On September 28, Catholic Charities of New York hosted a reception at its downtown Manhattan office honoring Annie Elisa Minguez, formerly the Vice President of Government and Community Relations at Good Shepherd Services, for her recent appointment as Executive Director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Nonprofit Services.
Minguez’s career includes serving as a legislative assistant to the late Congressmember Charles Rangel and working for organizations like the Clinton Global Initiative and Accion U.S. Network before spending 12 years at Good Shepherd Services, a longtime member of Catholic Charities of New York’s Federation of Agencies.
Good Shepherd Services helps children and their families thrive through services including supportive housing, gun violence prevention, foster care programs, after-school and educational programming. They serve over 30,000 children and family members annually.
Minguez grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan and, as a teenager, participated in the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) through its longstanding collaboration with Catholic Charities of New York’s Alianza Division.
Speaking to former colleagues in the 80 Maiden Lane building that houses the state’s New American Hotline, Minguez reflected on the great responsibility that comes with her new role and her innovative approach to the work.
“For far too long, we have always done things a certain way because someone else has said, ‘We’ve always done it this way,’” she said. “And I want you to know that I’m walking into spaces with the love, with the care, with all the trauma-informed practice that we have spent so many years practicing in the nonprofit sector — even with our anti-racism and equity work — to engage in conversations that are pushing us to another limit.”
Good Shepherd Services’ CEO Michelle Yanche extolled Minguez’s tenure in her prior role as a builder of systems and partnerships and a fierce advocate for the communities she served.
“Annie walked in the door, and I hired her on the spot. And Good Shepherd truly was never the same, nor was the work of policy and advocacy in New York City,” Yanche recalled. “We would have a challenge, let Annie know about it, and before you could blink your eye, the message would come back: It’s been handled. Annie can just take that force of will and ability to find solutions, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, to the next level.”
Yanche added, “She truly knows about the challenges inherent in our partnership between nonprofit organizations and government because she was at the nexus of those, and she was often the person who was translating to our government partners what our challenges were, helping them find solutions that worked not only for Good Shepherd Services but for the field.”
Phillip Dorian, Catholic Charities of New York’s Senior Director for Federation Advancement, expressed gratitude for Minguez’s collaborative achievements as part of a wider Federation of Agencies, as well as her ability to establish partnerships with government officials and agencies.
“Our collaboration and commitment to working with one another really helps us not only strengthen our own services, but really, with a collective voice, strengthen our ability to serve New Yorkers,” said Dorian.
Catholic Charities of New York CEO J. Antonio Fernández expressed gratitude to Minguez and reflected on the significance of her appointment. “Usually someone wins and someone loses. In this case, I think the city won and we won as well,” he told Minguez, presenting her with an ornament blessed by Pope Leo XIV. “You know what it takes to run a company, understand contracts, understand negotiations, understand the bottom line, but most importantly, you understand the people we serve.”
In her new position, Annie Minguez is now the liaison between the city’s government and its nonprofits while overseeing a policy agenda and research initiatives. She knows that countless New Yorkers depend on nonprofits to provide for immediate needs as well as paths to independence, a duty she does not take lightly.
“When you come from the nonprofit sector, when you know the crisis that the sector is experiencing, when you know that I would not be standing before you if it wasn’t for caring adults from Alianza Dominicana that saw me when I was 14 years old in the SYEP program — it is very different than ‘I just took this job,’” she said.
“It is a weight that I have taken on willingly and that I will continue to carry throughout my time.”
