2021 Nonprofit Policy Questionnaire Responses NYC Mayoral Primary Election

Eric Adams

Pronouns: He/him
Race: Black
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Non-Hispanic Black
Disability Status: Non Disabled
Languages spoken: English
Neighborhoods in which the candidate has lived or worked in New York: Brownsville Brooklyn, South Jamaica Queens, Bed Stuy Brooklyn

What are your priorities for your first year in office?

Public Health: I will bring health care resources directly into low-income areas. During the pandemic and after, health professionals should be paired with local organizations and workers to go into those same communities and set up in NYCHA complexes and open storefronts, partnering with public and private providers, creating a one-stop shop for basic exams, preventive care, and resources to live a healthier life. These locations would be accessible to any New Yorker, including those who are uninsured or undocumented.

Economic relief: To get funding into people’s hands that need it the most, NYC Advanced Income Deployment which aims to boost the earned income tax credits poor families receive by more than 10 times the current rate, and I would do it in real-time, not in one lump sum at the end of the year. This plan would add roughly $4000 in income to families on the lowest end of the poverty spectrum.

Affordable housing development: Building more affordable housing in a financial crisis will require all options to be on the table and all stakeholders at the table, including: Building smaller, cheaper units (SROs); More partnerships with local community developers to leverage City-owned property and meet community standards; Adding density to manufacturing areas in desirable parts of Manhattan (lower-income areas should not bear the burden alone) Convert illegal basement apartments to legal units

How would you partner with nonprofits and philanthropy to achieve your priorities in your first year in office? How would you provide leadership opportunities with nonprofits in shaping policies, programs?

As Brooklyn Borough President, I have an open door policy to meet and work with nonprofits of all types. Many of my most successful initiatives and programs began as collaborations and partnerships with the nonprofit sector. For example, my first initiative as borough president was to launch my Renewable and Sustainable Energy Task Force (RESET) which brings together nonprofits and industry to outline how to advance renewable energy in Brooklyn. This approach will inform how I build citywide as Mayor, bringing the experts and those closest to the neediest to the table and advance smart policy and programming that will benefit the most residents.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits as important contributors to the City’s economy and what framework would you use to engage with nonprofits? Feel free to include any experience you have working with nonprofits (as a staff member, board member, or in other capacities).

According to Nonprofit New York, the nonprofit sector in New York City accounts for close to $78 billion in economic output and roughly 660,000 jobs proving that the nonprofit sector is not only integral to delivering important services to New Yorkers, but also to New York City’s economy and quality of life. We must ensure that the funding that is the lifeline for these agencies is delivered in a coordinated and timely manner. For too long, nonprofits have been held to the whim of government inefficiency. My administration will make certain that the Mayor’s Office of Contracts Services holds up its end of the bargain by incorporating the data developed into a single platform similar to CompStat and using analytics to track performance in real time.

What role do you think the nonprofits play in creating an equitable New York and if elected, how will you work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City?

Nonprofits are the great levelers in New York City and much like I will undertake an impact equity analysis when looking at cuts to the City’s budget, I will also view support for our nonprofits from an equity lens as well. Together we will ensure that nonprofits have the tools and resources to aid those with the most need in NYC.

It’s very important for the City and State to collaborate. How would you establish or work with the State to ensure coordination with budgets, systems, and communication?

Given my decades long tenure as a community organizer, State elected official, and Borough President, I have built a broadbased coalition of organizations, elected officials, and community groups that believe in my vision for New York City. These relationships will provide guidance and partnerships with the State to ensure that New York City receives its fair share of resources in a timely and effective manner. I will appoint an Albany liaison that has the genuine relationships necessary to be innovative and effective to deliver these resources to New York City residents. Finally, I will activate, coordinate with, and mobilize the nonprofit sector and community groups to advocate for the resources to which our residents are entitled.

The nonprofit workforce is made up primarily of women and people of color. How, if at all, are they integrated into your economic development plan to create a stronger middle class? Please also include your definition of the middle class in your response.

New York City’s middle class is increasingly being squeezed out as a result of the high cost of living, stagnant wages, and an affordable housing crisis. In order to address these crises, we must build more affordable housing targeted to low and middle income individuals and families. We also need to acknowledge that a big reason why women, especially women of color, are pushed out of the workforce is due to lack of affordable childcare.

My plans for affordable housing include: Building in wealthier areas with a high quality of life, allowing lower-and middle-income New Yorkers to move in by adding affordable housing and eliminating the community preference rule in those areas, which prevents many New Yorkers from living in desirable neighborhoods. Giving city-owned property to non-profit land trusts to create affordable housing. Vacant and underutilized City property is a massive waste of our resources and often a blight on neighborhoods. We will aggressively seek to partner with community land trusts by offering properties to organizations that commit to building permanently affordable housing.

Additionally, childcare is essential infrastructure and that is why I have put out a plan to make it available to every parent who needs it.

One upside to our current economic crisis is that commercial building owners are suddenly hurting for tenants and rents are going down. The City should take advantage of that by finding cheap space in the communities most in need of childcare and matching it with providers. Storefronts are also particularly valuable because ground floor access is required for centers that care for infants. The City itself could move to lock in long-term leases under these conditions in order to sub-let to providers at a discount if necessary.

Finally, we need better coordination between the City and parents. Parents need much more help to navigate the system and connect with services. There should be one childcare czar dedicated to this challenge. And that person should oversee the entire shared inventory of City-contracted and private childcare spots in New York so we can identify which communities need more.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits in the provision of services contracted by the City?

New York City relies heavily on non-profits to provide critical services to New Yorkers that are funded by the City. But there is no central authority in City government that oversees and coordinates delivery of these services on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, we are not finding efficiencies and savings that can help us better deliver services to more New Yorkers. That is why we will create a real-time reporting system for the delivery of services across a unified network, overseen by the First Deputy Mayor.

What steps would you take to strengthen the contracting process and enhance the quality of contracted services for nonprofits of all sizes and the communities they serve? Please include how you would measure success.

I would continue to streamline the contracting process with substantial input from nonprofit organizations and research from around the country and world to determine best practices. Determining success would be managed with strategic goals, generated and identified in partnership with the nonprofit sector, and overseen by a real-time CompStat-like system to determine whether we are meeting our goals or falling behind.

As Mayor, how would you engage nonprofits in developing and implementing recovery plans for NYC?

In much the same way that I would identify and determine reforms for contracting, successes, and monitoring and evaluation systems. Nonprofits would have a place at the table to develop and implement any recovery plans. In addition, I would appoint a Director of the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services who clearly understands the challenges and issues in delivering funding and support in a timely manner.

Nonprofits work across many City Agencies. How will you ensure City Agencies collaborate with one another and work effectively together to more effectively and efficiently support communities? What systems would you use and how would you measure success?

The root of our City’s inefficiency is in its agencies, which work in parallel, instead of in concert—and often in direct conflict with each other. By mandating inter-agency coordination and designating existing senior staff to a citywide council that meets regularly to align goals, we will institutionalize coordination to reduce inefficiency and inequality.

