Our Mission
The New Jersey Citizen Action Education Fund (NJCAEF) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization, founded in 1983, promoting the empowerment of low and middle-income people through research, education and training around public policy issues and direct counseling and services. NJCAEF was originally called the Citizen Policy & Education Fund of NJ (CPEF) until May 2004, when the name was legally changed, but our mission and programs remain the same.
NJCAEF works with the state's largest citizen watchdog coalition, New Jersey Citizen Action (NJCA). A nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization founded in 1982, NJCA has 60,000 family members and 120 affiliate organizations including a range of senior, labor, religious, civil rights, civic and neighborhood groups. The organization has active campaigns working for quality health care for all; lower utility rates, fair banking and community reinvestment, lead-safe environments for all children, workers' rights, and other progressive social and economic justice goals.
Our goals are to promote economic and social justice, to empower and organize the unorganized, to build a strong progressive coalition working on issues of common concern, strengthening our base both collectively as a coalition and as individual organizations.
Our education focuses on community, senior, consumer, labor and other constituencies that would be affected by pocketbook issues like changes in the tax code, health care reform, environmental hazards, and utility rates. We have comprehensive outreach and training programs to assist families in dealing with insurers, banks, health providers, utilities, and telecommunications service providers.
Out of our work and the many community, government, and social service agencies we partner with, came the conditions to make positive changes to policy, including affordable housing and fair banking reforms, a progressive income tax, an environmental Right-to-Know Law, the Family Leave Act, an increase in the Homestead Rebate Program and its expansion to include tenants, "universal screening" for lead poisoning, the Health Care Quality Act and managed care patient protections.
