We asked members of the ROI-NJ community to nominate their favorite nonprofits to mark Giving Tuesday.
We were overwhelmed by the response — and stunned by the wide variety of services being offered.
The good news: The state has so many organizations doing great things to help others.
The better news: They all take donations all-year round — not just on Giving Tuesday.
This all leads to a challenge: Deciding where you should give this holiday season.
We’ll start here: The New Jersey Center for NonProfits is an organization that we all should support either through donations or through membership. They will help keep nonprofits informed of what will affect nonprofits at the state and federal level, and continually advocate for the sector as a whole.
An if you’re looking for individual organizations to support, we offer up those that were offered to us (in alphabetical order – apologies to any that we missed).
Please note, we only are listing NJ-based nonprofits.
Here goes:
AAPI New Jersey: Its mission is to create a more inclusive community by uplifting the varied experiences of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, advocating for AAPI rights and representation, and promoting awareness and education around AAPI culture and history. AAPI New Jersey envisions a future where Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders– and all historically marginalized communities — thrive in a just and liberated society.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Beacon Animal Rescue: It is a No-Kill Animal Rescue dedicated to saving the lives of cats and dogs in need. We do everything in our power to rescue, care for, and find loving homes for animals that need it most.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Bestwork Industries for the Blind: It’s dedicated to improving the quality of life for people who are blind and visually impaired by providing training and employment opportunities in a supportive work environment.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Essex, Hudson & Union counties: Its mission is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Bonnie Brae: It empowers youth and families to achieve small victories every day through comprehensive care and education by taking youth from crisis to success by providing the most comprehensive care for historically under-served youth and their families in New Jersey. Our extraordinary school and therapeutic residential community serves all youth, ages 12 – 21. A fully-accredited and nationally-recognized residential treatment center, Bonnie Brae provides a safe place for youth to heal, to learn and to grow. Nearly all boys and girls who come to Bonnie Brae have suffered abuse, trauma or neglect.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Broadway House for Continuing Care: It is NJ’s only specialized care facility for those living with HIVAIDS and other complex medical conditions. Opened in 1995, our goal is to provide the tools that empower every resident to live with independence, strength, and dignity.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Centenary University: A New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation, 501(c)(3), it has a 156-year tradition of providing high-quality liberal arts bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees, doctorate, and certificate programs while helping students gain the skills and connections they need to prosper in today’s world.
To learn more or donate, click here.
The Center for Holocaust Human Rights and Genocide Education: Located at Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft, it is a non-profit volunteer organization founded in 1979 as the Center for Holocaust Studies. It addresses human rights and civil rights issues worldwide. We serve the community through our extensive library of books, periodicals and media materials, and permanent archives of memorabilia, artifacts and documents from local survivors.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Community Foodbank of New Jersey: It has been helping food insecure residents for decades. With the highest rating on Charity Navigator, it does the best it can with each donation.
To learn more or donate, click here.
County College of Morris Foundation: It is dedicated to raising funds to support college programs, scholarships, capital improvements and other projects. The CCM Foundation’s mission has expanded over the years to harness the power of partnerships allowing the college to design programs that truly serve the needs of the community.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Englewood Health: One of New Jersey’s leading healthcare systems. It delivers nationally recognized inpatient and outpatient care through our hospital and integrated network of physician practices, urgent care centers, and imaging centers across Bergen, Hudson, Passaic, Essex and Morris counties.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Family Promise of Bergen County: It is dedicated to empowering working families with children to become self-sufficient. FPBC addresses the alarming increase in hunger by serving 200 meals daily to people experiencing homelessness and to food insecure neighbors.
To learn more or donate, click here.
The Family Resource Network: It is dedicated to offering individuals and their families with continuing needs the greatest opportunities, resources and services to support a full and happy life. FRN is the largest provider of family support services to individuals with developmental disabilities in New Jersey. FRN is comprised of four affiliates: Autism Family Services of New Jersey, Caregivers of New Jersey, Epilepsy Foundation of New Jersey and the Family Support Center of New Jersey. The organization was created in response to a growing recognition that people with disabilities and their families don’t necessarily fit into one disability profile.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Fulfill: The Food Bank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties is dedicated to fighting hunger and improving the quality of life for children, families and senior citizens across these two counties. Serving 103,000 individuals facing food insecurity each month, Fulfill partners with local agencies to provide nutritious food, resources and support, helping to combat hunger and foster long-term solutions for those in need.
To learn more or donate, click here.
The Gem Project: It works to improve high school to college student engagement, while supporting on-time graduation rates, through peer-mentoring, life-skill workshops and service-learning initiatives that take on a social justice approach.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Homeless Solutions: It is the largest provider of homeless services and shelter in Morris County with our unique Hand Up, Not A Hand Out philosophy. We are proud to offer a continuum of housing solutions that include our Shelter, Winter Warming Center, Transitional Housing Program, Women’s Campus, Mt. Kemble Home for Senior Women and an expansive housing portfolio of 126 units of rental housing throughout the community.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Jobs for America’s Graduates New Jersey: Help shape the next generation of New Jersey’s workforce. It is dedicated to preventing dropouts amount young people who are most at risk. In more than four decades of operation, JAG has delivered consistent, compelling results-helping more than 1.5 million young people stay in school through graduation, pursue post-secondary education and secure quality entry- level jobs leading to career advancement opportunities.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Junior Achievement of New Jersey: Each day, we work to help young people discover what’s possible in their lives. We do this by helping them connect what they learn in school with life outside the classroom. We let them know it’s possible to invest in their future, to gain a better understanding of how the world works, and to pursue their dreams. We show them that it’s possible for tomorrow to be a better day.
To learn more or donate, click here.
