We make strategic grants to nonprofit partners working in all five boroughs of New York City.
Each of our grants aligns with at least one of four programmatic pillars:
Youth and Education Grants support children, teenagers, and young adults by offering education, mentoring, and career opportunities that keep participants safe and enable them to pursue their goals.
Housing and Community Grants support the unique needs of specific neighborhoods and communities throughout New York City. Many of these grants focus specifically on the needs of individuals experiencing homelessness.
Justice and Safety Grants support initiatives like community-led violence prevention programs. This is JAR’s oldest program pillar, and its purpose is to prevent any other NYC families from living with the agony of losing a loved one to violence.
Pandemic Relief Grants
support our city's newly vulnerable communities, resulting from the economic and public health crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic. These groups include medical field workers, first responders, workers experiencing severe economic impact, and domestic violence survivors.
In addition to making grants, we support our partners by helping them evaluate and ensure program effectiveness; helping them promote their work; and developing and enhancing linkages between organizations that do complementary work.
America SCORES New York
Project: Literacy in Action
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
ASNY is a combined soccer, literacy, and service-learning program for children ages 5-18 in under resourced NYC communities. Instead of exposure to troublesome influences and participation in negative activities, ASNY engages youth with soccer, poetry and community service projects.
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Project: Brooklyn Interns for Arts & Culture (BIAC) and Arts & Justice (A&J)
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
BIAC and A&J help young people develop their artistry and academic skills by engaging them in practical workshops, thought-provoking research and discussions, performances and exhibitions at BAM and partner organizations, and in-person and virtual meetings with peers, community leaders, and subject-area experts in New York City and around the world.
Both programs address a lack of arts programming in public schools and in low-income communities, and provide critical support to young people, many of whom will be among the first in their families to attend college.
Central Park Medical Unit
Project: The Medical Supplies and Equipment Program
Program Area(s): Justice & Safety
CPMU serves Central Park’s 42 million-plus annual visitors and responds to over 3,000 calls for aid a year. As the only dedicated EMS unit to Central Park, CPMU fills a void by providing medical care free of charge to the underinsured and reducing response times, as compared to 911, by over ten minutes, which can mark the difference in life and death in many serious calls.
Child Abuse Prevention Program (CAPP)
of New York Foundling
Project: Child Safety Workshops
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
CAPP educates children in New York City public schools about how to keep themselves safe from physical and sexual abuse.
Citizens Committee for New York City
Project: The John A. Reisenbach Safe Neighborhood Awards
Program Area(s): Housing and Community; Justice and Safety
Micro-grants awarded through this program support resident-led groups of New Yorkers from all over the city who are contributing to local safety improvements.
Comedy Gives Back
Project: NY Stand Up Comedian's Help Fund
Program Area(s): Housing & Community; Pandemic Relief
Comedy Gives Back supports comedians in crisis through therapy, chemical dependency treatment, financial assistance and community support. JAR's support helps mission to be the safety net for comedians residing in NYC.
EMS FDNY Help Fund
Project: Housing Security for EMS FDNY impacted by Catastrophic Events
Program Area(s): Housing & Community; Pandemic Relief
EMS FDNY Help Fund provides a safety net to 4,567 EMTs and Paramedics that serve as frontline medical care providers across NYC’s five boroughs and as of 25 years ago, they are part of the FDNY. We call them NYC’s street doctors as vulnerable NYC populations often will not seek medical care until it is an emergency.
We want FDNY EMS impacted by Financial Hardship, Natural Disasters and Pandemics to be able to stay in their existing housing - whether they rent or own - in order to continue their work as “NYC’s Street Doctors”, rather than losing their existing housing and further disrupting their vital work.
Foster Pride
Project: The John A. Reisenbach Financial Literacy Workshops of HandMade
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
HandMade enables teenage women in foster care to develop and launch their own small businesses. Participants create and market crocheted accessories in order to learn entrepreneurship.
Fountain House
Project: Hardest to Serve Homeless Initiative
Program Area(s): Housing and Community
Fountain House is dedicated to the recovery of men and women with mental illness by providing opportunities for our members to live, work, and learn, while contributing their talents through a community of mutual support. The Hardest to Serve Homeless Initiative pairs peer specialists, who are Fountain House members, with adults who have the greatest need for Fountain House’s unique set of support services and social interventions.
Good Call NYC
Project: The John A. Reisenbach Internship Cohort
Program Area(s): Justice and Safety; Youth and Education
Good Call provides a 24/7 emergency arrest hotline to connect arrested individuals with a free lawyer. Good Call's internship program gives students and system-involved youth ages 17-25, an opportunity to develop their community outreach, technology, and leadership skills, while helping Good Call build awareness and trust in local communities by serving as emerging leaders and credible messengers. The JAR Internship Cohort focuses on raising awareness around community safety within our communities.
