New Jersey Food Fund Announces $1 Million in Grants
From North Jersey’s urban core to the rural New Jersey Pinelands
April 30, 2025
Announcement
Image credit:
Cathedral Kitchen
Cathedral Kitchen volunteers serve meals, package to-go plates, bus tables, and help create a welcoming environment for guests.
The New Jersey Food Fund is excited to announce its 2025 grantee cohort—a group of inspiring nonprofits and coalitions working to create a more equitable, sustainable, and dignified food system across the state.
From North Jersey’s urban core to the rural New Jersey Pinelands, these organizations are creating solutions that go beyond emergency food distribution. They’re building coalitions, forging farm-to-community connections, testing new ideas, and strengthening the nonprofit infrastructure New Jersey needs for lasting change.
In 2025, we awarded $1,028,000 across 22 grants through two grantmaking programs, our Grant Navigator program and our Harvest the Future program.
Grant Navigator program
The Grant Navigator in-kind support program connects nonprofits with professional grant strategists to bring in new money and strengthen fundraising systems, impact measurement, and storytelling. In 2025, we paired Grant Navigators with 14 selected nonprofits (up from 10 in 2024), including six grantees that have returned for a second year in the program.
Harvest the Future program
The Harvest the Future cash grant program is designed to support innovation, coalitions, and systems-level change. Eight 2025 grantees are strengthening food security by:
Connecting New Jersey farmers to underserved communities,
Building shared infrastructure across nonprofits (technology, collective purchasing),
Improving food delivery for isolated or homebound residents,
Piloting data-driven tools that already are drawing national interest, and
Investing in nutrition education for public school students and their families, so that they can try new foods and meals together.
2025 Grantee Cohort
“We’re not just funding programs—we’re investing in relationships, ideas, and long-term capacity. These grantees represent the future of food security in New Jersey.”
— Brad Preston, Fund Manager, New Jersey Food Fund
Our 2025 grantees include statewide and regional coalitions, community-based food pantries and social service organizations, a food rescue group, a university, a technical assistance provider with deep experience in urban food deserts and food swamps, and county and multi-county food banks.