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  • NYC to Pay Nonprofits Faster Under New Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams Reform

    NYC to Pay Nonprofits Faster Under New Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams Reform

    New York City is rolling out a new pilot program to make sure nonprofits get their money faster. Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced the Discretionary Grant Pilot, which will launch in fall 2025 and slash the payment process for smaller nonprofits receiving $25,000 or less in City Council funds. The program removes 13 steps from the traditional contract system, cutting wait times for payments nearly in half. About 100 organizations will be included in the first year, with hundreds more expected to join in year two. The change comes during NYC Nonprofit Week and is part of a larger push by the Adams administration to reduce contract delays, boost nonprofit worker wages, and strengthen partnerships with community groups that provide critical services like housing, food, senior care, and immigrant support.

    Mayor Adams, Speaker Adams
    Announce Bold Contract Reform to Help Nonprofits Get Paid Faster

    What you should know

    • Discretionary Funding Grant Pilot Will Cut Red Tape and Accelerate Payments to Half the Time of Traditional Contract Process for Small-Dollar Awardees
    • New Program Eliminates 13 Steps from Contract Process to Help Nonprofits Receive Funding They Need Without Delay
    • Announcement Part of Mayor Adams’ “NYC Nonprofit Week,”
    • Highlighting City’s Investments and Support for Nonprofits 

    NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams today announced a new pilot initiative to accelerate payments for a selection of small-scale discretionary funding awards and streamline the city’s discretionary funding process. Launching in fall 2025, the Discretionary Grant Pilot will replace the traditional contract process with direct grant agreements for approximately 100 organizations receiving $25,000 or less in City Council discretionary dollars during its first year. The grant pilot will eliminate 13 steps, allowing eligible nonprofits to receive 100 percent of their City Council-allocated funds in nearly half the time of the current contracting process. In its second year, the pilot will be extended to hundreds of organizations that qualify. The pilot addresses long-standing inefficiencies that have required small-dollar discretionary awards to undergo the same complex registration process as multi-million-dollar, competitively bid contracts. As a result, many nonprofits have faced delays before being able to register their contract or submit their first invoices for small-dollar funding awards. This initiative comes as Mayor Adams recognizes “NYC Nonprofit Week” and builds on his administration’s progress in reducing the city’s backlog of unregistered contracts — achieving an 88 percent rate of on-time submissions for the registration of standard human service contracts for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026.

    “When nonprofits thrive, our city and our people thrive. New York City’s nonprofits do the work millions of our city’s residents rely on — delivering meals to seniors, providing legal services to immigrants, connecting people to housing, caring for our young people, and so much more. In order to ensure that these organizations succeed and continue to support New Yorkers, we need to remove the different barriers and obstacles that stand in the way of their crucial mission,” said Mayor Adams. “The new Discretionary Grant Pilot does just that — revamping the old process and replacing it with a new, streamlined approach to get the money nonprofits need and are owed to them within weeks instead of years. Nonprofits always deliver for New Yorkers, and today, we’re proud to continue delivering for nonprofits.”

    “Non-profits provide essential services to New Yorkers through city contracts and funding, but far too often are paid late for their work and forced to shoulder excessive administrative burdens,” said Speaker Adams. “This new Council discretionary grant pilot program, in partnership with Mayor Adams’ administration, will remove excessive barriers to get non-profits their funding faster and with less red tape. The Council is proud to continue our work to ensure that our non-profit sector can successfully deliver New Yorkers the lifesaving care and dignity they deserve.”

    Led by the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services (MOCS), the Mayor’s Office of Nonprofit Services (MONS), and the New York City Council, in collaboration with key partner agencies including the New York City Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) and the New York City Department for the Aging (NYC Aging), this pilot will significantly reduce bureaucratic hurdles and speed up payments to the city’s nonprofits — delivering on Mayor Adams’ promise to empower organizations that serve on the frontlines of New York City’s neighborhoods.

    Under the pilot, eligible nonprofits will receive one-year grant agreements, bypassing the traditional months-long contract registration process. Once agreements are signed and returned, 100 percent of funds will be disbursed to the nonprofits, allowing organizations to serve their communities without delayed payments.

    Nonprofits may qualify for the pilot if they:

    ·         Were awarded a total of $25,000 or less in City Council discretionary dollars in FY 2026; and

    ·         Are being funded through one of the following agencies:

    ·         DYCD

    ·         NYC Aging

    ·         New York City Department of Veterans’ Services

    ·         New York City Department of Small Business Services

    The City Council, MOCS, and the contracting agency will determine participating organizations to be chosen as the pilot cohort for FY 2026 and notify them of their inclusion in the pilot. Final announcements are expected in October 2025, with grant agreements to be issued shortly thereafter. Participating organizations will have 30 days to return signed agreements and can expect to receive funding by January 2026.