Jeremiah Program New York
Project: Pathway to Family Stability
Program Area(s): Housing and Community; Youth and Education
The Jeremiah Program works in Brownsville, Brooklyn to end the cycle of poverty for single mothers and their children, two generations at a time. This approach ensures access to post-secondary education for single mothers, high-quality early childhood education for their children, and holistic support for the whole family.
The Jewish Board
Project: Independent Living Skills Groups at Kaplan House
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
Kaplan House serves young men in the foster care system, aged 17-21, from throughout New York City, many of whom have spent much of their lives in the child welfare system. Kaplan House ensures that when residents leave, they do so with viable independent housing options, educational accomplishments, a path to meaningful employment, and permanent connections with trusted adults.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Each year, JAR supports the educational expenses of high-achieving John Jay students working in areas relevant to our mission.
The John A. Reisenbach Master's Scholarship Program is an investment in high-potential graduate students at John Jay College who are planning careers advancing safety and quality of life in New York City. Winners of this scholarship must commit to working in relevant fields in New York City for at least five years after graduation. Past scholarship recipients work as social workers, NYPD officers, federal law enforcement agents, lawyers, nonprofit leaders, and forensic scientists, among other service-oriented professions.
The Judith Bronfman Memorial Scholarship is available to both undergraduate and graduate students at John Jay. It is awarded to students who have already made a significant contribution to safety and quality of life in New York City via work, volunteering, or academic study. This scholarship honors the life and achievements of long-time JAR board member Judith Bronfman, who was a professor of English at John Jay and a driving force behind the foundation's master's scholarships.
National Domestic Workers Alliance
Project: Groundbreakers
Program Area(s): Housing & Community
Groundbreakers are advanced member organizers who coordinate the outreach drives, identify and coach workers with violations, oversee case management and oversee the legal clinic.
New York Edge
Project: High School Today, College Tomorrow
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
This afterschool program offers college and career guidance to rising juniors and seniors who attend Flushing High School in Queens, NY. Participants attend college and job fairs, college visits, receive financial aid application assistance, and academic support from New York Edge’s staff.
New York Foundation for the Arts
Project: Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants
Program Area(s): Housing & Community; Pandemic Relief
The Rauschenberg Medical Emergency Grants provide one-in-a-lifetime grants of up to $5,000 for one-time, unexpected medical, dental, or mental health emergencies that have occurred in the last six months for artists in financial need.
NYC Outward Bound Schools
Project: Crew Mentors
Program Area(s): Youth and Education
Outward Bound Schools trains and supports successful alumni from their schools to provide support to groups of students just beginning college at a local CUNY institution.
New York City Police Foundation
Project: Crime Stoppers
Program Area(s): Justice and Safety
Following John Reisenbach's death in random shooting, which remains unsolved, JAR supports Crime Stoppers to help ensure that no other families need endure the agony of losing a loved one to an unsolved homicide.
The Point CDC
Project: Camp PowerPOINT
Program Area(s): Housing and Community, Youth and Education
CPP offers a comprehensive program in which 65 youth, ages 14-21, participate in required activities and chosen electives in the areas of leadership, arts-in-education, stewardship and social skills building. For many, this job is their first and/or only formal work experience.
Police Athletic League
Project: Reisenbach Interns Program
Program Area(s): Justice and Safety; Youth and Education
Reisenbach Interns at PAL are teenagers involved in the court system; they receive individualized academic support and hands-on work experience to help ensure that they meet their academic and workforce goals.
Safe Horizon
Project: Streetwork at Safe Horizon
Program Area(s): Housing and Community; Youth and Education
Safe Horizon's Streetwork Project serves a particularly vulnerable population: homeless youth. Based at Streetwork's Uptown Drop-In Center in Harlem, this project connects participants with safety, shelter and basic services.
Women In Need
Project: Young Adult Income Building
Program Area(s): Housing and Community; Youth and Education
Win provides safe, clean and private transitional housing for families, as well as long term supportive housing with intensive one-to-one case management, to break the cycle of homelessness for New York City women and their children. The Income Building Program offers employment counseling, employment retention workshops, interview preparation, mock interviews, GED preparation, resume writing assistance, job fairs, computer skills training, and more.
YWCA Brooklyn
Project: Expanded Trauma-informed, Nontraditional Therapeutic Programs for Women Impacted by Gender-Based Violence, Homelessness and Poverty
Program Area(s): Housing and Community
YWCA Brooklyn provides safe, permanent, affordable homes for women impacted by poverty and homelessness with a focus on those who have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking and exploitation.
The organization offers trauma-informed supportive services, and will expand the nontraditional therapeutic programming for their residents to help them build resiliency, heal from the trauma they have experienced, develop confidence and healthier relationships, and live independent, self-determined lives within a community of their peers.
