Central Florida Foundation
/OVERVIEW: This community foundation is the philanthropic home to over 400 charitable funds and has a nonprofit database to connect donors with organizations. The women’s issues, homelessness, and community services are top funding priorities.
IP TAKE: This funder does not use any type of application process; instead, it is essential for grant seekers to get their nonprofit’s profile onto the CFF website, where it can reach 400+ potential donors.
The community foundation has a unique, accessible approach to giving that may appear confusing at first glance, but is meant to make it easier for grant seekers to secure the funds they need. Proposals are accepting through out the year, but reach out to it’s responsive staff with questions.
PROFILE: The Central Florida Foundation (CFF) is one of the biggest grantmakers—not just in Florida, but in the entire Southeastern U.S. It houses over 400 charitable funds, connecting nonprofits and local donors in the region. Since 1994, this foundation has grown to more than $60 million in assets and has awarded over $30 million in grants. It supports “the power of philanthropy and […] thoughtful strategies, combined with a generous community” to “make Central Florida a place where everyone feels at home.” Grants support community investment, grants from advised funds, and CFF initiatives and affiliates. The Central Florida Foundation makes grants for housing, education and college access, women and children, and girls.
Grants for Community Development, Education, Women, Youth and Health
CFF works to engage conversation about the issues in which it is invested and that effects the region it serves. In doing so, it also has a dedicated Social Enterprise Accelerator that connects “entrepreneurs with resources, funding and mentors” in order to help them scale ideas into community solutions.
It make grants for women and girls through two avenues, it’s 100 Women Strong giving circle and Venture Philanthropists, which focuses on uplifting vulnerable and low-income girls.
CFF’s 100 Women Strong giving circle is collaborative in nature and has invested in issues ralted to infant mortality, domestic violence, early education, food security, mental health, and more. Within it’s giving circle, 100 Women Strong offers three programs: Education and Program to Empower Foster Youth, a Nutrition and Culinary Arts Training Program for High School Students, and Circle of Security, a pilot program to invest in childcare settings in order to help children in preschool create healthier attachments with caregivers.
CFF also offers opportunities through it’s Housing Impact Fund, which hopes to gather Central Florida business leaders and investors to “incentivize the creation of more homes, both single-family and multi-family, for sale and for rent, across a broad range of prices, in neighborhoods throughout Central Florida. The fund brings the business community in to help address this problem, as has happened in cities across the country like Charlotte, Atlanta and others on the west coast.”
UpliftED is a CFF initiative that works to raise college access and degree completion in the Central Florida region.
The Central Florida Foundation has many initiatives, pilot programs and some grants to address a variety of issues facing the region it serves, such as health care and crisis response.
Important Grant Details:
Community investment grant rounds occur in the spring and fall of each year for nonprofits in Central Florida. In the fall, grants are specific to the Winter Park Community Foundation Fund.
Other past areas of grantmaking include children’s issues, foster care, youth, environment, religion, education, and the arts. In addition to grants, CFF has awarded over $1 million in scholarships through nine unique scholarship funds established by donors.
Something that sets this community foundation apart from others around the country is the lack of an application process for community investment grant rounds. Instead, nonprofits are simply encouraged to create an online portrait to be visible to donors in the foundation’s nonprofit search.
If grant seekers know of an individual family, individual, or corporation in the area, they can use CFF’s Search Our Funds database to find funds and organizations that match an area of focus. Or grant seekers can specifically search for a fund name by location in the following counties and areas: Brevard, Lake, Osceola, Tri-County Area, Winter Park, Volusia County, Polk County, all of Florida, Orange County, Seminole County, and Winter Haven.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
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