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Community Foundation of Sarasota County

Local Nonprofits Gear up for the 2018 Giving Challenge

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Across our region, more than 630 local nonprofit organizations from Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and DeSoto counties are gearing up to participate in the 2018 Giving Challenge, presented by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Starting on May 1st at noon, the exciting online 24-hour “give day” allows everyone in our community the opportunity to support the local nonprofits they love and have their donations matched dollar for dollar, up to $100 per donor for each organization they give to, thanks to support from The Patterson Foundation.

For the past few months, nonprofits have worked on fundraising plans, communications campaigns, and planned events around the Giving Challenge in order to leverage the opportunity to generate unrestricted funding and develop relationships with new donors.

Unrestricted funding can be hard to come by—nonprofits need it to operate effectively. By investing dollars into our community through local nonprofits, those who contribute during the Giving Challenge have demonstrated their passion for our region and added a vote of confidence for the impact that our organizations are achieving. Funds from the past five Giving Challenges have gone on to ensure that vulnerable families will be able to stay in their homes and have food on their table; seniors and veterans will get the vital care they need; students will have a greater array of cultural and scientific explorations to spark their curiosity; the natural beauty of our land and gulf will be preserved; and thousands of sheltered animals will get to find a loving home.

Since 2012, donors from throughout our region have shown their love for local nonprofit organizations by providing more than $28 million in unrestricted funding to support their missions through the Giving Challenge. The 2016 Giving Challenge set a new standard for generosity in our community, when more than $13.4 million was raised in just 24 hours to benefit more than 559 nonprofits listed on The Giving Partner.

This year, The Patterson Foundation is incentivizing donations with a 1:1 match for each unique online donor’s contributions – up to $100 per donor, per organization – with no limit to the number of individual matches a nonprofit can receive. This opportunity encourages organizations to engage new online donors as well as loyal returning supporters during this year’s event. Since 2012, The Patterson Foundation has provided more than $11.9 million for the Giving Challenge to date through matching donations and other donor incentives.

The local participating nonprofits, all of which have demonstrated transparency with published and up-to-date profiles in The Giving Partner, can also earn their share of $260,000 in grant prizes. Prizes will be awarded in categories including most unique donors, best giving challenge video and event, best nonprofit-nonprofit partnership, best nonprofit-business partnership, best overall campaigns, and many more.

Donations are tax-deductible. Anyone who wishes to give during the challenge can make a secure donation (minimum gift is $25) by debit or credit card at givingpartnerchallenge.org.

The 2018 Giving Challenge is presented by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County with giving strengthened by The Patterson Foundation.

About the Giving Partner

  • The Giving Partner is a partnership of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, Manatee Community Foundation and The Patterson Foundation.
  • The Giving Partner currently shares in-depth information on more than 650 nonprofits.
  • The purpose of the online tool, found at thegivingpartner.org, is to help donors, businesses, institutional funders like foundations, local governments and citizen philanthropists learn more about the causes they care about and access information about organizations based on what is most important to them.
  • There is no cost, user name or password required to use The Giving Partner.

About the Community Foundation 
The Community Foundation is a public charity founded in 1979 by the Southwest Florida Estate Planning Council as a resource for caring individuals and the causes they support, enabling them to make a charitable impact on the community. With assets of over $333 million in more than 1,400 charitable funds, the Community Foundation awarded grants and scholarships totaling more than $33 million dollars this past year in the areas of education, health and human services, the arts, animal welfare, and the environment. Since our founding, more than $217 million has been invested back into the community through grants and scholarships. For more information, visit CFSarasota.org.

Community Foundation of Sarasota County Grants $21,553 in Funding to Support Programs that Serve Disadvantaged Women

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The Community Foundation of Sarasota County awarded $21,553 from the Margaret L. Bates Fund to local human services organizations working with an emphasis in the advancement of women, specifically disadvantaged women. Each year the Community Foundation allocates a number of grants to support organizations working in this field through the endowed fund.

This year Harvest House is one of the nonprofit recipients, and the funding will go towards their New Heights Program, which helps disadvantaged young women and men transition out of homelessness like Alexis Manna.

After her parents divorced and her father was arrested, Alexis had been haunted most of her life by domestic abuse and toxic stress in her home. Her mother’s boyfriend had drug issues, and police and child services were constantly in and out of their house. At the age of seventeen, Alexis gained the courage to stand up to her mother and tell her how she felt about what was happening in their home.

However, things took a turn for the worst when her mother sided with the boyfriend and kicked Alexis out onto the streets. She had moved around for a while staying with other family, however not much was different. After hearing about the New Heights Program at school, she looked into it and quickly found that she was able to stay at Harvest House. The program has gifted her a safe place to stay and allowed her to focus on school and her other goal, which is to enroll in the Culinary Arts Program at Suncoast Technical College after graduating high school.

