For Immediate Release
February 18, 2008

Valerie Oliver-Durrah
718-455-3784
917-952-7696

Giving Voice to the Grassroots
What a Difference a Decade Makes !
 

On Thursday, February 7th, another 300 plus community-based nonprofit organizations in Brooklyn, learned, first hand, and for free, what major foundations are willing to support in grassroots social services at Meet the Grantmakers, celebrating its tenth year as a program of the Neighborhood Technical Assistance Clinic (NTAC). They met at Concord Community Baptist Church of Christ at 833 Marcy Avenue, a well-established locus for community-serving activity.

This was the second of five Meet the Grantmaker Symposiums this year.

 Staten Island nonprofits gathered on January 23rd at the College of Staten Island;

 Manhattan nonprofits will gather at Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office on March 14, hosted by Deputy Borough President Rose Pierre-Louis.
 
 Queens nonprofits and grantmakers will meet on June 5th at York College, hosted by Councilman Leroy Comrie
 
 The Bronx they will meet on June 18th, at Monroe College, during Bronx Week.

Barely a dream for its founder, Valerie Oliver-Durrah, whose first Meet the Grantmakers event in 1998 was in the very same location, this year’s symposiums will reach the 10,000 mark in attendance and welcome the 55th grantmaking organization.

For Valerie Oliver-Durrah, NTAC’s President and CEO, this has been an endeavor worth all the 10 years she has devoted to raising the bar in grassroots services for compromised communities and in making foundations and donors understand how effective these investments can be. It is obviously apparent to the grant makers as well, who, in addressing these audiences made it very clear that they want to fund grassroots endeavors. In 1998 it was a stretch that only a few were brave enough to try – among them JPMorgan Chase and the Independence Community Foundation.

Download the full 10th Anniversary Press Release - PDF

More than 300 attend the Meet the Grantmakers Symposium in Brooklyn this year.	Manhattan Deputy Borough President Rose Pierre-Louis presents the 2008 Community Capacity Builder Award to DYCD Commissioner Jeanne Mullgrav. Valerie Oliver-Durrah (far left).  The Community Capacity Builder Awards are given annually by the Neighborhood Technical Assistance Clinic to has conferred this award funders who have created distinction in their support of community-based and faith-based nonprofits.
More than 10,000 people have attended the Meet the Grantmakers Symposium since its inception in 1998	Rev. Sylvia Kinard-Thompson, NTAC's Board of Directors President presents the Community Capacity Builder Award to The Union Square Awards for their ten years of exemplary service in supporting community-based endeavors.
Kate Sullivan, Co-Anchor CBS2 News serves for the second year, as Mistress of Ceremonies at the Capacity Builder Awards Ceremony.  Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Borough President presents a proclamation to Valerie Oliver-Durrah for her 10 years of commitment to Brooklyn grassroots nonprofits	Rev. Dr. Gary Simpson opens the 10th Annual Meet the Grantmakers Symposium, at Concord Baptist Church of Christ.

Additional photography and original file copies of these images are available from photographer Zella Jones