Who We Are

Norwescap’s work throughout New Jersey empowers individuals and families to move away from the crisis of poverty, and towards a future where they can thrive. Our mission is to partner with individuals and families in creating pathways to achieve their hopes and dreams.

Founded in 1965 under the Johnson administration’s “War on Poverty,” and fueled by the advocacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Norwescap has grown over nearly six decades to build a comprehensive array of programs and services that, together, positively impact tens of thousands of people each year.

Norwescap works to accomplish this mission through a comprehensive array of
strategies, programs and services that generally fall into six categories of support.

Our Values

Our organizational values are core to what guides our daily work and long-term vision. We strive to embody these values in everything we do.

INNOVATIVE: Norwescap is innovative, creative, and data-driven, focused on forward-thinking, new ideas, and using data to drive decisions.

COMMUNITY: Norwescap works to foster community by collaborating, and being inclusive to drive a collective approach with a high priority on building bridges and working together.

CARING: Norwescap is caring, compassionate, kind, and supportive, taking an empathetic approach for individuals and families.

EMPOWERING: Norwescap is an empowering partner providing people the tools and pathways they need to succeed. Treating our program participants as partners, with dignity and respect.

INCLUSIVE: Norwescap is inclusive and welcoming to all, operating under the belief that diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging are essential to the health and effectiveness of our organization as well as the people and communities that we serve.

Our Commitment to Anti-Racism and Equity

Norwescap was founded in 1965 as part of the effort to eliminate poverty during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and that remains our central focus today. While we have made much progress on many fronts since that time, there are still deep, painful disparities that must be addressed. Central among those remaining issues is that poverty and race remain inextricably linked in the United States of America. This is the painful legacy of slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, red-lining, and the institutional racism that still stubbornly insinuates its tentacles into our daily lives. This truth is at the heart of the work that Norwescap does for the people we serve.

Racism is wrong and morally repugnant, and we must work together to end it. We cannot end poverty without addressing racism. To that end, Norwescap has adopted an Anti-Racism Resolution, which you can read in full here. We are committed to the work we must do internally to live up to our resolution, and to creating dialogue and driving progress in the communities we serve, in the State of New Jersey, and in our country.