The Maplewood Foundation: Launched in 2023 as a community foundation that gives grants to the nonprofit serving the residents of Maplewood, NJ. So far, we’ve given $120,000 in grants to 17 nonprofits! There are similar foundations in Summit, Westfield, Princeton.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Maryville Integrated Care: The need for Addiction and Mental Health is at all-time high. Maryville has been offering support to communities for 75 years. They not only offer these services, but they help individuals who are in need of various social services too.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Mid-Atlantic Robotics: Using robotics programs to inspire students in New Jersey, Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania to excel as tomorrow’s leaders.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Monarch Housing Associates: Its vision: Every person will have quality affordable, permanent housing that fosters freedom, independence and community integration. Its mission: To expand the supply, accessibility and variety of affordable, permanent supportive housing through development, planning, advocacy and partnerships.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Monmouth Conservation Foundation: Since 1977, MCF has worked with public and private partners to create parks, save open space, preserve farmland, teach environmental sustainability, safeguard waterways, and protect wildlife. Land preservation is the foundation for our health and wellbeing with a host of economic, societal, and social benefits.
To learn more or donate, click here.
MudGirls Studios: It is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing opportunities in art and entrepreneurship to economically disadvantaged and at-risk women by providing training and skills to transition out of poverty and onto a pathway of self-sufficiency. Through the creation and sale of functional art and aesthetic utilitarian objects women will gain a source of long-term supplemental income.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Neighborhood House: The Plainfield-based child focus center is dedicated to positively enhancing the lives of children and families in the surrounding Community through childcare, social services, and quality education.
To learn more or donate, click here.
NJSACC: New Jersey’s Afterschool & Out-of-School Time Professional Network: NJSACC envisions a state where every child has access to high-quality out-of-school time programs to strengthen youth, families and communities. NJSACC works to build a strong network for afterschool program professionals in N.J., provide training conferences, workshops and information services – an offer technical assistance, at no cost, for the development, expansion and improvement of afterschool programs throughout the state.
To learn more or donate, click here.
NJ Sharing Network: It saves and enhances lives everyday through organ and tissue donation and transplantation.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Newark EMS Corps: Preparing young people for careers in emergency medical services through a 5-month program that includes training provided by RWJBarnabas Mobile Health.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Nonprofit Professionals of Color Collective: Its mission is to accelerate and enhance the professional development, information access and opportunities for nonprofit professionals of color through intentional, curated experiences. We envision a network of equity-driven leaders of color, supported in deepening their equity analysis and leadership skills as agents of change in the nonprofit sector and through the executive pipeline.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Opportunity Project: It is a member-driven organization that enables persons with brain injuries to improve their self-esteem, self-determination, personal growth and independence. Serving across NJ, OP is a pioneer in the brain injury field and uses the unique Clubhouse community reintegration and empowerment model.
To learn more or donate, click here.
The Oscar Devereaux Micheaux House: The Newark-based social enterprise is fiscally sponsored by Impact Charitable.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Outdoors on Purpose: Its mission is to create unique experiences for all, OOP promotes relationships between people and nature.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Paterson Great Falls Rotary Military Assistance Pantry: While the main focus is its food pantry, it has grown to be a resource center, helping veterans get apartments, cars, laptops and return to school.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Princeton-Blairstown Center: For more than 115 years, the Princeton-Blairstown Center has provided adventure-based, experiential education to youth from historically marginalized communities. What began in 1908 as a summer camp run by Princeton University students and faculty has evolved into an outdoor education center with a wide variety of year-round programs serving nearly 6,000 young people each year.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Scouting American Northern New Jersey Council: It provides character development and leadership training to a diverse population of 9,000 youth and 3,000 adults in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Passaic counties.
To learn more or donate, click here.
The Shared Space Project: It is a new nonprofit dedicated to building spaces for people and the organizations who develop services for them to listen to one another and develop pathways to co-create and share power.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Spectrum For Living: Serving people with developmental disabilities. Your gift to Spectrum for Living enables us to achieve our goal of helping those with intellectual/developmental disabilities reach their highest potential. All donations are used to support the needs of those we serve including recreation, capital improvements, adaptive equipment, companionship or a myriad of other services not covered by federal and state funding.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of N.J.: As a non-profit organization for over 30 years, SHCCNJ represents the 120,000 Hispanic-owned businesses that contribute over $90 Billion to the State’s economy. Our Chamber is an excellent vehicle to access the Latino community with its formidable purchasing power.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Summit Speech School: For 57 years, Summit Speech School has been steadfast in its mission to empower children with hearing loss to become effective communicators using listening and spoken language.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Table to Table: Nearly 3 billion meals are wasted yearly in NJ while 1 million residents are food insecure. Table to Table is NJ’s first food rescue organization that offers a solution. By rescuing fresh, nutritious food that is in surplus, Table to Table can deliver to those in need, helping hungry neighbors and the planet.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Turning Point Community Services: It helps homeless women and their children get on a path of independence and stability.
To learn more or donate, click here.
United For ALICE: Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) people may be a relative or friend. As cashiers, waiters, childcare providers, and other members of our essential workforce, ALICE earns just above the Federal Poverty Level but less than what it costs to make ends meet. These struggling households are forced to make impossible choices each day. While such hardship is pervasive, households of color are disproportionately ALICE.
To learn more or donate, click here.
Veterans Foundation of America: The Veterans Foundation of America has a perfect 100% rating through Charity Navigator, so you know all the funds we raise go towards programming that helps veterans. Please consider donating to the VFA.
To learn more or donate, click here.
YWCA Northern New Jersey: It’s dedicated to eliminating racism, promoting racial understanding, and advancing gender equity.
To learn more or donate, click here.
