Mayor Zohran Mamdani has hired a new liaison to work with the hundreds of local nonprofits that will play a critical role in implementing his affordability agenda, delivering services from childcare to afterschool programs to anti-eviction services and homeless shelter.  Annie Elisa Minguez will take over as executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Nonprofit Services in July, a spokesperson for Mamdani confirmed.  “Annie E. Minguez has spent her career fighting for the organizations and workers who deliver those essential services,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Her leadership will help us build a stronger partnership between City government and nonprofits so that together, we can better serve New Yorkers.”   The Mamdani administration is announcing Minguez’s appointment on Thursday, just two weeks after tensions with nonprofits flared over a City Hall proposal to delay roughly $3.7 billion in upfront payments to roughly 700 cash-strapped nonprofits with city contracts. The proposal to delay the payments  — due on July 1, as per a new local law — was first reported by NBC New York.  Mamdani pulled the plug on the payment delays on June 15, one day before nonprofit groups planned to protest the proposed delays outside City Hall.   For decades, local nonprofits have struggled to collect their city funding on time and have had to take on expensive debt. City Council leaders say they plan to hold a hearing on the proposal even though the Mamdani administration backed off.  City sources say the timing of Minguez’s appointment is unrelated to the dust-up over payments in recent weeks and that plans were already underway to replace the prior director, Michael Sedillo. Sedillo was an Eric Adams holdover who announced his departure earlier this month.  “From housing to immigration to afterschool to early childhood education to child welfare to youth justice, nonprofits are the government partners at the forefront of ensuring New Yorkers thrive,” Minguez said in a statement.  “For the last 12 years, I have seen firsthand how stagnant funding, cuts to essential programs, and changes in policies impact service delivery by the nonprofits that are the backbone of communities tasked to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable New Yorkers,”  Minguez is a Bronx resident who was born and raised in Washington Heights to Dominican immigrant parents. She has worked in federal government jobs and for more than a decade in local nonprofit leadership positions, advocating on behalf of programs that provide services to children and families at risk of violence, neglect, or foster care.  Minguez’s appointment drew praise from several local nonprofit leaders.   Michelle Yanche, CEO of Good Shepherd Services, where Minguez most recently served as VP of Government and Community Relations, called Minguez “a bold, creative thinker whose advocacy consistently moves the work forward.”  Good Shepherd Services, a leading nonprofit, serving more than 30 thousand children and families in three boroughs.  Michelle Jackson of the Human Services Council of New York said the nonprofit sector needs a fundamental reset in how the city partners with nonprofits to deliver quality services.    “We get paid late, but we also don’t get paid enough. We underpay workers, so there’s huge turnover,” she said. “We underfund the service itself, so is it really a quality service?  And then we don’t always check in with the sector to ask, ‘How is this service working?’” Jackson said, adding that she believes Minguez has the experience and knowledge needed to address these challenges. “Annie understands the issues impacting the sector and has been and will continue to be a fierce advocate for the people we serve,” Jackson said. Mamdani says he is committed to improving support for the city’s nonprofit sector, which receives roughly $8 billion a year in city contracts. “Nonprofits step in where the need is greatest. They help families find housing, give young people a shot at summer jobs, feed hungry veterans, and repair our social safety net when it frays,”  the mayor said. ...read more read less