That council will be tasked with three specific mandates:
Define the mission of each agency
Ensure the missions of the agencies meet the overall mission of the City government as defined by city leadership
Evaluate agencies to ensure no agency’s actions conflict with another agency

In addition, I would move to launch “MYCITY” a single portal for all city services and benefits. It has never been more important that New Yorkers receive the full support of their government. Imagine typing only one number into a secure app or Web site and instantly receiving every service and benefit you qualify for—such as SNAP—without any paperwork, as well as constant up-to-date information that will help you protect you and your family. If you own a business, you can manage City paperwork through it. If you are making repairs to your property, you will have direct access to the Department of Buildings. And, if you opt-in to using a chip-enabled City ID, you can sail through in-person interactions with City agencies, instantly have access to a bank account, and even get City loyalty discounts at participating local businesses. With the technology now available, there is no reason New York City cannot do that for every New Yorker. This is a 311 for the digital age, and so much more.

The City contracts a vast network of services to the nonprofit sector through competitive procurement. How would your Administration engage the sector and communities in program design and evaluation to ensure these procurements are responsive to community needs?

Many nonprofits are most aware of the needs of the various communities in New York City because they are on the front lines of delivering services. Program design and evaluation requires having nonprofits at the table guiding the discussion along with representatives from marginalized communities. The best way to understand and implement design and evaluation is engage those undertaking the work themselves. I would make certain that my Office of Contracts is meaningfully engaging nonprofit institutions to understand how to ensure that organizations are applying for, and receiving funding.

What do you think is the primary concern for nonprofits at this moment? As Mayor how would you address this concern?

Based on my extensive conversations with the members of the non-profit sector, the coordination of services and the on-time payments of work done on behalf of New York City are the core primary concerns of the nonprofit sector. There has been an erosion of trust and this has been exacerbated by COVID-19 but has been a chronic problem for years, and I will work to expedite the reform of this system. Nonprofit organizations stood by New Yorkers during their time of most need this past year and I won’t forget that.

Kathryn Garcia

Pronouns: she/her
Race: White
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: n/a
Disability Status: none
Languages spoken: English
Neighborhoods in which the candidate has lived or worked in New York: Kathryn is a lifelong Park Slope resident and in her various government roles — from delivering clean tap water and plowing snow to hurricane sandy recovery and managing NYCHA — has worked in and served every single neighborhood and home in the city.

What are your priorities for your first year in office?

My top priority is to ensure the City recovers from COVID-19 from a public health perspective, an economic perspective, and a community perspective. My vision for New York City is one that has economic mobility for all, dignified housing, a resilient City that leads in climate change and the green economy, an accountable police force, and a job pipeline for the public and private sector for all our youth.

Our nonprofit partners and philanthropy are experts in the communities and clients they serve. We are fortunate as a city to have a strong nonprofit services sector that has been a great partner to the city for over a century. I believe in bringing everyone to the table, making sure I understand the problem, and involving everyone in designing and implementing a solution. I would invite the nonprofit and philanthropic community to inform policies, programs, and priorities. For example, in my first term, I intend to change the trajectory of homelessness in New York City and I need the biggest, boldest ideas from the nonprofit and philanthropic sector to get that done.

I was proud at the Department of Sanitation to develop and launch the Sanitation Foundation, the official nonprofit organization that advocates for zero waste and the front line staff of the Department. We launched the Sanitation Foundation in partnership with a designer that repurposed Sanitation uniforms to show the importance of textile recycling. Nonprofit organizations do so much important outreach and engagement work that makes our city run, from Sanitation to social services.

I will fundamentally reorient the way the City works with nonprofits. The slowdown in procurement for services during the deBlasio administration has hurt our non-profit sector. City agencies are sitting on contracts for months, there is no accountability for on time payments and contract registration is delayed at the Comptroller’s office.

Meanwhile, our nonprofits have to take out loans just to backfill shortfalls in government funding. That is unacceptable. I have committed to support frontline service providers—and to ensure you can in turn support your workforce with livable wages—by paying services providers on time and including an indirect rate to support infrastructure upgrades and innovation. We have to provide our nonprofits with funding to continue to innovate. I’d like to see our City’s nonprofits at the cutting edge of addressing our social issues and then present the government with evidence based programs that we can scale. This is a critical piece of our recovery; New York City relies on a healthy, dynamic nonprofit sector. We have known for years that nonprofits are underpaid, paid late, and held to metrics and definitions of success that can be untethered from the reality of lived experience. I will fix that.

What role do you think the nonprofits play in creating an equitable New York and if elected, how will you work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City?

The nonprofits in New York are as diverse as the rest of City. Nonprofits have a role to play in sharing what is and isn’t working in all of New York City’s communities, what needs different populations have, and what strategies can move us forward. As the head of the COVID-19 Emergency Food Program, I relied on nonprofit leaders to tell me what was and wasn’t working for the communities they knew well and to shape a better program. I am proud of what we did together to make sure New Yorkers did not go hungry during the pandemic.

But nonprofits are more than just a conduit for information – they should be a full partner in designing solutions that work for people. And for that, we need the City to do it’s part with equitable funding. For example, in FY 2020, Asian-led and serving organizations only received 4.37% of City Council discretionary dollars and less than 1.5% of social service contract dollars. My vision for budget justice is funding equity: an equal commitment to all neighborhoods.

It’s very important for the City and State to collaborate. How would you establish or work with the State to ensure coordination with budgets, systems, and communication?

We need to have better coordination with the State. As an experienced public servant, I know the unproductive delays and inefficiencies that can result when the City and State don’t talk to each other or design programs that don’t work together. On Day 1, I will work to redesign City programs to more effectively leverage State systems. I am confident I can create a more collaborative system because I have spent my career doing it – I have brought together different stakeholders with varying perspectives but shared interests to get things done. To get real results, we need to have everyone at the table and drive to deals we can agree on. Here’s an example: I worked with industry, labor, business groups, real estate and environmental advocates to pass significant reform to the commercial waste industry. While we didn’t all agree, we started with a firm understanding of the data and our shared goals of protecting small businesses, the environment and the workers in the sector. We came to an agreement by focusing on the shared goals. I will take the same approach with the State.

Workers belong to the middle class if they are economically secure and can afford to raise a family in New York City and have the savings to withstand life’s emergencies. My economic development plan will bring prosperity for everyone and focuses on creating good jobs through training, formal programs with employers, and ensuring that workers are receiving a wage where they can feel secure. I am committed to ensuring that the nonprofit sector, especially those who do business with the City, are creating well-paying jobs that offer a pathway to the middle class. This means making sure the City is paying nonprofits for the true cost of services and paying them on time.

More broadly, my administration will prioritize supplying the most vulnerable New Yorkers with meaningful economic relief and pathways for economic mobility. First, we will provide free childcare for working families, allowing guardians, especially women, to get back to work. Second, we will unlock barriers for small businesses by increasing access to credit, streamlining all laws and regulations governing restaurants and nightlife establishments, and cutting red tape for all permit and licensing processes. Third, we will create job pipelines into both the public and private sector for justice involved youth, CUNY colleges, and trade schools. We will guarantee graduates of our trade schools City employment, work with the private sector to offer 10,000 paid internships to high school students, and subsidize wages for youth who face barriers to employment.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits in the provision of services contracted by the City?

Nonprofits play a crucial role in the City’s provision of health and human services, providing resources to our most vulnerable communities. Our economic recovery depends on the vital connections with local neighborhoods and communities that nonprofits cultivate, as well as nonprofit expertise in service delivery. I will work in partnership with organizations and the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee to support the recovery and growth of the City’s nonprofits and their mission to serve with an open mind, urgency, and compassion.

