Mayor Moreno, Greater New Orleans Foundation, and Save Our Soul Coalition Announce Next Steps in Redevelopment of Armstrong Park
Courtesy of NOLA.com
Mayor Helena Moreno announced on February 19 that her administration had asked the Greater New Orleans Foundation, working closely with the Save Our Soul Coalition, to lead a master planning process for Louis Armstrong Park. Mayor Moreno said that she will allocate $750,000 from bond funds to help underwrite this initiative, which will also include plans to bring the Municipal Auditorium, which has been shuttered since Hurricane Katrina, back to life. In partnership with the City and the Coalition, the Foundation will the lead the effort through its subsidiary, New Orleans Community Support Foundation, to select Master Planning Consultants who will engage the community in creating an inspiring plan for the future development of the park and the auditorium that ideally can attract additional public and philanthropic investments to make the plan a reality.
Armstrong Park includes the sacred Congo Square, which historically served as one of the few public gathering spaces for enslaved and free people of color. The Municipal Auditorium was well-known for holding Mardi Gras balls, concerts, and graduations prior to Hurricane Katrina.
“At the Greater New Orleans Foundation, we are committed to supporting the arts and culture that sustains our community’s heritage, helps us share our history and traditions with the next generation, and inspires all of us to advance the Foundation’s vision of creating a community that is thriving, just, and sustainable for all,” said Andy Kopplin, President & CEO, Greater New Orleans Foundation. “We are honored to partner with the Mayor and City Council and thank them for securing the resources needed to undertake a robust master planning process that includes the community as an essential partner and source of ideas. We look forward to working with the City and community members to ensure we create an Armstrong Park that lives up to our hopes and dreams.”
NOPD Citizen Satisfaction Survey Shows Third Year of Increases
The 17th annual NOPD Citizen Satisfaction Survey, commissioned by the New Orleans Crime Coalition, found public satisfaction with the New Orleans Police Department is at 55%, an eight-point increase since June 2025. The 2026 NOPD Citizen Satisfaction Survey is funded by The Greater New Orleans Foundation, GNO Inc., and the Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region. The survey also showed satisfaction has climbed 24 percentage points since Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick took office in 2023, rising from 31% to 55%.
Other findings include:
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Negative ratings declined sharply, falling 15 points from 38% to 23%.
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Nearly two-thirds of residents, or 66%, said they believe the city is safe, a 12-point increase from the previous survey.
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Residents expressed confidence in their own neighborhoods, with 87% saying their neighborhood is safe, compared with 66% who said the same about the city overall.
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Willingness to cooperate with law enforcement remains high, with 87%.
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Support for crime-reduction strategies was broad, with strong majorities—ranging from 67% to 94%—backing measures such as improving police capacity to solve and investigate crimes, increasing neighborhood patrol manpower, expanding social and counseling programs, and making greater use of computer analytics, camera technology and facial recognition tools.
The New Orleans Crime Coalition has conducted independent surveys of residents’ views on the New Orleans Police Department since 2009. To learn more, click here.
Government and Education Reform Expert David Osborne Produces Acclaimed New Documentary about Education Reform in New Orleans
Courtesy of The Regovy Foundation
Author and government and education reform expert David Osborne recently released a new documentary about education reform in New Orleans that features key players behind the city’s shift to a system of charter schools after Hurricane Katrina. The development of the film, “Turnaround: The Reinvention of New Orleans’ Public Education System,” was supported by the Greater New Orleans Foundation.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana embarked on a total reinvention of New Orleans’ failing school system. Over the next decade, city and state leaders gradually converted the city’s public schools into charter schools, independent of district bureaucracy but accountable for their performance. They allowed families to choose almost any public school in the city. When students thrived, leaders encouraged the school to expand and replicate; when students fell further behind grade level every year, leaders replaced the operator with a more successful charter network. The results — the most rapid academic improvement in the country — offer powerful lessons for struggling school systems across this country.
In an interview with Washington Monthly, Osborne said, “Our public school systems in the inner cities just flat out don’t work. They’re failing too many kids and it’s the big weak link in our K-12 system. But one city [New Orleans] in particular has figured it out and is excelling and performing far above what would be expected…”
Jonathan Alter, former editor at Newsweek & author of bestselling books on Barack Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, and Donald Trump said, “Amid so much depressing news in the world, it’s inspiring to learn from this fine film about the astonishing and consistent improvement of New Orleans schools, both before Covid and after. The challenge for other urban districts is to do the same without a hurricane–to find the moral equivalent of Katrina.”
