide clean-up and disaster relief services in public housing developments in Brooklyn and Manhattan. $25,000
- Legal Aid Society (LAS): To offer mobile legal assistance in the Far Rockaways, Red Hook, Coney Island and devastated parts of Staten Island. $25,000
- Make the Road New York: To help train and place hundreds of individuals for jobs in Sandy-related cleanup in New York and also Long Island. Also covers legal representation for 400 Sandy-impacted families who need legal assistance due to the storm. $250,000
- Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst: Coney Island and Brighton Beach — To give emergency assistance to families directly impacted by Sandy, including respite childcare, home visits for elderly individuals and Holocaust survivors, onsite legal referrals for families needing advice with insurance and FEMA claims, emergency loans and supplies. $50,000
- Neighbors Together: To provide additional hot meals to New Yorkers that impacted by the storm. $25,000
- New York Foundling Hospital: To provide cash assistance and emergency food and supplies to at-risk children, foster kids and their families affected by Hurricane Sandy and support for staffing and general operating expenses incurred due to the storm. $50,000
- New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG): Red Hook and many other non Brooklyn locatrions: To provide emergency cash assistance to New Yorkers displaced or impacted by the storm and to help families obtain emergency food stamps, shelter and FEMA benefits and mobile legal assistance. New grant money as of 12/5 will focus on rental issues, mortgage/foreclosure cases, appeals for denied FEMA benefits and other critical support. $500,000
- Public Health Solutions : To develop temporary sites in the Rockaways and Coney Island so that WIC services can resume. (During this three-month period, according to the Robin Hood Foundation, Public Health Solutions "anticipates that it will serve over 1,300 families a month, providing supplementary food to more than 4,160 people. Over the course of the three months, this would translate to a total of 3,900 families or 12,480 people served.") $150,000
- Reaching Out Community Services: To provide rental trucks, storage space, fuel, drivers and distribution. Their mobile soup kitchens will serve storm-damaged communities until the local pantries are able to re-open and resume serving their clients. $25,000
- Red Hook Initiative: To provide extensive disaster relief services for the residents of the Red Hook community, a rather desolate section of Brooklyn that was so hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. $30,000
- Safe Horizon (formerly - Victims Services Association): To provide emergency food, supplies and expanded services to homeless youth across New York City affected by Hurricane Sandy as well as support for staffing and general operating expenses incurred due to the storm. $25,000
- Sanctuary for Families : To provide food, supplies and transportation to victims of domestic violence who were impacted by the storm. $25,000
- Selfhelp Community Services: To cover additional staffing costs and allow Selfhelp to repair damage to their technological infrastructure. Selfhelp trains and provides home healthcare aides, enabling the elderly and other at-risk populations to live in their own homes. Following Sandy, Selfhelp employees made hundreds of visits to clients in the most damaged neighborhoods, staying for extended periods to ensure they received proper treatment. $25,000
- Single Stop USA: To enable Food Bank and New York City/NYC Financial Network Action Committee to offer free tax services to 3,500 people in Sandy-affected areas, including Red Hook and Coney Island, among other areas. $250,000
- Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation (SBIDC): To support disaster relief work in the Red Hook community. $50,000
- St. John's Bread & Life Program: To provide additional hot meals to New Yorkers that were disparately impacted by the storm. Also, delivering food to Coney Island and in Queens, the Rockaways through a mobile fleet. $40,000
- Team Rubicon: To support volunteer cleanup operations in the affected areas of Queens and Brooklyn by military veterans who volunteer. $30,000
- The River Fund: To provide additional hot meals from its food pantry to New Yorkers that were disparately impacted by the storm. Also to provide mobile food-distribution in the Far Rockaways and Coney Island. $25,000
- Workers Justice Project: To rent office space as a base of operations for workers, hire staff. $55,000
For a complete list of grants made between the hurricane disaster and December 16, 2012, see the Robin Hood Foundation website.