One of the largest barriers to the sustainability of nonprofit service provision is underfunding. I am committed to helping nonprofits emerge from the significant financial hardships they have faced during COVID from increased operational costs, City budget cuts, constraints on fundraising activities, and uncertainty around the City’s reimbursement policies.

I will immediately take action to restore and augment funding for the City’s Indirect Cost Rate Funding Initiative, to provide nonprofits with the resources they need to finance ongoing administrative expenses and overhead costs. Cutting bureaucratic red tape is also a core part of my approach to improving the City. I will work to streamline applications for ICR funding, making it faster, easier, and cheaper for nonprofits to access the resources they need. Delayed payments to nonprofits increase nonprofit cash flow challenges, and I will work to improve fast track payments for service provision.

We have too many steps in our contracting process that makes it difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for nonprofits to serve the City. I will evaluate each step of the contracting process and eliminate requirements that have no relationship to risk. I will also pay nonprofits on time for their services. The City must be a good partner to the nonprofits that serve New Yorkers and that includes prompt payment. As a manager, I know that defining and holding employees accountable for performance is the key to success. I will measure whether agencies are awarding contracts in a timely manner and remitting payment and hold them accountable if they are not being good partners. The nonprofit sector cannot and should not be taken for granted.

As Mayor, how would you engage nonprofits in developing and implementing recovery plans for NYC?

Throughout my career, I have engaged experts from all areas of the City to help me understand how to solve problems for New Yorkers. The recovery of New York City requires hearing many voices and I would invite members of the nonprofit sector to bring me their best ideas to usher in a recovery that works for everyone.

I plan to reorganize the way the City government works by redesigning major programs from the perspective of the person who needs the service rather than what might work best for a City agency. This means being thoughtful upfront about how different agencies can work together and use their unique funding streams to create comprehensive solutions. We can bring City agencies together to craft multidimensional policies and programs that are efficient. I did this during COVID-19 when I stood up an operation that served over 1 million meals a day to New Yorkers. We don’t need to only The same nonprofit or community group shouldn’t need to bounce from agency to agency to get the assistance they need.

It’s a simple answer – you ask. I am not afraid to ask for input to ensure we are effectively designing and paying for a solution that will work in communities. Before my administration releases a contract for services, we will make sure we engage communities to understand what it is they need while preserving full and fair competition among different providers to make sure New Yorkers are getting the best possible service.

What you measure matters and I would engage the nonprofit sector to make sure we are measuring the right things to get the outcomes we need as a City and without making it difficult to get residents the services they need. I have heard stories about City contract metrics that are irrational, unproductive, and inefficient and that’s a design problem and a listening problem. I will make sure my administration listens to nonprofits and the communities that serve to understand what the right metrics are and how to design them.

What do you think is the primary concern for nonprofits at this moment? As Mayor how would you address this concern?

I think nonprofits are worried about the clients they serve and how best to serve them. The pandemic has been incredibly challenging for nonprofits and the communities they serve, straining services at a time of incredible need. As Mayor, I will work to address the challenges nonprofits face because of the City’s policies and also work collaboratively to strengthen the sector’s access to resources. The American Rescue Plan and the budget recently passed in New York State earmark a considerable set of resources for nonprofit providers and many of these programs are awarded competitively. I will use the full power of the office of New York City mayor to try to secure this funding for nonprofits to serve the communities they know best in the way they need.

Ray McGuire

Pronouns: He/Him
Race: Black
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: African American
Disability Status: N/A
Languages spoken: English
Neighborhoods in which the candidate has lived or worked in New York: Upper West Side

What are your priorities for your first year in office?

My entire Comeback plan is designed to kick off within my first year. That means immediate financial support for struggling local businesses, streamlining permits, inspections, and approvals to help businesses open again. I will administer a wage subsidy to bring back 50,000 jobs at the small businesses hardest hit by the pandemic. Importantly, we will get started on a major infrastructure program that will create jobs rebuilding our roads and bridges, fixing subway elevators, building and renovating affordable housing, and making our city more sustainable.

I will partner with nonprofits and philanthropic organizations to be key players in my administration and to implement important policy goals. Those will include helping vaccinate hard to reach communities, eliminating food insecurity, providing childcare for all parents, expanding language access, hosting recreational programs for students and seniors, revitalizing the arts and culture sector, and investing in good quality parks.

Nonprofits will be vital for my workforce development program that will invest $100 million a year to provide 15,000 New Yorkers with seats in bridge programs, which pair education with jobs training, and put struggling New Yorkers on the path to a good job. These jobs would be incorporated in my major infrastructure plan to construct new affordable housing, accelerate resiliency measures, upgrade urgent care facilities, and improve transportation systems. I will also fund a range of services that will help increase the capacity of Minority and Women Business Entrepreneurs (MWBEs) across the City in addition to designating $50 million in advances or low-interest loans to help these business owners access city contracts and appointing a Deputy Mayor for Small, Minority-, and Women- Owned Businesses to ensure that every agency meets or exceeds MWBE requirements.

What role do you think the nonprofits play in creating an equitable New York and if elected, how will you work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City?

Nonprofit organizations play a tremendous role in creating a more equitable city. For instance, many women have taken on more childcare responsibilities due to remote working. I plan to give operating funds to build capacity at existing childcare programs, as well as an urgent grant program to help providers launch new programs in underserved “childcare deserts.” These programs will allow parents to go back to the workforce and help all kids enter school on a level playing field. We have also seen the excessive criminalization of homelessness, mental health disorders, and substance abuse. I am committed to providing adequate mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment programs, and other wraparound services to vulnerable individuals, so they can lead independent lives and are not caught up in the criminal justice system. For those that are, I will expand alternatives to incarceration programs, so that they can receive the help they need to break the cycle of involvement and can integrate into society with the skills to lead a better quality of life.

It’s very important for the City and State to collaborate. How would you establish or work with the State to ensure coordination with budgets, systems, and communication?

It’s critical that we establish a good working relationship with Albany. For far too long the personality has interfered with the best interests of the city and with me that ends. I hope to have a good working relationship with all our state leaders and all the representatives across our city. Thankfully, there has already been good progress made when it comes to federal and state stimulus and now we need to build on that approach. I’ll never hesitate to stand up for New Yorkers City but I also think that together we can find common ground to help our city rebuild from COVID and launch the greatest economic comeback in our city’s history.

I would take a similar approach to support community nonprofits and their critical workforce as I plan to apply to help our small businesses. We need to provide support to nonprofits with proven records of results in our communities to prevent them from going under and to save jobs. In places where existing CBOs are lost, we need to make sure that city funds are made available to emerging nonprofits in those communities rather than just flowing to more established players in other neighborhoods. By any definition of middle class New York City is currently unaffordable. That’s why I have a plan to bring good paying jobs to the city and create more affordable housing while also providing direct support to help the neediest.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits in the provision of services contracted by the City?

I will make sure that contracts are actually going to smaller and newer organizations, rather than just to the largest and more established firms that have historically dominated the contract pool. I will target contracts to nonprofits that are embedded in hard to reach neighborhoods, especially those that are run by people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ people. Importantly, I will ensure that funding is timely and that contracts are streamlined to avoid delays and unnecessary bureaucracy.

We need a top to bottom review to streamline the contracting process. I will identify and wholly remove nonsensical and complex requirements that raise the prices of the most simple procurements. That includes a comprehensive approach that looks for waste and redundancies. When we have major inefficiencies in our budget it takes resources away from the communities that need them most. My longstanding and unparalleled success with managing budgets in times of crisis means that I know the steps required to heal our city’s economy. Our city needs a manager who can bring accountability to a problem where too many others have passed the buck.

