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- EIN 01-0849087
- (347) 482-7798
- 79 N 11th St Brooklyn NY 11249-1913 USA
- www.osanb.org
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Nonprofit Overview
Causes: Environment, Environmental Beautification
Mission: Open space alliance for north brooklyn (osa) champions neighborhood parks and the people who use them and love them. Osa is the one of very few parks conservancies for a neighborhood. Osa partners with the nyc parks department to maintain and program 45 parks and playgrounds in williamsburg and greenpoint and improve the lives of over 200,000 north brooklynites. Because the the nyc city council spends only half of one percent of its budget on its parks (most cities spend 4-7%), public private partnerships like the one between osa and nyc parks are essential.
Programs: In 2016, program accomplishments for osa included: helping add more parkland: osa provided critical legal and pr support to the successful advocacy effort by friends of bushwick inlet park and osa to persuade the mayor to buy 11 acres for $160 million, the acquisition completed the footprint for bushwick inlet park, a 27-acre waterfront park which will have a significant impact on the neighborhood, much like brooklyn bridge park downriver. Getting more north brooklynites involved in their parks: osa has formed friends groups for american playground, bqgreen, mccarren park and transmitter park. Osa is helping these friends groups develop the fundraising, programming and operations capacity needed to better sustain their parks. Osa is providing financial resources, including capacity building grants and directing donations for film/tv shoots to the friends groups. Launching the greenpoint parks stewardship program: in april 2016, osa launched the greenpoint parks stewardship program (gpsp). During its initial 8 months in operation, gpsp hosted over 20 new events reaching over 2,000 greenpoint residents and adding over 200 new volunteers to osas corps of community-minded citizens. Fighting to add more parkland to our park poor neighborhood: in 2016, osa helped found friends of bqgreen to advocate for a 3. 5-acre park to be built over a part of the bqe that runs below the street level on the southside. Bqgreen will deliver health benefits to a neighborhood with asthma rates double the citywide average. Osa is working alongside friends of bqgreen, brooklyn deputy borough president reyna, council member reynoso and other partners to secure funding for bqgreen. Also, in 2016, osa hired its first full-time executive director and its first full-time outreach coordinator. Osa's emphasis on outreach is part of its focus on "people building," developing constituencies around individual parks, so volunteerism and fundraising are more targeted and better leveraged.