    This initiative builds on the Adams administration’s 2023 multi-year discretionary contract reform and has already shown significant progress in getting City Council discretionary providers paid on time.

    In March 2024, the administration committed $741 million toward a cost-of-living adjustment for approximately 80,000 human services workers employed by nonprofits with city contracts. This workforce — 66 percent women and 46 percent women of color — plays a critical role in providing frontline services related to housing, health care, food access, and support for asylum seekers. In total, the administration has now directed over $1.4 billion toward wage enhancements in the sector.

    In January 2025, Mayor Adams issued Executive Order 47, formally establishing chief nonprofit officers within city agencies to enhance service delivery, respond to nonprofit partners more effectively, and speed up payment processing. To date, 18 chief nonprofit officers have been appointed and are actively collaborating with nonprofits to drive systemic improvements. Finally, Mayor Adams created the city’s first-ever Nonprofit Advisory Council, bringing together leaders from across the sector to collaborate with MONS and strengthen the connection between nonprofit organizations and city government.

    August 21, 2025 Manhattan, New York

    Sources: NYC.gov , Big New York news BigNY
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  • New York. Mayor Adams Calls In for Interview on 94.7 the Block’s “Jonesy in the Morning”

    New York. Mayor Adams Calls In for Interview on 94.7 the Block’s “Jonesy in the Morning”

    Tarsha Jones: Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the rat controller, the rat czar himself, Mayor Eric Adams. Good morning.

    Mayor Eric Adams: Hey, sister. Good to speak with you this morning.

    Jones: You did it. You did it.

    Mayor Adams: You know, when you start out doing something, you accomplish that task.

    Jones: You stayed the course. You did not let up. Now they’re complaining about the– they’re complaining about no parking spaces from the rat garbage cans that you put out there. They’re never, they’re never, they’re never satisfied.

    Mayor Adams: You know what? That’s why you have to just stay focused. You know what your mission is. And we heard back in ‘22, when we first came into office, rodents were everywhere. And a young lady stopped me the other day. She’s a small property owner. I was in Harlem. She said, “Where did the rats go?”

    Jones: We missed that. The []. Well, congratulations on that, because we’d be quick to attack you anytime something’s wrong. And finally, an issue that affected just about everybody in New York. We’re starting to see some progress. So kudos to you for that, mayor.

    Mayor Adams: You know, when you add the progress of, you know, dealing with our road issue, our trash issue, you add the progress of dealing with gun violence and removal of guns on the street, how we decreased the numbers. You know, some of the lowest records in history. And then you add the job progress. You know, dropping unemployment in the Black community by, you know, over 20 percent in the Black and brown community. And dropping it citywide.

    You start to really peel back and understand how much we have turned the city around, around public safety [and the] economy. And then add to that the scores that just recently came out with our children. And the reading and writing scores have increased because of what we’re doing in our schools.

    So it’s just, the record is a clear record of just real progress in our city. And that’s the message I got to get out to everyday New Yorkers [of] how much we have improved the city. And we should all be proud as New Yorkers, the city is moving in the right direction.

    Jones: It is. It absolutely is. And I also want to thank you for jumping in so quickly and putting together a mass shooting, an investigative team based on the mass shooting that took place in Crown Heights over the weekend.

    Mayor Adams: Really, really sad and it hurts us all.

    Jones: That’s horrible.

    Mayor Adams: Yeah, our heart goes out to the families. And when you look at it and see that, you know, two of the shooters have been identified.

    Jones: Good.

    Mayor Adams: And they were shooting at each other.

    Jones: But everybody else be []. Like everybody else be []. But you swooped right in and put together that squad to get to the bottom of the mass shootings. That was in record time.

    Mayor Adams: Yeah, no, because we wanted to really deal with the retaliatory action that comes after a shooting. You know, oftentimes people don’t realize the shooting spurs other shootings. And so hats off to the crisis management team of one group that covered that area. It’s called Elite Learners. And they’re doing an amazing job. Shooters in that area have dropped by 60 percent because of what they’re doing.

    And they were on the ground. And so this mass shooting should not tarnish the good work that they’re doing in the other crisis management teams. So the mass shooting response includes getting our crisis management team members on the ground, supporting each other, and really stopping further harm to the community and individual people.