As Mayor, how would you engage nonprofits in developing and implementing recovery plans for NYC?

As mentioned above, nonprofits will be important players in the city’s recovery and will help alleviate issues that the pandemic has exacerbated. For example, my administration will centralize aspects of the food system and increase funding for pantries and home delivered meals for homebound individuals to address food insecurity. I will prioritize the distribution of devices to seniors and provide tech class options, so that they can more easily access telehealth appointments, vaccines, and connect with loved ones to combat social isolation. I will help uninsured individuals sign up for NYC Care especially in underserved communities and expand pop up clinics. For students who have been cooped up in their homes, I will increase safe afterschool and summer programming as well as summer youth employment programs to keep young people occupied and allow them to gain key skill sets.

If we want to create communities that are truly safe for all New Yorkers, it must start with equitable investments in our neighborhoods and our people. Under my leadership, the city will work with community members to create a quality of life scorecard for every district in the five boroughs. Scorecards will identify the most urgent needs and pervasive challenges, which vary by community, and will set metrics for the city to improve services. These scorecards would evaluate physical infrastructure, such as streets, sidewalks, parks and playgrounds and would include social metrics, such as rates of unemployment, housing insecurity or substance misuse. Scorecards will be used to create comprehensive plans that span different departments and agencies to address their holistic nature and prioritize spending.

I will make sure local nonprofits and key community constituencies are at the table for all large projects. I understand that we cannot advance initiatives with a top down approach. I will work with communities, and ensure that local leaders and organizations are engaged and leading efforts to reimagine our neighborhoods. Virtual town hall meetings should also be held regularly to inform the public, gain their input, and to hold agencies and stakeholders accountable.

While we’ve been lucky to receive a significant portion of federal stimulus that will help us work out of the economic abyss that COVID has left the city in, the fact remains that this money must be spent effectively. As Mayor I’ll use a data-driven approach when possible to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and shift resources towards ones that have the highest impact. For smaller nonprofits where program evaluation costs can be significant I will direct the contracting agency to work with them directly to find ways to ascertain outcomes in a fair and cost-effective manner. For our city to achieve the greatest comeback in its history we’re going to all hands on deck and for our city to work will with all nonprofits from the largest to the smallest.

What do you think is the primary concern for nonprofits at this moment? As Mayor how would you address this concern?

Given the economic crisis facing our city, funding operations and not just programmatic offerings is a critical concern for nonprofits. This impacts their ability to keep staff employed and keep the lights on. And while there was a significant outpouring of private and philanthropic giving in some areas at the onset of the pandemic, that funding has slowed and was not necessarily shared equally. As mayor, I would partner with the non-profit community to improve schools, increase community safety, build affordable housing, train our workforce and so much more. I’ll set clear metrics and expect those partners to meet them, and I would work to ensure those that do receive support for their operations as well so they can continue to scale. I would also use every connection I have to foster public-private partnerships and I would work to increase funding for the Mayor’s fund that could be used to support additional nonprofits. I have a long career on nonprofit boards that will help me make the connections and bring support to ensure the city’s nonprofit sector thrives.

Dianne Morales

Pronouns: she/her/ella
Race: Afro-Latina
Gender: woman
Ethnicity: Afro-Latina
Disability Status: none that’s been diagnosed or that requires accommodations
Languages spoken: English, Spanish
Neighborhoods in which the candidate has lived or worked in New York:
Bedford-Stuyvestant, Brooklyn
South Bronx
DUMBO in NYCHA housing
Broome Street, lower Manhattan
Flushing, Queens

What are your priorities for your first year in office?

Right now, money is not saving us from this crisis, poor and working class people are. As Mayor, my immediate priority, and my guiding principle for my mayoralty, is to center the working-class, immigrants, and the Black and brown New Yorkers who are the backbone of our city. In addition to enacting my Dignity Now platform, my top three priorities are to 1) enshrine housing as a human right in the city; 2) integrate our schools and create educational equity; and 3) defund the NYPD to fund the people.

My central mission and priority remains to address the systemic and structural issues that perpetuate disparity and inequity by race, gender and class. We must center the voices of people who have been systematically disenfranchised by bad policies, some of which go back centuries, especially since we are living in unprecedented times that call for the radical reimagining of what is possible. I am running to create a new social contract that centers and elevates communities that have historically been left behind. I am not promising to get NYC back to status quo, I am promising to help us build an NYC that has never existed, but is urgently needed.

In my first year, I would focus on creating a budget that reflects those priorities and values. This includes making deep investments in quality, affordable and accessible housing to address homelessness, increasing mental health counselors in schools, providing job training & internships for youth, expanding the violence interrupters programs to address increasing gun violence and creating a Community First Responders Department to address homeless, mental health and substance abuse challenges in communities. Another critical priority that would provide funding support for these measures would be to significantly divest from policing by both reducing the department’s budget and removing police from schools in order to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.

Many of my initiatives rely on and build upon the work that nonprofit organizations in New York City have been spearheading for decades. Partnering with trust community organizations that have proven track records in responding to the needs of housing insecure communities, as well as elevate the voices of unhoused New Yorkers front and center — especially in healthcare and economic empowerment — is one of my foremost priorities. We would also majorly repurpose the Economic Development Corporation for social-public partnerships, focused on disrupting poverty from a root cause lens, by developing social housing, expanding cooperative housing, increasing affordable housing, and eradicating homelessness. The city’s development partnerships will favor nonprofit and mission-driven organizations, Community Development Corporations and supportive housing, tenants groups and alliances; An expanded cooperative ownership agenda will put increasing control of social housing and existing developments in the hands of tenants.

By virtue of my personal and professional experience, I am the only candidate that can uniquely speak to the lived experiences of New Yorkers while also having the executive leadership ability to manage and oversee the kind of change our city government needs.

When it comes to education policy, all parents will have a voice in my administration with a heavy focus on language justice and accessibility, and building equity. Information and opportunities for engagement will be provided in multiple languages, through partnerships with community organizations and other anchor institutions, including religious organizations, arts & cultural institutions, healthcare clinics, and at flexible times, so that working parents can attend.

We would have expanded partnerships with community based organizations (recreation centers, parks, etc) to allow for more outdoor learning opportunities and more space for children to be socially-distanced. Many of the current partners have staff that work in schools who could have played a critical role in bolstering academic and social/mental health support.

It is apparent to me that to build trust and reach all New Yorkers, we have to build on top of the relationships and work in close partnership with nonprofit organizations who have been leading the way for decades.

Nonprofits and community organizations are central to all my plans. As I’ve emphasized consistently in my campaign, my lived experience as well as the executive leadership ability borne out of 25+ years of working as a nonprofit leader have repeatedly shown me how central these institutions are to the city. I am a first generation Puerto Rican, born in Bed-Stuy, to two working class parents who believed in the American Dream — that success was possible for everyone and that those who attained success had a responsibility to lift others as they climbed. I am the single mother of two college students, and the first Afro-Latina candidate for Mayor of New York. My personal experiences informed by my 25 years of leadership in the nonprofit sector have given me a deep understanding of our city’s dysfunctional education, justice, and health/mental health systems. I also believe that those with experience with nonprofits and working directly with constituencies often understand the intricate networks of care that we all need to keep us happy and healthy. They would provide invaluable insight to my team.

