Isles’ new CEO Sean Jackson was a guest on RVN TV’s Rainmakers Roundup, where he spoke about his transition from politics to nonprofit work, why he got involved with Isles, and the latest on the Social Profit Center at Mill One.
Author: nicholas
A Message From Our New CEO
Dear Friend,
Last week, I started a new era at Isles, becoming our second CEO.
For forty years, Marty Johnson led Isles with a unique vision and personal commitment. He built a dynamic, compassionate organization that created and tested new ways to meet an audacious mission – family self-reliance and healthy, sustainable communities.
Our guiding principles that successfully shaped Isles’ work over the years will not change in this new era. We’ll train and educate youth and adults through Isles Youth Institute and our Center for Energy and Environmental Training. We’ll make homes healthy and efficient, support families working to build wealth, grow gardens and work alongside communities to plan smart, livable, and healthy communities.
This year has certainly tested all of us. For those we serve, especially so. COVID-19 deeply impacts health, jobs, homes and incomes. Gun violence still grips many neighborhoods as continued frustration with unequal criminal justice and broken institutions generate protest and anger.
How does Isles lead in these turbulent times?
First, we continue and adapt on-the-ground work that bolsters family self-reliance and community. This work ensures safer streets, homes, and workplaces that are threatened by virus, violence, or systemic racism.
Second, we keep listening and evolving. What do families and communities need and want today? We honor those demands by bringing both the research on what works, as well as the resources, training, and connections useful for those we serve.
Third, we grow our influence. After forty years, we’ve learned a lot from the wisdom of the grassroots and research. As a result, we have an obligation and opportunity to take a place at the table with policymakers, fellow community organizations in statewide efforts. With Isles’ Social Profit Center opening this Fall, we’ll expand our efforts to bring groups and leaders together to collaborate and lead.
I’m so excited to join this seasoned, impressive team to guide the next generation of Isles. We stand on the broad shoulders of those who built Isles from the ground up, with valuable allies and supporters from across the region and beyond. We couldn’t be here without this large village, and we’ll need you by our side in the years to come. Join us as we re-think how community building work is done in today’s New Jersey.
Check out our October newsletter here.
Let’s go!
Chief Executive Officer
An Important Step to Ending Childhood Lead Poisoning
Today New Jersey took another important step towards eliminating lead poisoning of our children. The Senate Committee on Economic Growth passed S-1147, a bill that will treat toxic lead like toxic radon, requiring inspections for lead paint hazards in both rental units and before a home is sold.
With New Jersey families spending increased time at home during the pandemic, it is more important than ever that we address this silent, invisible neurotoxin that causes permanent damage to children and health problems later in life. Isles, with decades of on-the-ground experience in home assessments, lead remediation, training, and policy, will continue to push for common-sense reforms to protect children.
The public sector cannot correct lead hazards alone. Landlords and homeowners need to be part of the solution.
Today’s vote is a critical first step. Next, the bill advances to the Senate Budget Committee, and public hearings will occur on the Assembly side in preparation for a floor vote in both houses. Stay tuned for more updates as it moves forward.
We thank Senators Ruiz, Cruz-Perez, Turner, Singleton, Smith, and Oroho, and all the other key legislators for their leadership and support on this issue. And we’re grateful for the work of our partners, including the Housing & Community Development Network of NJ, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Advocates for Children of New Jersey, New Jersey Future, the The Fund for New Jersey, and many others.
It’s time for NJ to address lead hazards at the source of contamination—to prevent lead poisoning in the first place—before we pay the exploding costs of special education, criminal justice, and lost lives. We look forward to making this change happen, with the support of good people in New Jersey.
Isles Names Sean Jackson as Chief Executive Officer
Trenton, NJ – Isles, a nonprofit community development and environmental organization headquartered in Trenton, NJ, is pleased to announce that Sean Jackson has been selected to serve as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective October 1st. Sean will succeed President Marty Johnson, who founded Isles as part of a student-led initiative at Princeton University in 1981.
A long-term trustee of Isles, Sean brings extensive experience in public policy, law, and real estate development. He previously served as State Director for U.S. Senator Bob Torricelli before transitioning to the private sector as Sr. Vice President of Rosemont Associates, a government relations consulting and real estate development firm. There, in addition to serving as a consultant for dozens of New Jersey firms, Sean developed and managed more than 70k sq ft of commercial development, most of which is located in Trenton. Sean joined Isles’ Board of Trustees in 2013, later becoming its Real Estate Committee Chair. He also served as Chair of the Pipeline Committee, where he helped develop and evaluate Isles’ services.
In early 2019, Sean stepped off Isles’ Board of Trustees to manage the Social Profit Center at Mill One, a 75k sq ft conversion of a formerly vacant historic mill into office, studio, and flex space. The Social Profit Center will house charities (including Isles’ headquarters), other social profit organizations and artists under one roof, bringing shared services and a regional hub to improve the capacity of organizations across the region.