“My mother would say to me ‘You will never graduate. You will never be anything in life,’” says Manna, now aged 18. “Not only will I prove her wrong, but I will be a great role model for my younger sisters and brothers to look up to.”

The fund was named and established by Dr. Margaret L. Bates, who was a former professor and provost of New College of Florida. In addition to her work with students, faculty and administration at the college, she devoted significant time to organizations in the community including the Women’s Resource Center, United Nations Association, and the Sarasota Institute of Lifelong Learning. She passed away in 2009.

This year’s awardees are as follows:

Catholic Charities Diocese of Venice – Our Mother’s House – $2,000 to provide counseling to their mothers to address long standing and pervasive issued such as untreated trauma, abuse and neglect, depression, grief and loss, domestic violence and the effects of profound poverty.  This funding will support one mother and her children for the first month in the program. 

First Step of Sarasota – $3,480 to support the Crossroads program, by providing a minimum of 13 women who enter their programs a physiological and health evaluation, which is necessary to properly diagnose any mental or health issues and provide medication. 

Harvest Tabernacle of Sarasota (Harvest House) – $7,500 to support one 18-24 year-old woman in the New Heights Program, by providing wrap around case management and support services for those who are homeless and may have aged out of foster care.

In the Pink Boutique – $1,000 to provide funding Project HEAR (Hope, Education, Assistance & Respect) by providing educational support to disadvantaged female breast cancer patients in Sarasota County.  The program also provides post-surgical products free of charge.

New College of Florida Foundation – $1,653 to provide supplementary funding to New College students seeking grants for independent studies for research and travel for women meeting the fund criteria.  This is in collaboration with the Zonta Club of Sarasota.

Second Chance Last Opportunity – $2,420 to support the Sister Circles’ Skill-building Intervention Program which empowers, promotes and supports disadvantaged women in Sarasota County.  The program is an 8-week class covering job readiness, communication, health and wellness, allowing them to become more self-sufficient .  

Women’s Resource Center of Sarasota County – $3,500 to provide 50-60 hours of individual mental health counseling to clients in Sarasota and Venice.

About the Community Foundation of Sarasota County
The Community Foundation is a public charity founded in 1979 by the Southwest Florida Estate Planning Council as a resource for caring individuals and the causes they support, enabling them to make a charitable impact on the community. With assets of over $333 million in more than 1,400 charitable funds, the Community Foundation awarded grants and scholarships totaling more than $33 million dollars this past year in the areas of education, health and human services, the arts, animal welfare, and the environment. Since our founding, more than $217 million has been invested back into the community through grants and scholarships. For more information, visit CFSarasota.org.

Area Donors Lift Season of Sharing Campaign Once Again Over the $2 Million Mark

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For the fifth year in a row, the annual Season of Sharing campaign has again broken the $2 million milestone. With donations ranging from $5 to $100,000, this year’s campaign received an outpouring of gifts from more than 2,900 donors.
Created by the Herald-Tribune Media Group and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County in 2000, Season of Sharing is a community-wide campaign that provides a safety net for families and individuals in danger of becoming homeless. Funds that are raised are distributed by a network of nonprofit fiscal agents and may be used for rent or mortgage, utility bills, child care, transportation, food vouchers or other crucial expenses.
“We’re so grateful to live in a community that truly embraces the annual Season of Sharing campaign. Thanks to the media partners, nonprofit organizations, and the incredible giving spirit of our community, everyone comes together to ensure families and individuals on the verge of losing their homes are given hope and the ability to stay in their homes,” says Roxie Jerde, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. “It’s a great demonstration to prove that our community truly cares about all its citizens. Thanks to the generosity of so many, our most vulnerable neighbors have a safety-net they can rely on when life throws unexpected challenges.”
This year The Patterson Foundation matched $100,000 for every $500,000 raised by the community in order to promote giving, for a total of $300,000. This year’s campaign was also boosted by two $100,000 gifts from notable local philanthropists, Gerri Aaron and Jacqueline Lewis, to inspire others to give.
“Every year our community’s giving spirit inspires us,” said Debra Jacobs, president and CEO of The Patterson Foundation. “The contributions provided by The Patterson Foundation served to spur further displays of generosity from community donors throughout Season of Sharing by strengthening the impact of their gifts and helping even more local families remain secure in their homes.”
Of each dollar raised, 100% will go directly to support families and individuals on the verge of homelessness, thanks to hundreds of hours of administrative support donated by the Community Foundation, local media partners, and nonprofit fiscal agencies involved in this collaborative effort.
Season of Sharing provides a preventative measure towards addressing homelessness. Knowing it costs eight times more to put a family back into housing after they have lost the roof over their head, stopping homelessness before it happens is an approach that makes sense. Not only is this reasoning more economically sound, it also allows individuals and families to avoid the heartache, anxiety, and indignity of losing the place they call home. More than 85% of recipients don’t return for help again the following year.