One Region Fund - The New York Community Trust

The One Region Fund in The New York Community Trust is a partnership of private funders from Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey learning and working together to advance and support transportation planning and reform in the Tri-State region. Participating funders recognize that transportation has a major impact on our quality of life, economic competitiveness, and opportunity. Yet it is not well supported by philanthropy.

Mission

The One Region Fund works to increase coordinated efforts by philanthropy to help the Tri-State metropolitan region achieve a more sustainable transportation system that enhances economic competitiveness while it protects public health and safety, promotes environmental quality, and supports social equity.

The Problem

The New York metropolitan region faces a number of threats to its quality of life, environment, and status as one of the economic leaders in the nation. With 22 million people, the region is exhausting its developable lands in many areas, including Long Island, North Jersey, and Westchester and Fairfield counties. In addition, half a century of exclusionary zoning, inequitable tax structures, and other harmful policies have created some of the greatest disparities between rich and poor in the nation. This is an issue of race and class, but also of geography, with the region’s older cities and towns (excluding Manhattan) becoming increasingly isolated from high-growth economic opportunities.

While the region has an extraordinary asset in its transportation infrastructure, it is in dire need of major retrofits and reinvestment. Furthermore, transportation benefits are not equally accessible to all the region’s residents. Decades of sprawl have generated automobile and truck congestion that exceeds capacity on major roadways and highways. The result is delays for millions of commuters; threats to commerce and the ability to move goods; increased air pollution, climate change, and land consumption; and damage to public health. Transportation decisions made by public agencies and authorities lie at the heart of many of these problems, and the region can no longer afford to continue to make the usual investments. With economic prosperity, public health, and livable communities at stake, advocates and philanthropy need to get involved immediately.

An Opportunity for Funder Collaboration

In the winter of 2004, The New York Community Trust and its divisions—the Westchester and Long Island Community foundations—convened a small group of civic, environmental, and philanthropic leaders to discuss ways to promote smarter land-use decision-making in the Tri-State Metropolitan region. This meeting was organized with support from the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth & Livable Communities. The funders decided to work together on transportation reform for four reasons. First, transportation is an issue that quite literally connects funders in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Second, the region’s transportation infrastructure requires significant reinvestment and expansion and is an important topic of public debate. Third, philanthropy places high priority on many issues affected by transportation investments, including environmental protection (air pollution, global warming, biodiversity and habitat protection, open space), economic opportunity (workforce development, economic development, urban revitalization), and social equity (access to jobs, housing, and services for low-income communities and seniors, environmental justice). Fourth, philanthropy can play an important and visible role in the transportation arena as investors, partners, educators, and conveners. Funders can increase their effectiveness by reaching out and working business, civic, nonprofit, and government. By sharing information and joint grantmaking, funders can expand their understanding of and influence over transportation issues.

Participating Funders

Citi Community Development
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation
Fairfield County Community Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Fund for New Jersey
Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Long Island Community Foundation
The New York Community Trust
Oram Foundation
Rauch Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
Surdna Foundation
Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation
Westchester Community Foundation

Grantees Supported by the One Region Fund: 2006-2010

In its first four years, the One Region Fund at the New York Community Trust has made grants totaling $1.9 million to support strategic transportation reform and promote transit investment and transit-centered community development in the Tri-State region. These grants include:

$67,000 in January 2007 to Connecticut Fund for the Environment for two related activities: 1) a bus transit needs analysis and plan for bus service investments in Connecticut, and 2) coordination of a broad-based coalition to educate policymakers and the public about the importance of increased state investment in bus transit for job access, economic development, environmental protection, smarter growth, and congestion relief.
$50,000 in February 2008 to Connecticut Fund for the Environment to support the second year of the Transit for Connecticut Coalition in its efforts to secure significant increased in state investment in bus transit services in Connecticut.
$50,000 in July 2009 to Connecticut Fund for the Environment in continued support of the Transit for Connecticut Coalition and its efforts to maintain and increase state investment in bus transit services in Connecticut.
$50,000 in December 2009 to Long Island Regional Planning Council to support the transportation element of the Long Island Regional Sustainability Plan.
$30,000 in April 2007 to New Jersey Future to develop and distribute informational materials about transit villages for local officials, professionals, and citizens, and conduct targeted outreach and presentations to select communities considering transit villages in New Jersey.
$50,000 in November 2009 to Reconnecting America to assess One Region’s transit-oriented development strategies for the Tri-State region.
$110,000 in December 2006 to Regional Plan Association to support a research and action strategy aimed at developing the next generation of transportation investments to support sustainable and equitable growth in the Tri-State region, and for participation in the Transit for Connecticut coalition.
$100,000 in February 2008 to Regional Plan Association to support planning and implementation of two Mayors’ Institutes on Transit-Centered Development for Greater New York and southwestern Connecticut.
$385,000 in December 2006 to Tri-State Transportation Campaign for work to support smart transportation outcomes by encouraging reform at state transportation agencies in the Tri-State region, with emphasis on expanding and deepening the significant change in transportation planning and spending framework in New Jersey, while simultaneously promoting adoption of similar transportation reform policies at transportation agencies in New York and Connecticut.
$355,000 in February 2008 to Tri-State Transportation Campaign to reform state transportation agencies in the three state region, and to design and develop a Transit-Centered Development Community Assistance Grants Initiative on behalf of the One Region Funders’ Group, and $150,000 in November 2008 for Community Assistance Grants.
$425,000 in February 2009 to Tri-State Transportation Campaign to expand and deepen transportation reform in the region, manage a Community Assistance Grants Initiative supporting Transit Centered Development, and serve as a local ally for the federal Transportation for America Campaign.
$75,000 in October 2009 to Tri-State Transportation Campaign to support a federal advocate who will work closely with partner groups in the three states and with the Transportation for America Campaign to conduct outreach, organizing and mobilization around federal transportation reform opportunities of direct benefit to Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

Foundation Outreach and Educational Activities

One Region has co-sponsored three funder educational briefings in Connecticut in January 2006, November 2006, and January 2008. Discussions at the November 2006 briefing led to the creation of the Transit for Connecticut Coalition.
June 2006 Issue Briefing and Roundtable Discussion on Transportation Planning and Reform co-sponsored with the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers
January 2007 Briefing: You Can’t Get There from Here: A Transportation Briefing for the Tri-State Metropolitan Region co-sponsored with the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, Connecticut Council for Philanthropy and Council of New Jersey Grantmakers
September 2007 Long Island Community Forum: Transportation Solutions for Long Island: Towards Transit-Centered Community Development co-sponsored with Hofstra Center for Suburban Studies, Long Island Community Foundation, Long Island Regional Planning Board, New York Community Trust, Rauch Foundation, Sustainable Long Island, Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Vision Long Island.
November 2007 Funder Site Visit to the Hudson Bergen Light Rail Line co-sponsored by One Region Funders’ Group, the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, and the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers.
December 2008 Funder Briefing on Transit Oriented Development Opportunities in New York City, co-sponsored with the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers.
One Region members and staff have written articles for the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers’ Perspectives Newsletter, for the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy’s e-newsletter, for the Environmental Grantmakers Association’s Spring 2008 EGA Journal, and One Region has been featured in the e-newsletter of the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities.

For More Information

The One Region Funders’ Group is staffed by the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth & Livable Communities. For more information, please contact:

Ann Fowler Wallace
Coordinator, One Region Fund
Program Consultant, The Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities
617-524-9239