What role do you think the nonprofits play in creating an equitable New York and if elected, how will you work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City?

My immediate priorities, and my guiding principles for my mayoralty, are about creating economic justice and centering working-class Black and brown New Yorkers, particularly women, who are the backbone of our city.

As a former teacher and mom to two public school students, integrating our schools and creating educational equity is near to my heart and a top priority for my administration. I will fully fund schools, in order to make capital improvements to schools, reduce class sizes, and expand pre-K and 3-K. Most critically, I will work to desegregate our schools by ending all racist and inequitable admissions tests and processes, reducing charter schools’ power, and assessing and addressing inequitable funding. I also plan to work with CBOs to develop a more community-based and culturally relevant curriculum for students.

I will also work alongside longtime advocacy organization to protect and expand workers’ right, by protecting city workers, who are predominately women, from layoffs, aggressively monitoring and enforcing pay equity laws, decriminalizing sex work, expanding the Freelance Isn’t Free Act with increased protections for gig, domestic, nail salon, for hire and street vendors, and extending Just Cause employment protections to as many workers as possible.

Additionally, I will work to undo the health inequities, caused by systemic racism and economic injustice, that pervade our city. I’m committed to increasing public health access, education, and support. I will ensure funding for programs that continue to increase reproductive and maternal healthcare, especially in our communities of color, and will also continue the funding for the Abortion Access Fund. As mayor I would move to ensure coverage of every New Yorker, starting with those who are hardest hit by our current inequities.

The entirety of my plans and campaign are dedicated to addressing this root inequity. The people who help keep New York City afloat, in and out of a pandemic, are the same ones struggling because our system was designed for them to struggle. Every action I take as Mayor will work to combat that.

It’s very important for the City and State to collaborate. How would you establish or work with the State to ensure coordination with budgets, systems, and communication?

In terms of our current Governor, we know that backroom deals and attempts to parley with him don’t work. What has finally worked is transparency and people organizing to reveal just how deep his corruption and abuses against New York City (and the State) are. When I go to negotiate with the Governor, it will be by bringing buses of mothers, essential workers, and more to Albany with me because New York City currently gives more than it receives back. New Yorkers should not be struggling. I will also support movements by our State representatives to fight for budget equity and to see more transparency out of the Governor’s office.

As an Afro-Latina woman, my survival and success has depended on pushing back against racist, homophobic, ableist, and sexist systems. I know what it is like to be a woman of color in this city and in the nonprofit sector. I am ready to represent these communities because they are my communities. In my administration, I will not only consistently collaborate with these groups, I will bring representatives into my administration to ensure that all of our work gives vulnerable and overlooked New Yorkers a seat at the table where decisions are made. These New Yorkers keep our city running, despite our historical failure to support them, and I will not forget that as Mayor.

In order to build a new NYC, we must invest in our local economy and communities. For too long, NYC’s economy and employment has been framed in the context of relying on outside businesses and corporations to provide jobs and “stimulate the economy.” We must prioritize the creation and establishment of a local circular economy that invests and grows our economy from within. My administration will center the recovery on the working class and poor, meaning those who earn a wage for a living, live paycheck to paycheck, and struggle to make ends meet, and those who our city has left behind entirely. The dollars that have traditionally gone to outsiders in the form of tax incentives/subsidies must be invested in our local economy instead. These dollars can be prioritized to support small & mid-sized businesses as well as City agencies and services. We must also divest from Wall Street and other predatory financial institutions and establish a public bank that expands our investment capacity and cost-savings. I will also be focused on creating a municipal jobs guarantee focused on bringing green jobs to New York City as we work to lower our carbon emissions. At the core of these economic policies is the centering of women, LGBTQIA+ people, and minorities. When we create a platform for historically marginalized people to succeed, the city as a whole will thrive as a result.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits in the provision of services contracted by the City?

As the former leader of two nonprofits, I understand this issue all too well. Nonprofits frequently operate on a shoestring budget, and a late payment can devastate their ability to cover basic operating costs. It is absolutely unacceptable to the City to be millions behind on its contracts, and I am committed to fixing the issue.

The procurement process is too long and complicated. A contract often has to pass through several agencies before it can be paid. We need to eliminate some of the steps and speed up every part of the process, particularly registration. I would immediately move to convene a committee that will study the process and issue recommendations within six months; and I aim to act on those recommendations within a year.

As I stated above, I would immediately move to convene a committee that will study the process and issue recommendations within six months; and I aim to act on those recommendations within a year. I would measure success by the amount of on-time payments. There is no excuse for paying service providers late and my goal is to have 100% on time payments by the end of my first term. This will take some time to achieve, because I intend to work closely with a variety of nonprofits and change the whole system as needed. I will also measure success by ensuring that nonprofit workers make a fair wage. Nonprofit employees whose salaries are funded by City dollars should not make less, or have fewer benefits, than people working for the City doing similar jobs.

As Mayor, how would you engage nonprofits in developing and implementing recovery plans for NYC?

As I campaign, I am having conversations with the most directly impacted New Yorkers: essential and excluded workers, the unemployed and underemployed, our youth who are attending the country’s most segregated schools, sex workers, activists and organizers, and many others. I think they would all say that I am listening and acknowledging them in a way that no one has before. And it is clear that nonprofit organizations have been working to fill existing gaps. I believe wholeheartedly that the best path to our City’s recovery is to prioritize their recovery: our City will thrive when they do, too, and nonprofits will most definitely play a role in this.

Since the pandemic began, I have been organizing with my neighborhood’s mutual aid group, Bed-Stuy Strong. Together, we have delivered over $1 million dollars of groceries, supplies, and medication to over fifteen-thousand households. We have provided protest and rally support, wellness checks, and census and voter registration drives among other initiatives over the past year. I think my fellow organizers would say that when I am faced with a problem, I keep asking questions until we get to a solution; where others see walls, I can find a window or door to the other side.

I would enact a COVID recovery plan that will allow what we love about our city to revive and flourish. I will support small businesses through commercial rent relief and stabilization. I will help our neighbors stay in their homes by expanding rent relief. I resist austerity and invest in our public services that make New Yorkers’ lives healthy and safe. Nonprofits are key to that health and safety; not only will they be advising me on critical policy decisions, but my administration will ensure our nonprofit partners have the funds they need to provide services to our city.

In addition to working in the nonprofit sector for more than twenty years, I have also served on the Nonprofit Resiliency Committee before which aims to offer opportunities for collaboration and to expand lines of communication between the City and nonprofit human service sector. Through this experience, I know that, by last count by Nonprofit New York, there are 46,595 and counting nonprofits in New York City, so to use a one catchall solution to work effectively together and support communities is not going to work. I would explore solutions that are tailored to different nonprofits with different goals, for example by evaluating how each agency liaises with nonprofits and working with those specific partner nonprofits to improve liaison services at a given agency. It’s this experience at the city governance level, as well as working on the ground with mutual aid networks like Bed-Stuy Strong, that has given me some perspective on understanding how nonprofits really build on top of each other and rely on each other to effectively support communities. Listening and understanding the needs of individual nonprofits and seeing the ways in which there are ways to collaborate and pursue a shared purpose is a primary goal of mine. This experience separates me from other candidates because I have remained on the ground beside the communities impacted by the pandemic and beside the nonprofits providing important relief to thousands.