    Jones: I agree. We are on the phone with Mayor Eric Adams, ladies and gentlemen. If you have a question, try and call 844-947-0947. No guarantees that I’ll be able to actually get through to you, but give it a try. And we’ll be back with more of him when we return.

    [Commercial Break.]

    [Audio Drop.]

    Mayor Adams: … And that’s been used as evidence to further investigate the case and make sure we finally got what happened there.

    Jones: Thank you for that. Also, thank you for shutting down the beaches. I know you’re probably getting backlash for that. Although, you know, with the weather and the riptides and the hurricane that’s approaching, that was very responsible and, again, quick thinking.

    Mayor Adams: Yeah, you know, and people don’t realize the riptides and the heavy waves. You may not realize it. You may not think that it’s going to impact you because you’re a good swimmer. But in reality, it is dangerous, extremely dangerous, even for good swimmers. And so the decision was to nearly close down for today and tomorrow. Now, the hurricane may not hit land here. That’s what the National Weather Service is telling us. But it still would impact the coastal areas.

    So low-lying areas, people should be prepared. They should have to go. They should have to go back. And they should be, you know, really locked into NotifyNYC. So they’d be prepared for it. But you’ve got to be very careful. Even when the hurricanes don’t hit our shores, it still could be extremely dangerous.

    Jones: Right. The riptide’s been ripping before this hurricane even got on the sphere. So thank you for saving people from themselves.

    Mayor Adams: Well done. Well said.

    Jones: Thank you. There’s a 6-year-old child and a mother and another 20-year-old high school student arrested because of these ICE arrests, and you have stepped up. Well, go ahead and tell everybody what you have done.

    Mayor Adams: You know, we’ve done a—when it comes down to those who are undocumented in the city, we’re a big believer that we should put people on the pathway to a green card of citizenship. And we’ve done a lot to do that. We’ve put money in our Best Budget Ever. We’ve put money into legal services. and we also put people on the pathway of getting a work authorization because people want to work, and we don’t want people depending on the government.

    And part of the process is showing up for your court cases. If your court case is up on a docket, you come in, you have to come in for your visit. And we believe when people go to court, they should not be arrested while going to court or held in custody, I should say held in custody, and then later deported while they go into court because that makes people fearful to carry out the process.

    Jones: Right, and that’s by design. That’s a setup.

    Mayor Adams: Right, right. And, you know, I always talk about when I was a rookie cop, a Chinese immigrant was being robbed while I was off duty and I took action, and he was afraid to come forward because he was an immigrant. And people were preying on immigrants back then. Because they knew they were afraid to go to the police.

    So we want to encourage people to go to the police, children to go to school, and all the other activities, and not feel as though that they’re going to be held, you know, in custody because they’re showing up. Now, if the person is wanted for a serious violent act, then we believe ICE should take action. You know, they should do what’s right and apprehend that person, but not innocent people who are going to court to follow the process.

    Jones: I hope that the court sides with you and the other reps that are filing the suit to stop this heinous activity. But is it too much, too little, too late?

    Mayor Adams: Well, number one, when you take these cases– number one, you want to set precedent. And number two, you want to give the opportunity for the person to be returned back to another city they were deported from. And so it’s like you saw. Some cases where people were returned back. And so it’s, no, it’s never too little, too late. Because precedent is very important in these cases.

    Jones: Are they allowed to go to the schools and snatch these kids out of school? Because school’s about to start, and the kids might be afraid to show up. Are the ICE agents allowed to go and sit outside the schools and snatch them up as we stand today?

    Mayor Adams: No, no, no, they’re not. You cannot go into the schools unless you have what’s called a federal judicial warrant that allows you to do so. So, no, they cannot go into the schools.

    Jones: Can they stand outside the school and wait for the kids to come out and say, oh, that looks like this person that we, or they look of dissent. So let’s snatch them up.

    Mayor Adams: Yes, technically they can. Technically they can. But we have had no actions at all where they stood out to schools and, you know, grabbed children. And in this case with the child, they took the family while they were showing up for court proceedings. They took the family, and this young child was included in the family. But technically they can stand outside the schools, but we have had no cases involved in that. And they cannot go inside the schools and take a child.

    Jones: Thank you, Mayor Eric Adams. I appreciate you always checking in here every other Wednesday, guys. And be safe out there. Keep up the good work. Don’t get distracted.

    Mayor Adams: Thank you. Stay focused, no distractions, and grind. That’s my message.

    August 20, 2025

    Sources: NYC.gov