When Ras Baraka was a recently elected but yet a relatively unknown mayor of Newark in 2014 – someone many in the business community felt was going to be anti-business – the late great Al Koeppe, one of the founders of the Newark Alliance, helped him build bridges.
“He introduced me to the people I needed to meet,” Baraka said.
It changed the narrative around Baraka – and the city – helping to jump start one of the greatest economic eras in the city’s more than 350-year history.
When Adenah Bayoh was just a high school student at Weequahic High, long before she became an entrepreneurial and philanthropic inspiration to the city and the state, she met Dr. Joyce Carter at the Quest Youth Center – a place where students with “potential” were sent in an effort to help them find the right path.
“What she did was tell us that we were important – and that if Newark was going to change, that we had to change Newark,” Bayoh said. “She always would say to us: ‘Don’t complain about, do something about.’”
The anecdotes were told during an eye-opening panel discussion Tuesday night at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center – an event held to mark the 25th anniversary of the transformative organization.
They show the true essence of the Alliance: While it often is credited for building buildings and instituting policies that help the economic fabric of the city, its greatest impact comes in the less heralded work it does to help individuals in all walks and stages of their life take a step forward.
Ray Chambers, one of the founding members of the Alliance, along with Koeppe and former Prudential CEO Art Ryan, put it this way:
“Art and I were interviewed before, and we said, ‘We can’t point to the Newark Alliance and say that it built this big building or this bridge, but it’s been there, behind the scenes, almost like glue and cement, bringing the public sector together with the private sector, listening to our religious leaders and our education leaders,” he said.
“Frankly, I don’t know how we would have made the progress we’ve made in the last 25 years without a fully comprehensive, diverse and wide represented organization like the Newark Alliance.”
The Newark Alliance represents the spirit of the city.
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The celebration drew a wide range of city leaders – from the business, academic, philanthropic and, of course, government sectors.
Therein lies one of the secrets to the success of the Alliance: All groups come together for the common good.
There are the notable big-picture efforts, such as the opening of the Prudential Center in 2007 – a building that helped bring so many people back into the city for the first time in years, changing perceptions in the process.
There was the effort to win the Amazon HQ2 sweepstakes in 2018, during which Newark was a deserved finalist – a fact few outside the city truly understood at the time, but a reputational boost the city still enjoys to this day.
And there was the effort of the city’s ‘Hire, Buy, Live’ program, instituted by Baraka in 2020 that not only led to more than 2,000 residents being hired – it led to an examination of the procurement process that made the city and its businesses dramatically increase their purchases from Newark-based businesses.
But, keeping with the spirit of the organization, it’s the acts that have helped individuals that have had the greatest impact.
Don Katz and Audible were lauded for their willingness to help subsidize rents for workers willing to move to the city – then subsidize meals when they got there. Of course, there most impactful gesture came during COVID, where they donated funds that helped feed to food insecure – and did it while keeping struggling mom-and-pop businesses afloat.
CEO Darrell Terry noted how Newark Beth Israel had its own Hire Newark program, one that led to thousands of Newark residents being hired – an act that changed the trajectory of their lives in more ways than people realize.
“If you don’t have economic opportunity, you’re not going to get screenings, you’re not going to do a colonoscopy or a mammogram,” he said. “If you cannot put food on your table, that will not be a high priority for you.
“So, we started thinking about leaning into being sort of a social service agency and helping out any way we can with economic opportunity for the residents of Newark – it’s been wildly successful.”
To the bottom line, too.
“We have benefited from it,” Terry said. “It’s not a charitable thing. We have actually had some of the best years that we’ve ever had once we employed these strategies. It’s not giving something away; it’s us getting something in terms of workforce.”
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So, what’s in store for the next 25 years of the Alliance. Plenty.
Evan Weiss, who has been CEO of the group for nearly three years, said the organization has three areas it’s aiming to attack: Economic development on Halsey Street, broadband access for everyone and an end to chronic homelessness.
The wide variety of focus shows the reach the organization has, Weiss said.
“The Newark Alliance was founded to do education, public safety and economic development,” he said. “It was founded because those were the issues that they felt rose to the top of that time – and it’s the spirit that has continued throughout.”
Weiss breaks it down this way.
“Halsey Street is one of the largest concentrations of Black-owned businesses in New Jersey, but it’s struggling,” he said. “We’re trying to get more business owners to actually own their own real estate and build equity as businesses.
“Getting broadband everywhere in Newark – and getting it for free or close to that by leveraging the city’s own municipal broadband network – will have a dramatic impact for everyone, but especially young students.
“And getting people off the streets and into housing should always be the top priority.”
All of this sums up what the Newark Alliance has been about for the last 25 years, Weiss said.
“The Newark Alliance shows that it’s possible to meet big challenges if you have the right people,” he said. “The idea is that we can actually achieve big things because of who we are and because of who Newark is.”