I know there are many ways nonprofit organizations measure success, but for me, it’s always been how much we are listening to our community and our team. The Mayor should have the management and executive ability to organize, lead, and facilitate the City toward the successful implementation of that shared vision, working with nonprofits on the ground and individual New Yorkers. I have that experience of successfully leading hundreds of staff to work in alignment, with each member feeling valued and understanding the role they played in implementing the mission of the organization. It really is about the infrastructure you build to listen and acknowledge so every individual and organization can work successfully.

The city is spending billions on nonprofit contracts, and it is imperative that we are sure they are going to the right places. This knowledge comes from listening to nonprofit groups directly. 60% of nonprofits in New York City say they are not financially strong, and we are not helping that with our opaque funding and contracting systems. It will be my role as Mayor to ensure that the entire City office is working directly with nonprofit contractors to design programs and metrics of evaluation together in a coordinated effort rather than building a one-size fits all evaluation framework which we know does not work and doesn’t represent the ways in which each nonprofit uniquely serves their community.

Adding more metrics and evaluation hurdles in the form of report deliverables is also not sustainable for nonprofit groups who often have resource constraints. So creating a dialogue between the Administration and nonprofits directly will allow us to evaluate on a more case by case basis.

What do you think is the primary concern for nonprofits at this moment? As Mayor how would you address this concern?

I know first hand how integral nonprofits are to the fabric of the city and to each and every New Yorker. Nonprofits serve hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. Taking an active role in supporting engagement in the democratic process to build community power is an important step in dismantling the systemic and structural barriers that maintain inequity and injustice. However, funding, contracting, and payment delays often leave our critical nonprofits in a state of fiscal crisis. Nonprofits cover a hugely wide array of issues, but ensuring they have the funding to continue their critical services is a concern that I know unites them all.

Maya Wiley

Pronouns: She/her
Race: Black
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Non hispanic
Disability Status: Non disabled
Languages spoken: English and Spanish
Neighborhoods in which the candidate has lived or worked in New York: Central Brooklyn/Flatbush; Harlem; Grymes Hill, Staten Island

What are your priorities for your first year in office?

Housing and Homelessness: I put forward a plan to use the $251m from the December Federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program to:

Provide long-term solutions and stability instead of continuing the destabilizing pattern of providing month-by-month aid that does nothing to ease the painful psychic burden of housing uncertainty;
Stop New Yorkers hit by the crisis from being evicted;
Help small and nonprofit landlords who cannot afford to absorb the loss of nonpayments;
Address the reality that many families will still fall into homelessness and require rapid relief to remain in or return to housing.

Economic Recovery: I announced New Deal New York, a $10B capital investment program to put residents back to work and invest in the future of our communities. My plan will create a 5-year centrally managed $10B capital spending program for public works projects. The program will fund much-needed development, infrastructure repairs, and enhancements, and would consist of committed unspent capital funds and new capital dollars financed by City debt. It will also prioritize new kinds of investments that support our recovery while addressing the structural issues that cause racial and gender inequities.

Criminal Justice Reform & Policing: When I am Mayor, I will do the following:

Run a full audit of the NYPD’s budget to assess the facts and make necessary cuts, including to the number of uniformed officers.
Move mental health calls, routine traffic violations, and school safety out of the NYPD.
Hire a police commissioner that has not just moved up the ranks of the NYPD
Create a shift from “containment and control” policing and make “community and problem-oriented policing” the model, which requires collaboration and partnership with other agencies and communities.
End the criminalization of poverty and close Rikers while creating more alternatives to incarceration and re-entry programs.
Invest in what keeps our communities safe like youth programs, job and workforce creation and other community-sourced safety initiatives. The Gun Violence Prevention Plan that I released in November is an example of this approach.

I believe in listening, learning, and then leading in partnership. That is how I have managed in every leadership role I have ever held and would remain true as Mayor. For too long, New Yorkers — particularly those of color — have been excluded from the rooms where policies and decisions are being made.

I believe that the experiences and expertise of impacted communities and community based organizations is essential to making government work for its people. That is why I have made People’s Assemblies a pillar of my campaign. Through the People’s Assemblies process we have been able to engage in a dialogue with New Yorkers about their needs and priorities as well as the ideas they have, and center that experience in our policy-making process. The first two policies we released were our Gun Violence Prevention Policy and our Eviction Prevention Policy, which came directly from People’s Assembly discussions, and which were worked on and stressed tested by policy experts and advocates before release.

As Mayor, I would continue this model of direct engagement with impacted communities, and the nonprofits that serve them, understanding that it is crucial to maintain an ongoing feedback and accountability loop between City Hall and the people I will be elected to serve. I will also structure my administration in a way that prioritizes ongoing partnership, dialogue and feedback, and hire leaders who have a proven track record of collaboration and partnership.

Economic recovery is one of the most critical components of my agenda, but to meet this moment, we cannot just rebuild our economy, we need to transform it. We can place economic justice and equity at the center of our response and ensure an economy that works for all New Yorkers. This means addressing the racial wealth gap, pay gap for women, and economic security for all. I have dedicated significant portions of my career, both inside and outside of government, to address these issues and my approach to economic policy during our City’s recovery from the pandemic will continue this work.

Ensuring nonprofits have a physical space to do their work is critical to their ability to contribute to the city’s economy. My small business platform proposes linking vacant retail properties from the vacancy list to new and existing worker-owned co-ops and non-profit-owned retail cooperatives. We will use national best practices and launch an initiative to incentivize nonprofit developers and government agencies to directly lease real estate from landlords and sublease these spaces to nonprofits or cooperatives.

We must expand high-quality, affordable financial services to low-income and immigrant communities, communities of color, and gig workers by partnering with nonprofit and mission-driven community development financial institutions, especially community development credit unions.

Nonprofits play a significant role in supporting our communities and providing essential services for vulnerable New Yorkers. My policing plan includes centering the capacity of nonprofits to partner with the police in order to connect both offenders and victims to the appropriate social services in their neighborhoods. Collaboration between nonprofits, other CBOs, and the police will bring nonprofits more business by connecting them to more New Yorkers seeking support.

What role do you think the nonprofits play in creating an equitable New York and if elected, how will you work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City?

I have firsthand experience of the role nonprofits can play in creating a more equitable New York City. I was a founding member and leader of the Center for Social Inclusion, whose sole mission was to provide research, advocacy, and support to other nonprofits fighting for equity and justice in an array of policy sectors and institutions. I believe collaboration and connectivity between nonprofits is essential because we are stronger together. The research, advocacy, organizing, and institutional support nonprofits bring to our City challenge those in power every day to think bigger, more creatively, and more justly. As Mayor, I look forward to exploring ways the diverse nonprofits in our City can build their collective power to support our communities, protect vulnerable New Yorkers, and ignite change.

Since 2016, I have chaired the NYC Civilian Complaint Review Board and the School Diversity Advisory Group. I also served on the NYC Automated Decision Systems Task Force and serve as a member on the board of the Civil Rights Museum Foundation. As Chair of the CCRB, I restructured the agency to make it more effective, created its first proactive community engagement unit, and sent the complaint against Officer Daniel Pantaleo to the NYPD, which led to his eventual firing.

On the School Diversity Advisory Group (SDAG), I had the privilege of serving alongside Hazel Dukes and Jose Calderon to co-chair the effort to integrate our public schools, including in that definition, more teachers of color, more culturally representative pedagogy and restorative justice. This process was most rewarding because of the relationships I was able to build with the 43 diverse members of SDAG and through the community meetings and listening sessions we held.

