This is a pivotal moment for Victoria Foundation. Since the late 1960s, the mission of our 98-year-old foundation has been to “improve the lives of children and families in Newark.” The Foundation has moved about $300 million to organizations serving Newark since that time and is proud to have supported so many important local groups consistently over the years. At the same time, we have been asking ourselves if this was enough. While many individuals have benefited from programs we fund, the dynamics producing poverty and inequality in Newark persist, creating never ending needs for programs and services. Could we do more with our resources to try to address these dynamics, to support work that goes “further upstream” in order to disrupt them and create more equitable systems? As our local partners know, we have been on a two-year journey to consider these questions, reflect on past practices, and to take a fresh perspective on our values, vision and mission. During this time of learning and strategic planning, which began in January 2020, Victoria continued to provide annual grants to our docket of over 120 grantees—converting most into general operating support.
Our New Framework
Victoria Foundation has adopted a new framework, including a new mission, vision and values. This framework emerged from an effort to do more to focus resources on root causes of generational poverty and inequality in Newark. Our new mission reads: "Victoria Foundation partners with Black and Brown residents and other marginalized communities in Newark and nonprofit organizations to champion bold strategies that strengthen community power, foster economic justice, promote youth self-determination, and respond to pressing needs.
Click the link below to download our full report:
Irene Cooper-Basch - Co-Executive Officer & Secretary of the Board and Craig Drinkard - Co-Executive Officer discuss the New Framework and answer questions.
Click the video play button below to play our webinar describing Victoria’s new framework.
Victoria Foundation shared our new framework, mission and vision, and developed these FAQs to answer questions we have heard. We will continue to evolve and grow this document as we have more information.
Victoria Foundation engaged CREED Strategies to document its organizational change process with the goal of enhancing transparency around its process and offering any useful lessons learned to the field. The result is this narrative report.
Click the link below to download the full report:
To say the world has changed since the Victoria Foundation’s last update regarding our strategic planning journey would be an understatement.
The murders of so many Black and Brown people by police continue to plague our communities and has sparked a national movement that demands holistic police reforms which includes redirecting public resources from police departments to vital community-based programming. The COVID-19 pandemic has infected over 8 million Americans, with over 220,000 deaths and counting. This pandemic has laid bare serious racial and economic disparities in access to healthcare, economic opportunities, and quality education.
The world is on the precipice of major changes.
Victoria Foundation began 2020 with a commitment to learning and organizational transformation. The foundation entered this year asking what they can do differently to attack the root causes of intergenerational poverty and community disinvestment. What can be done to shift the dynamics that reproduce them, year after year? Strongly believing history teaches us these dynamics stem from structural and institutional racism and segregation, a critical first step for Victoria Foundation was hearing from and learning about the perspectives of their grantees and other external stakeholders of these important questions. To do this, Victoria Foundation undertook an extensive survey and interview process of grantees and key community leaders and stakeholders. Creed Strategies administered the Victoria Foundation Grantee Survey in January 2020 and conducted 26 one-on-one interviews with a combination of grantee leaders and other external stakeholders in March 2020.
This inquiry of Victoria Foundation grantees took place prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread social protests. The severe impact of COVID-19, as well as those of the racial justice protests, on the City of Newark and its residents make these findings, and their implications for grantees, even more timely and consequential to the dynamics Victoria Foundation seeks to understand.
Download the 2020 Community Survey and Gathering to learn more.
Location
Victoria Foundation
550 Broad St
Suite 1402
Newark, NJ 07102
Contact
Ph. 973-792-9200
Fax 973-792-1300
e-mail info@victoriafoundation.org