Greater Newark Conservancy Inc.

“After preparation of the 990 Tax Return, a draft copy is emailed to the Board Treasurer, Executive Director, and Finance Director for review and approval.”

“In the annual meeting, the Board Members are required to sign a conflict of interest statement. When a conflict of interest is identified, the Board Member recuses themself from voting.”

“Executive Director's salary is reviewed by the Executive Committee, who then recommends any salary change to the full board. For all other Directors, the Executive Director reviews and recommends any changes. The Executive Committee conducts a review and comparison to market rates for the positions before setting a new salary rate.”

“The Conflict of Interest Policy, Audited Financial Statements, and all Governing Documents are kept on file and are available to the public upon written request.”

“Other Changes in Net Assets The Conservancy recorded an allowance against grants receivable and pledges receivable in the amount of $(119,543). The Conservancy recorded $14,651 which represents the change in net present value of discount on pledges receivable. These adjustments totaled $(104,892).”

“Greater newark conservancy promotes environmental stewardship to improve the quality of life in nj's urban areas. Founded in 1987, the conservancy has four program areas--environmental education, community greening and gardening, job training and advocacy for environmental justice.”

“Education Program The Conservancys education program annually brings innovative, hands-on, science-based lessons and field trips to approximately 8,000 inner-city schoolchildren from Newark and its environs. Programming focuses on the urban environment and includes environmental education field trips to the Prudential Outdoor Learning Center in downtown Newark, in-class reverse field trips, living laboratory outdoor teaching gardens at Newark schools, and nutritional health lessons and activities. Since the Prudential Outdoor Learning Center opened ten years ago, it has hosted over 27,000 underserved children who have engaged in environmental field trips.”

“Community Greening The Conservancys community greening program annually serves over 2,000 Newark residents through its community gardens with resident-adopted planting plots; urban farm lots that generate fresh, local produce; and a farm stand operation that makes nutritious, healthy foods available to the inner-city population. Last growing season the programs 15 urban farms, including a 1 acre farm and a 2.5 acre farm in Newark generated over 29,000 pounds of fresh produce, bringing fresh, nutritious vegetables to 1,400 low-income residents.”

“PRISONER RE-ENTRY SERVICES The New Jersey Re-entry Corporation incorporated in September 2015, opened a site at the Conservancy on November 2015, which has enrolled 165 clients as of June 2016. Under this program, services include: Drug and alcohol treatment through Integrity House, on-site horticulture therapy, licensed social worker, DVRS, financial literacy, housing referrals, employment training and legal services. The Conservancy has also started contracts for seasonal landscaping work. The Newark Reentry site is initiating a fatherhood cooking program to assist formerly incarcerated clients with family reunification.”

“Other Programs The Environmental Justice program builds partnerships with Newark's residents to promote urban environmental issues and strives to empower them to recognize their ability to improve the city's environment. For a number of years the Conservancy has actively advocated for quality of life issues in the city's new Master Plan. More recently, the Conservancy convinced the city to make its Adopt-A-Lot ordinance more user friendly so that residents are encouraged to adopt vacant city-owned property for conversion into neighborhood gardens and urban farms. The Newark youth leadership project (NYLP) annually provides 50 to 60 Newark high school students with on-the-job-training in leadership development, public speaking, resume development, business skills, job readiness and green careers. The program encourages college enrollment, opening new vistas and career exploration. The clean and green transitional job training program annually works with dozens of recently incarcerated Newark residents and ex-gang affiliated members to assist them in making the transition from prison to gainful employment. Training focuses on a variety of horticultural and landscaping skills. Throughout the program, participants clean highway gateways and medians and hundreds of vacant, city-owned lots in Newark. A major emphasis has been on developing and helping to maintain the Conservancys two larger urban farms.”