Osborne is the director emeritus of the Reinventing America’s Schools Project at the Progressive Policy Institute and the author of “Reinventing Government,” a New York Times bestseller, and “Reinventing America’s Schools: Creating a 21st Century Education System.” Learn more here. Watch the film here.
The Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine Awarded $1.75M from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine (XOCOM), located in the BioDistrict, announced that it has received a $1.75 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to strengthen medical education and healthcare in the Gulf South and beyond. This investment is part of RWJF’s $7.5 million commitment to Historically Black College and University (HBCU) medical schools, recognizing that their leadership and innovation play an essential role in improving healthcare for all communities. The Greater New Orleans Foundation has made a generational commitment to catalyzing the growth of a dynamic, job-creating, and equitable BioDistrict for our region as one of the Foundation’s transformative community projects.
This planning grant will further enable XOCOM leaders to advance the medical school’s development and engage with community stakeholders as they pursue preliminary accreditation with the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME). When it opens, XOCOM will be the fifth allopathic HBCU medical school in the United States, bringing new opportunities to communities in Louisiana and the nation and offering stellar medical education for generations to come. The medical school will create new economic opportunities when it opens in Benson Tower within the growing BioDistrict. Learn more by clicking here.
Fund Advisor Spotlight: Jefferson Parish Schools Honors Samuel B. Stewart Foundation
Courtesy of Jefferson Parish Schools
The Jefferson Parish School Board honored the Samuel B. Stewart Foundation, which has a fund at the Greater New Orleans Foundation, as its Partner of the Month on February 4 in recognition of its investment in career and technical education at the Joseph A. Cuillier Sr. Career Center.
The Stewart Foundation awarded a $50,000 grant to support Cullier’s architecture and construction programs. This investment strengthens high-quality, hands-on training and expands access to career pathways that prepare students for employment, union apprenticeships, or continued education in the building trades.
Cuillier is a key partner in the Foundation’s Construction Industry Sector Workforce Partnership—an employer-led initiative that aligns schools, training providers, and industry around clear workforce goals. Through this leadership initiative, the Foundation and its partners in both industry and the nonprofit sector are working to meet the growing demand for skilled construction professionals in the building trades while ensuring more students successfully transition from training into careers with family-sustaining wages.
The Stewart Foundation began a formal partnership with the Greater New Orleans Foundation in 2024. The Stewart Foundation’s Board of Directors collaborated with Foundation staff to design a multi-year grantmaking plan that honors the legacies of its founders, Barton and Shirley Stewart. The $50,000 grant to Cuillier is part of a broader $250,000 investment from the Stewart Foundation supporting organizations aligned with the Foundation’s Construction Industry Sector Workforce Partnership.
Fund Advisor Spotlight: Big Chief Feather Trust
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Join the New Orleans Planned Giving Council for Seminar
The New Orleans Planned Giving Council is hosting a “Planned Giving 101” seminar on March 5 from 8:30 am-4:30 pm at the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club (5353 Laurel Street, New Orleans, LA 70115). This seminar is open to professionals who are looking to build or refresh their planned giving knowledge. The Foundation’s Vice President for Philanthropy, Meg Miles, will be presenting on the basics of donor-advised funds. Other presenters will discuss charitable giving techniques, how to have confident conversations with donors and estate planning practitioners, how to build a planned giving program, and best practices of working across disciplines in planned giving. Click here to learn more or register before February 26.
Greater New Orleans Foundation, In Partnership with UNO, Launches State of Nonprofits in Southeast Louisiana 2026 Survey
The Greater New Orleans Foundation, in partnership with the University of New Orleans, launched our State of Nonprofits in Southeast Louisiana 2026 Survey. Five years ago, the Foundation released two reports on our regional nonprofits – The State of Nonprofits in Southeast Louisiana: The Impact of COVID-19 and The State of Nonprofits in Southeast Louisiana 2021: Adaptability and Racial Equity in Year One of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The 2026 study is a timely opportunity to reflect on the previous benchmarked data and understand what is currently trending in our regional nonprofit sector. It will help the Foundation to better understand how our region’s nonprofits are doing structurally, operationally, and financially; how nonprofits navigated the challenges of the past year; and how we are rebuilding our nonprofit ecosystem together. The results will be published in late summer or early fall 2026.
If you’d like to know more about the study or the team leading the design and implementation of the study, you can click here to view the presentation deck from our recent webinar or review this FAQs document. If you have any questions, please email NonprofitStudy2026@gnof.org.