“Marty has built an innovative, barrier-breaking organization aimed at family self-reliance and community health, and I am honored to carry that legacy into this new, exciting chapter as Isles’ next Chief Executive Officer,” says Sean Jackson. “Our community, and indeed our country, face awesome challenges that require innovative, disciplined solutions. Isles management team is talented, experienced, and resourceful. I’m excited to work with them to meet these challenges in the months and years ahead.”
“Sean is the right person to lead Isles in this moment,” says Founder Marty Johnson. “We have learned a lot over the years, and Sean has been alongside us. He is well versed in shaping public policy, launching the Social Profit Center, expanding our lead poisoning prevention work, and grounding our green energy work to jobs and development. These are exciting times for Isles, full of potential. I’m proud to have spent my adult life helping build it.”
Marty, who had been working as a part-time CEO/President while teaching Social Entrepreneurship at Princeton University and Lafayette College, will stay on in a part-time capacity to work closely with Sean and Chief Operating Officer John Hart to support the transition.
“As COO, John is key to this transition, managing Isles’ operations for over 6 years, building partnerships and bringing a social and racial justice lens to our work,” says Marty. “He and Sean are a powerful team, committed to Isles’ systemic change agenda.”
“I look forward to working closely with Sean to advance our unusual work,” says John Hart, who had previously served in senior roles in NJ government and regional nonprofits. “Sean has been a force as a trustee and colleague at Isles. He is a coalition builder, vital to our policy and legislative work. He’s developed strong ties in Trenton and statewide and understands the on-the-ground challenges and opportunities in the Trenton region.”
The Isles Board of Trustees created a subcommittee to lead the year long search process, which involved reviewing numerous candidates and comprehensive interviews with a select few.
“After 40 years, we are replacing a founder – not an easy task!” says Willard Stanback, Search Committee Member and Vice Chair of Isles’ Board of Trustees. “Concluding our broad effort, we are proud to select, as our next leader, someone who knows Isles very well – Sean Jackson. It is truly promising to have Sean – who was a former board member with me and more recently has been a consultant supporting Isles – bring to this new role his array of skills and depth of knowledge about the organization, obtained through experiences in his prior roles. We look forward to helping him lead Isles into its next era.”
Isles’ Day of Giving: Now and for the Future
Join us on Tuesday, June 16th for a one-day, virtual fundraising event to support fostering self-reliant families and healthy, sustainable communities!
Watch videos from Isles staff, volunteers, and customers on our Facebook page that share inside looks into our work and its impact in the region – now and for the future. We’re also raffling off one-of-a-kind giveaway packages.
Click here for full event details.
Pandemic Response
Click here to see our Pandemic Response web page.
Isles’ 39th Anniversary Message
Friday, April 10th was Isles’ 39th Anniversary! Watch the message Isles’ Founder and CEO Marty Johnson sent to the Isles team in recognition of this important milestone.
Reflecting on 39 years
On this very day 39 years ago, a fellow student and I borrowed a car from a Princeton classmate and drove to Trenton to officially incorporate Isles, a new kind of nonprofit development organization. Motivated by my family experience with poverty in Akron, Ohio and my Anthropology thesis, I grappled with a presumptuous notion – that Princeton students could do almost anything.
We thought we could create, in challenged places like Trenton, better ways to assist families and communities to become more self-reliant and healthy. We took a leap of faith in two ways: we could learn what to do, and the universe would support us.
Over four decades, that faith felt mostly well-placed. Despite larger trends towards inequality and environmental un-sustainability, our efforts were rewarded with steady growth, purpose-driven personal satisfaction and real, visible progress.
Then along came Covid. It threatens all of us, but not equally. It particularly hurts those without savings, room to stretch out, access to health care and steady jobs. Of course, that means largely brown and black-skinned people.
At Isles, we feel assaulted on multiple fronts. As a species, we are social animals, wanting to be together, and Isles’ community development work builds upon that nature. Yet the virus forces us to separate. Families we serve face immediate threats. So does our organization. Isles’ business model relies on donors, government partners, foundations, public contracts, volunteers and allies like local universities. They also face their own survival threats, and they are re-trenching. So yes, our investments and livelihoods are at risk.
Once again, I feel like that senior at Princeton, taking a leap into the unknown, hoping we can learn, and cautiously hoping that the world helps us succeed.
Luckily, we’re not starting from scratch again. We’ve learned a lot. We know how to keep staff and volunteers safe and healthy, feed hungry students in our alternative high school with a food pantry, move education and job training online, and offer phone and web-based financial counseling to families that face financial ruin. We’re safely helping hundreds of families on 70 “Covictory” gardens – so Trenton can grow more of its own food.
