Greater Newark Conservancy Inc.

“After preparation of the 990 tax return, a draft copy is emailed to the board of directors, 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 directors and officers, other than the executive director, 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.”

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

“Education program - the conservancy's education program annually brings innovative, hands-on, science-based lessons and field trips to approximately 6,600 inner-city schoolchildren from newark and its environs. An additional 2,905 teachers, parents, senior citizens and the general public were served with nutrition and other programs. 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, nutritional health lessons and activities, and farm to school programming. Since the prudential outdoor learning center opened 14 years ago, it has hosted over 33,000 underserved children who have engaged in environmental field trips.”

“Community greening - the conservancy's 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 program's 2.5 acre urban farm in newark generated over 12,000 pounds of fresh produce, bringing fresh, nutritious vegetables to newark's low-income residents.”

“Ex-offender reentry services - a component of the conservancy's reentry program for ex-offenders is the new jersey reentry corporation (njrc). In november 2015, the conservancy became a designated satellite site of the njrc, serving all of essex county. This initiative provides counseling to ex-offenders, including referrals for substance abuse treatment, job placement assistance, personal health assessment and referrals, housing assistance, legal services, and opportunities for continuing education. Annually the njrc at the conservancy is serving between 500 - 600 essex county ex-offenders (mostly from newark) with a 52% job placement rate and an 10% recidivism rate (the statewide recidivism rate is 31%).”

“Other programs 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 actively advocated for quality of life issues in the city's master plan. The newark youth leadership project (nylp) component of the conservancy's job training program provides supervised training in landscaping, horticulture, education and office administration for up to 40 newark high school youth each year, seeking to increase employability. The program provides participants with a sample of career options in various environmental fields, an appreciation for their urban environment and opportunities for pursuing higher education. In january 2016, the conservancy launched its city bloom landscaping initiative, which is a fee-for-service landscaping business that generates revenue to help support conservancy programming while at the same time providing job training experience for ex-offenders. Participants learn skills in the fields of landscaping, horticulture, hardscaping, light construction and equipment maintenance. Trainees who complete the program are better qualified to seek more permanent employment in the landscaping industry. This past year, city bloom landscaping earned 243,543 in revenue and trained ten ex-offenders.”

“Net assets as of the beginning of the fiscal year have been adjusted to increase fixed assets and release restricted net assets for adjustments to balances not previously recognized in prior years. The correction has no effect on the results of current year's activities; however, the cumulative effect increased net assets by 266,413.”