By Linda Levine, Member of Gray Matters - Has there ever been a time of greater need for NYC’s underserved urban communities? If you direct or work in a CBO, you know the struggle to provide a multiplicity of crucial services at a time when funds are scarce! Many communities suffer from lack of decent housing, medical and legal services, educational opportunities, as well as the impact of environmental injustice, limited access to the arts and the many other benefits enjoyed by citizens in more prosperous communities. Typically understaffed for the services they seek to provide, CBO's are keenly aware of how much more they might do with some professional assistance.
Gray Matters was founded over a decade ago by the late Larry Levine, co-founder of the Jewish Funds for Justice, in close collaboration with Fran Barrett, former director of the Community Resource Exchange, and we continue to work in close partnership with CRE. Gray Matters’ key aim is to engage senior professionals in various fields with CBO’s who’ve requested assistance to help them strengthen and extend urgently needed community-based services.
Greater attention to human needs remains at the heart of this work. It springs from a compelling recognition of what we owe others in an injust society, as well as appreciation of what we can learn with and from them in shared efforts to improve life in NYC.
Today, CRE co-directors Holly Delany Cole and Valyrie Laedlein, consultant Arnaldo Simo, and administrative assistant Anna Gorman all contribute to the ongoing success of Gray Matters’ work, bringing requests for assistance from CBO’s to Gray Matters’ monthly meetings and offering wise counsel based on CRE’s 30+ years of service to NYC’s nonprofit community.
Among the free - yes, free - services we currently provide to CBO’s: assistance with strategic planning, marketing, improving legal and medical services, housing and environmental issues, as well as board recruitment and development and a range of leadership and human resources issues. Access to broader networks is a key aspect of the assistance we can offer to CBO’s.
A partial list of CBO’s served by Gray Matters: Broadway Housing (for formerly homeless families), the Educational Video Center (teaching young people to create documentaries on urgent issues in their communities), CUNY Law School (providing access to the legal profession for underserved groups), Brownsville Multiservice Center (offering preventive and medical care as well as social services in a low-income Brooklyn neighborhood), Wellness in the Schools (focusing on nutrition, fitness, and environmentally safe products), and Generation Schools (a non-profit organization creating exemplary public middle and high schools.
To learn more about Gray Matters and to request our free services - please visit the Gray Matters website and/or contact us at info@graymattersnyc.org. We look forward to hearing from you!
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