On the Civil Rights Museum Foundation, we seek to establish a civil rights museum and community space in Harlem that will both educate the public on the history of movements for social justice from racial justice. More recently, When COVID struck, I partnered with my neighbors to create Flatbush Thrive, an all-volunteer effort to help small and micro-businesses in our neighborhood apply for federal PPP loans.

It’s very important for the City and State to collaborate. How would you establish or work with the State to ensure coordination with budgets, systems, and communication?

When I was in City Hall, I witnessed the relationship between the City and the State devolve. Even as the dynamic between the Mayor and Governor worsened, I was able to maintain enough of a relationship with the Governor’s staff to successfully partner when needed on the priorities that were within my portfolio. I was able to maintain those relationships because I put outcomes before egos and was clear from the outset what I needed from the State and why. While in City Hall it was also clear that the Administration did not effectively partner with the City delegation to develop and execute our priorities. I even hired my own Intergovernmental Affairs staff to create those relationships within my portfolio.

When I am Mayor, I will not repeat the mistakes of the past. I will proactively partner with the New York City delegations in the Assembly and Senate to develop the priorities for the City and partner with them on a plan of action to make those priorities become a reality. I will also build coalitions with stakeholders within the City who are aligned with our priorities so that there is a united front pushing for the City’s need in Albany. I will also not let personality politics get in the way of progress. I will lead with clear principles and work with anyone who will work with me to turn those principles into reality.

I define the middleclass as those who can afford to live in NYC and pay 30% or less of their income on rent and be economically stable. I have proposed various economic recovery plans, all of which center historically marginalized populations, especially women of color. My campaign recently released my Universal Community Care plan, which rebuilds economic growth in sectors dominated by women of color. Currently, American women spend 243 minutes doing unpaid labor every day, or roughly 28.4 hours a week. My plan redirects $300 million in resources from incoming NYPD and DOCCS cadet classes and $200 million in underutilized federal funding to give 100,000 high-need informal caregivers a $5,000 annual stipend to compensate them for their labor.

We must do more to support the non-profits and their staff, majority women and POC, who serve New York’s most vulnerable communities. As Mayor, I will run a full audit of the oversight and management structures of social service contracts to identify inefficiencies and make necessary adjustments to ensure that funding for nonprofits is maintained and expanded. Of course, awarding contracts is not enough if the nonprofits that are awarded them never get paid. The City has an obligation to pay its providers in a reasonable time frame. As Mayor, I will overhaul our procurement and payment practices to ensure this.

Additionally, I will make sure my administration continues to close the gender pay gap in city government and that senior positions in my administration and city agencies are filled in a manner that increases gender equity for women, transgender, and gender non-conforming persons. I will do the same thing with gender representation on Mayoral boards and commissions. Economic recovery will be one of the most critical components of my agenda, but to meet this moment, we cannot just rebuild our economy, we need to transform it. We can and will place economic justice and equity at the center of our response and ensure an economy that works for all New Yorkers. This means addressing the racial and gender wealth gap, pay gap for women, and ensuring economic security for all.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits in the provision of services contracted by the City?

I have been the leader of a non-profit organization and worked alongside them. I appreciate the critical role that these organizations play in providing contracted services to our City residents. We need to simplify our often byzantine procurement and payment processes and make it easier for organizations to partner with us. Organizations can’t be expected to “front” funds for months while contracts slowly wind their way through our system. I am committed to working with the nonprofit sector to cut unnecessary bureaucratic red tape, achieve needed reforms, and will look to organizations as important partners in program design and service delivery to communities.

What steps would you take to strengthen the contracting process and enhance the quality of contracted services for nonprofits of all sizes and the communities they serve? Please include how you would measure success.

As Mayor I commit to running a full audit of the oversight and management structures that have led to inadequate contract payments for non-profits, to identify inefficiencies and make necessary adjustments that will ensure that those organizations who are providing vital services to impacted communities receive on time, and adequate, payments. In addition, as a civil rights attorney and advocate, I understand how important it is for the nonprofits who are providing poor residents with legal and social services have a reliable funding source in order to properly serve communities and get to break the cycle of criminalization and incarceration.

As Mayor, how would you engage nonprofits in developing and implementing recovery plans for NYC?

New Yorkers are seeking recovery in all aspects of their lives. Nonprofit organizations play a critical role in all policy sectors working to rebuild and heal our city. As stated previously, New Deal New York, Universal Community Care, Housing, and Police plans all place nonprofits at the center of recovery. NDNY and UCC are investing millions of dollars into rebuilding nonprofit infrastructure and focus on directing New Yorkers to nonprofits in order to receive services and support. As Mayor, I will immediately help small and nonprofit landlords who cannot afford to absorb the loss of nonpayments by providing them rent relief. Nonprofits will also be a part of my policing plan. We will bridge relationships between successful nonprofits and the police in order to connect both offenders and victims to the appropriate social services in their neighborhoods. Improving the communication between these two institutions will increase the chances of vulnerable New Yorkers finding the appropriate health services while also ensuring the NYPD police crime, not poverty.

I am the only candidate who has experience in the senior cabinet in city hall and understands how challenging it is to manage competing organizations and priorities. I have first hand experience managing the communication and collaboration between multiple city agencies to improve efficiency and effectiveness. While I was in the senior cabinet, I initiated a collaboration between multiple departments to provide universal broadband access, which was a successful endeavor. I also brought groups together to incorporate addressing housing and homelessness in housing policy. As Mayor, I will build on these skills and experiences to tap into creative cross-departmental collaboration in order to best serve New Yorkers.

These organizations play a critical role in the communities they serve. And together with these communities, they are the experts in how we should deliver services. That’s why it is critical that the Administration engage them in a spirit of partnership, collaboration and shared goals from program design, to monitoring, to evaluation. My Administration would give nonprofit organizations and communities an important role in program design and evaluation, so that we are measuring program effectiveness based on agreed upon metrics, and not using a one size fits all approach, recognizing that different communities have different needs. In order to better assess program responsiveness, my administration will increase the use of community assessments, so that nonprofits can better understand the needs and interests of the people they serve.

What do you think is the primary concern for nonprofits at this moment? As Mayor how would you address this concern?

The lack of adequate and consistent funding transparency in decision-making and priority setting has led to a breakdown of trust between government and the nonprofit sector. It is no secret that the city is notorious for slighting nonprofits and breaking financial promises. New York City is notorious for promising funding to nonprofits and then not delivering. This crisis has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which has made it even more difficult for nonprofits to make ends meet and survive economically. As Mayor, I will reverse this detrimental practice and ensure that nonprofit funding is at the forefront of our economic recovery plans.

As previously mentioned, as Mayor I commit to running a full audit of the oversight and management structures of social service contracts, to identify inefficiencies and make necessary adjustments to ensure that contracts are awarded with a focus on diversity and inclusion, so that impacted communities across the city receive tailored services that are able to address their specific needs. Awarding contracts is not enough if the nonprofits that are awarded them never get paid. The City has an obligation to pay its providers in a reasonable time frame and as Mayor I will overhaul our procurement and payment practices to ensure just that.

Andrew Yang

Pronouns: He/Him/His
Race: Asian American
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Asian
Disability Status: Non-disabled
Languages spoken: English
Neighborhoods in which the candidate has lived or worked in New York: Morningside Heights, Hell’s Kitchen

What are your priorities for your first year in office?

