At CitizensNYC, we believe lasting change starts with people: neighbors, volunteers, educators, and small business owners who know their communities best. For more than 50 years, we’ve invested in those grassroots leaders, providing the funding, tools, and trust they need to make their ideas real.
Now, through the Elliott Fellowship, we’re taking that commitment one step further.
Funded by a bequest from the Elliott family and named for our co-founder Oz Elliott, this five-year initiative honors former CitizensNYC grantees who have grown into enduring anchors for their communities. The Fellowship brings them back as mentors, sharing hard-won knowledge, building capacity, and guiding the next generation of grassroots changemakers.
This summer we were proud to announce the inaugural cohort of Elliott Fellows: Meghan McNamara, Laci Chisholm, and Allyson Martinez, three leaders whose work embodies the spirit of community-led change.
Laci Chisholm — Fit4Dance
At Fit4Dance, movement is more than exercise. It’s community. Founded by Laci Chisholm, the Central Brooklyn wellness studio centers Black women and communities of color through dance, fitness, and cultural programming that celebrates joy and healing. Fit4Dance has become a trusted gathering space, a place where neighbors connect, move, and build strength together. Laci’s work shows how wellness and empowerment can go hand in hand, and how joy itself can be an act of resistance.
Allyson Martinez — Brooklyn Level Up
Through Brooklyn Level Up, Allyson Martinez is reimagining what community development can look like when residents lead the way. The organization advances racial equity through entrepreneurship, youth-led environmental justice, and community land trust advocacy. Their work has become a model for how local power is built and shared, block by block and business by business.
Meghan McNamara — The Octavia Project
For ten years, The Octavia Project has been helping young people in Brooklyn imagine new futures for themselves and their city. Through free programs that blend science fiction, creative writing, art, and STEAM education, Meghan and her team have created spaces where curiosity, creativity, and confidence can thrive. Hundreds of young people have found their voice through the Octavia Project, and in doing so, have learned that imagination is one of the most powerful tools for justice.
Over the next year, the Elliott Fellows will serve as peer mentors to emerging grantees and strategic advisors to CitizensNYC. Their collective knowledge, spanning education, arts, wellness, and community development, will help strengthen a durable, citywide network of civic leadership rooted in lived experience.
By creating a bridge between past and present grantees, the Fellowship establishes a virtuous cycle of learning, growth, and giving back. It’s a powerful reflection of what CitizensNYC has always stood for. When New Yorkers invest in each other, the whole city moves forward.
We’re deeply grateful to the Elliott family for their vision and generosity, and proud to welcome Meghan, Laci, and Allyson back as teachers, guides, and partners in the work ahead.
CitizensNYC is investing in the next generation of grassroots leadership, built on the wisdom of those who came before.
