About Us

Philanthropy New York is the principal professional community of philanthropic foundations based in the New York City region. Taken together, our 285 member organizations—including the leading private, corporate, family, and public grantmaking foundations in the world—each year provide support totaling more than four billion dollars to thousands of nonprofit organizations and NGOs located in New York, the U.S., and around the world, which in turn focus on an almost endless range of issues and concerns.

Our Mission

Created as a non-profit organization in 1979 by New York City-based foundations, Philanthropy New York exists to strengthen the capacity of grantmaking organizations to fulfill their respective missions to serve the public good.

How we do this:

• We annually offer more than one hundred professional education programs and related resources that deepen foundation staffs’ and trustees’ skills in effective, strategic philanthropy;
• We forge and coordinate funder networks and partnerships that maximize collaboration and knowledge-sharing between grantmakers. Current networks cover a broad spectrum of funding issues, from workforce development to palliative care and from Gulf Coast recovery to faith-based initiatives.
• We produce a number of different publications and other communications tools that serve as a key voice to explain the value of philanthropy and the philanthropic sector to the media, policy makers, and the public at large;
• We take a leadership role in fostering exchange and partnership between the philanthropic sector and public policy makers at the local, state, and national levels.

What we don’t do:

• Tell our member foundations where, to whom, or how to make their grants. Although Philanthropy New York members actively collaborate with each other, each is an autonomous organization that makes its own grantmaking policies and decisions.
• Help connect grantseekers and grantmakers or offer advice to grantseekers on how or to whom to apply for funding.