In these uncertain times, we return to that leap of faith. This Covid era that both threatens and teaches will not last. It too will pass. Let’s not just hope, but make sure, that we learn from it.
Marty Johnson, ‘81
A Message from the CEO
Dear Friend,
First, we hope that this message finds you healthy and safe. These are unusual times– to say the least!
We take pride in Isles’ culture. It pushes us to ask hard questions about our mission, and to continually learn. But now we must react to COVID-19, an unprecedented threat to the health and stability of those we serve.
The virus does affect everyone, but not equally. Communities like Trenton will be the hardest hit. They are densely packed. Their residents will be the first to be laid off, with fewer savings, limited health care access, reliance on school for food, and so much more.
So heck yes, resources are needed!
How is Isles responding to this need?
- Isles is helping build “cooperative gardens” and learning to train and communicate with gardeners through webinars. Access to quality food has never been more needed!
- Isles’ financial counselors are offering virtual/tele-meetings to help workers and families as they try to navigate their rapidly changing financial situation.
- Isles Youth Institute switched to online learning with Google classroom, and set up a pantry for hungry students. IYI is also connecting students and families to local restaurants doing food donations.
- Isles, working with the Trenton Health Team, is maintaining a map of food distribution sites in the region.
- Isles Center for Energy and Environmental Training (CEET) is exploring ways to bring their healthy homes training online and sharing resources to help families keep their homes clean and safe from harsh chemicals and asthma triggers.
- The Social Profit Center at Mill One’s virtual leasing office is open for business, safe construction continues, and we’re developing virtual “member” options for the Center.
So yes, Isles is on the front lines, but we’re making systemic long-term change as well. This unprecedented threat is also joining people of good will in solidarity. In fact, we remember that Isles was borne of a notion that locally-based solutions (or “isles”) can foster self-reliance and sustainable healthy communities.
While you are at home “social distancing,” we invite you to read our 2019 Annual Report! This was an important transitional year for Isles. We expanded energy efficiency and solar, job training, education, electric vehicles, and more in places that really need them. And we continued to move Trenton towards a lead-safe future, support the emerging arts district, take a leadership role in gathering data to support redevelopment (including an updated vacant property survey), move the Social Profit Center forward and more–all while focusing on our North Star: family self-reliance and healthy, sustainable places.
Finally, as we monitor the impact of the virus on our work and communities, we want to assure you that our staff are safe and healthy. The vast majority of staff are working from home. Those who are participating in shutdown-exempt activities, such as construction and landscaping/gardening, are safely working in the field. Over the past 5 weeks, our team at Isles has shown remarkable resilience, supporting and caring for each other and our mission–often with humor amidst the tears.
Yet this can only happen if we remain calm, courageous, and supported by good folks like you.
Thank you so much for making it possible!
In common unity,
Marty Johnson
President and CEO
COVID-19 Resources
UPDATED 9/2021
See below, as well as our Isles’ Pandemic Response page, for resources and additional information regarding how Isles is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Emergency Food Access
Isles, in partnership with Trenton Health Team, maintained a map of food distribution sites.
Financial Solutions and Housing Counseling
In this rapidly evolving situation, even in households where finances are not typically a cause for concern, individuals may soon find themselves unable to pay their bills and/or meet basic expenses. For information on financial assistance, bill payment relief and COVID-19 scams, click here.
Isles continues to serve our Isles Financial Solutions and housing counseling customers with a combination of virtual and in-person meetings as needed.
Urban Agriculture
In times of economic instability and supply chain disruptions, having the capacity to grow your own food is a critical skill. Isles is working with our plant & seed suppliers to ensure that we have resources to distribute to our network of school & community gardens. In addition, we are working to make upcoming trainings available virtually. Email [email protected] to be added to our email distribution list for upcoming webinars.
Healthy Homes
Click here to view Isles’ quick start cleaning guide for best practices in regard to cleaning for COVID-19 while maintaining a chemical-safe home.
For additional resources on maintaining a healthy home see the links below from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/disinfecting-your-home.html
- https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/cleaning-sanitizing/household-cleaning-sanitizing.html
An important update from the FDA regarding hand sanitizers: they have seen an increase in products labeled to contain ethanol, but have tested positive for toxic levels of methanol contamination. Methanol, or wood alcohol, is a substance that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested and can be life-threatening when ingested. Check the labels of your hand sanitizers against the FDA’s product list here: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-updates-hand-sanitizers-methanol#products
Isles Youth Institute
IYI classes are currently offered in-person, with the ability to transition to a virtual/hybrid environment if needed. If you or someone you know is looking to earn their GED, contact [email protected] for more information about future enrollment.
Social Profit Center
The Social Profit Center is open and leasing is underway. Contact [email protected] for more information.
For general information about COVID-19, visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/
Foster self-reliant families and healthy sustainable communities