New York City is in an unprecedented situation, faced with interlocking public health, economic, and public safety crises. Beyond these monumental challenges, there is a growing crisis of confidence that New York City will be able to recover from COVID. I am running for mayor to address these issues at the root and build New York City back, not as it was, but how it deserves to be. That starts with vaccinations and accelerating our recovery and then extends to attacking economic inequality by implementing the largest guaranteed minimum income program in the country to provide direct cash relief to the most impacted New Yorkers and lifting hundreds of thousands out of extreme poverty.

We are also pursuing a public bank to better serve low-income and immigrant communities who are currently un/derbanked and are subject to predatory interest rates. We are emphasizing mayoral control for the subways and buses so that we can control our transportation destiny. Finally, we are emphasizing public safety so that our City government can deliver fairness and equitable treatment as well as better protect neighborhoods from rising crime. In addition, we need to provide our essential workers – including our nurses – with workplace safeguards such as safe staffing ratios and PPE and other protective equipment.

As a former nonprofit leader, I know firsthand that nonprofit work is heart work. It’s the true belief in our mission, purpose and desire to serve that brings us to this incredibly challenging world. Nonprofit organizations are the backbone of our City’s social service infrastructure. Especially through the pandemic, nonprofit organizations have served communities left out of our recovery. Philanthropy is the engine that fuels the nonprofit sector, and are our partners in ending poverty in New York City. As mayor, I will focus on solutions over politics, which means bringing all stakeholders to the table, hearing from each of them, and proposing solutions that have broad buy-in. The nonprofit sector will absolutely be a part of that decision-making process, especially when it comes to issues that nonprofits work on in New York City. I look forward to working with many nonprofit leaders to solve the most pressing problems facing the City as mayor.

As mentioned above, I am a former nonprofit leader, and know firsthand that nonprofit work is heart work. Nonprofit organizations are the backbone of our City’s social service infrastructure. Especially through the pandemic, nonprofit organizations have served communities left out of our recovery. Philanthropy is the engine that fuels the nonprofit sector, and are our partners in ending poverty in New York City. As mayor, I will focus on solutions over politics, which means bringing all stakeholders to the table, hearing from each of them, and proposing solutions that have broad buy-in. The nonprofit sector will absolutely be a part of that decision-making process, especially when it comes to issues that nonprofits work on in New York City. I look forward to working with many nonprofit leaders to solve the most pressing problems facing the City as mayor.

What role do you think the nonprofits play in creating an equitable New York and if elected, how will you work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City?

If elected mayor, my goal will be equity and a higher quality of living for New Yorkers across the income distribution. The first proposal announced by my campaign was a guaranteed minimum income to get all New Yorkers to at least 50% of the poverty threshold. This is not a destination, but an important first step to a New York in which all constituents can thrive. I have also proposed a People’s Bank to increase access to checking accounts and financial services for the unbanked and underbanked and to help make small business loans available in underserved communities. I am also focused on equitable vaccine distribution and health equity broadly, as well as making sure low income students have bridge programs to catch up after this devastating year and, going forward, have access to critical internet infrastructure to be productive at home. In all these questions, my primary focus is building a fairer, more equitable City. I recognize the essential work that nonprofits do to address the many problems faced by New Yorkers. This is why I plan to work with nonprofits to create more equity within the City. I will not only look to nonprofits to help provide me and my administration with their valuable perspectives on relevant issues, I will partner with many nonprofits to accomplish my policy agenda of creating a more equitable New York.

It’s very important for the City and State to collaborate. How would you establish or work with the State to ensure coordination with budgets, systems, and communication?

I agree that it’s important for the city and state to collaborate. First, I will advocate for the city and state to collaborate on issues that are of city and state interest. This will lead to a more coordinated effort that will be more efficient and responsive to the needs of New Yorkers. I will also advocate for data-sharing agreements among state and City agencies.

We need to make sure that nonprofits are paid promptly for their contracts with the City so that nonprofit can properly operate and pay their employees on time. 85% of NY non-profits say COVID has had a significant impact on their operations. A 2018 study found significant delays in non-profits’ contracts getting registered with the city. In 2017, the delays caused an overall burden of nearly $700 million. That’s unacceptable and we will guarantee payment within 30 days. The City will pay its partners, vendors, and suppliers promptly. It is better situated to handle cash flow issues than its vendors are. A Yang Administration will forgive missed performance metrics through 2022 and can revise contracts thereafter.

If elected, how will you work with nonprofits in the provision of services contracted by the City?

As I mentioned above, I will partner with nonprofits to provide services to New Yorkers. We will make it as easy as possible for nonprofits to deliver their critical services to the people of our city, serving as a true partner rather than another bureaucratic obstacle. We will work with nonprofits to also set policy and move structural change around the key issues impacting New Yorkers – income inequality, housing security, education access and so much more – so that we work on the root causes that drive nonprofits to deliver on their mission.

The first step my administration would take to strengthen the contracting process would be to make sure the City is paying its contracts on time. This would go a long way towards helping nonprofits operate with confidence and be able to hire staff in a timely manner to provide better services to the communities they serve. I will also forgive performance metrics through 2022 as the City recovers from the pandemic before reinstating them.

As Mayor, how would you engage nonprofits in developing and implementing recovery plans for NYC?

Our nonprofit sector is vital to New York’s recovery. I will prioritize City partnerships with nonprofits in any recovery plans I implement. Nonprofits that are on the ground providing services to New Yorkers often know best what communities need to thrive, and my administration will work with them to provide those services and resources.

My administration will work to break down silos among the city agencies so that they can work collaboratively and efficiently to provide services to the community and partner with nonprofit partners. I will advocate for data-sharing agreements among state and city agencies.

Community input is crucial to providing services. We will ensure that formal structures are in place for soliciting and incorporating community advice. My administration will make sure to open bilateral, regular channels of communication with community members to guarantee that my administration is responsive to the issues they are facing. This also means keeping a line of communication open with nonprofits to figure out what community needs are. People who are closest to the work know how we can implement real reforms to make our city’s systems, policies and contracting services work with far greater ease. We will ensure that formal structures are in place for soliciting and incorporating community advice. My administration will make sure to open bilateral, regular channels of communication with community members to guarantee that my administration is responsive to the issues they are facing. This also means keeping a line of communication open with nonprofits to figure out what community needs are.

What do you think is the primary concern for nonprofits at this moment? As Mayor how would you address this concern?

I think a primary concern for nonprofits at this moment is late city payments, oftentimes forcing nonprofits to take out lines of credit to make payroll.

Nonprofits provide vital services including housing, shelter, food and other programming to our most vulnerable. Yet these nonprofits often do not receive payment from the city –with whom they contract and rely on to fund their work– in a timely manner. The delays are so prominent that some non profits simply come to expect underfunding and late payment, saying “we factor it into the cost of doing business.”

A 2019 report found that in FY2017 only 9% of social service contracts were registered on time; on average contracts were registered 210 days after their start date. The report estimates that “registration delays imposed a cash flow burden of approximately $675 million on the 11,025 nonprofits receiving contracts before consideration of any delays in payment after those contracts were registered.” The Department of Homeless Services alone, was late on payment for 80% of all its contracts awarded between 2013- 2018. A major offender here is City Council funded contracts, which are not contracted for almost the full fiscal year.

Late payment to our vendors is unacceptable. A Yang administration would support City Council legislation that would impose interest to be paid on late payments under city contracts with non-profit organizations would overhaul the existing system by requiring agencies register contracts faster and provide a reason for any delays.

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