Pinellas Community Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Pinellas Community Foundation supports animals, environment, faith, social justice, scholarships, arts and culture, people with disabilities, health, senior citizens, education, public communications, youth in Florida.
IP TAKE: The foundation offers several discretionary grant programs for human services and arts groups. It also features an accessible online application system.
As a community foundation, PCF provides grants through unrestricted, restricted, scholarship, combined, as well as discretionary grant programs, field of interest grants, distributions from donor-advised funds, and distributions through designated and agency endowment funds. This foundation’s focus remains entirely on Pinellas County in Florida.
PCF is both accessible and not, depending on the program, so you will have to closely gauge the application procedures here by program. Some are invitation only, while others accept LOIs and applications. PCF is reasonably responsive.
PROFILE: The Pinellas Community Foundation (PCF) is a community foundation based in Clearwater, Florida. Ralph Richards, it’s founder and a local banker, established PCF in 1969. The foundation began by assisting students with scholarships and has since expanded to support various interests. Grantmaking has evolved and now includes affordable housing initiatives, youth and families, the environment, women and girls, people with disabilities, college scholarships, arts and culture, arts education, and childhood hunger. Within these giving areas, PCF has several funding priorities.
In the past, the foundation awarded grants for emergency food relief during the federal government shutdown. Recently, the foundation has been addressing the needs of older adults in the areas of housing, wellness, and social engagement. More than 130 local charities rely on the support of donors who give through PCF.
Grants for Arts Education, Arts and Culture
The Pinellas Community Foundation’s giving for arts and culture emphasizes cultural and arts education in Pinellas County. Related arts grants are particularly interested in advancing cultural awareness and enhancing public access to arts. While PCF gives for the arts across a variety of programs, it predominately does so through the Janet A. Huntley Arts Enrichment for Youth Grant, which is an invitiation-only grant program that provides up to $20,000 towards “mentoring K – 12 PCS students in Title I or Title II schools, and funds the cost of sending an artist to teach a fine art, performing art or cultural experience.” PCF also has a performing arts scholarship for Dunedin High School students, as well as another performing arts scholarship for seniors from Tarpon Springs.
Arts and culture grant seekers can also find related opportunities through PCF’s operating grants or capital improvement and equipment grants.
Grants for Higher Education
Beyond it’s other grantmaking areas, PCF offers scholarships to graduating seniors and other college-bound students in Pinellas County. PCF offers several scholarship opportunities, which include:
The Don Smith Family Scholarship for Stetson University College of Law for the educational benefit of law students who have been members or regularly attended a Boys and Girls Club or currently volunteer with a Boys and Girls Club.
The Kathleen Monahan Foundation Fund Scholarship, which provides provides financial support for high school seniors from Tarpon Springs in their pursuit of a performing arts education/career.
The Lari White Cannon Scholarship Fund, which supports students from Dunedin High School who want to pursue education and a career in the performing arts.
Stand Up for Change Scholarship Fund, which will go to students who dedicate their studies to social change.
Additional scholarships that are restricted grants.
Grants for Community Development, Journalism and Media, Senior Citizens, Youth and Women
PCF also makes a variety of grants towards affordable housing initiatives, youth and families, women and girls, and people with disabilities additionally through it’s operating grants or capital improvement and equipment grants, as well as the Social Justice Fund.
It also gives related grants through it’s Cathleen W. Grant Field of Interest Fund for Public Communications, which offers up to $3,500 for “nonprofit telecommunications organizations based in the Tampa Bay area and dedicated to providing programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence and innovation.”
Additionally, opportunities for grants exist through Senior Services Grants, which is a $10 million donor-advised fund by Senior Citizens Services, Inc. (SCS) that has “enlisted extensive grant management expertise of PCF for the benefit of seniors 55+ in Pinellas County” with awards of $800 to $20,000.
Other opportunities exist through PCF’s Faith Mission Fund, which supports the “establishment of healthy and stable family situations.” The grant, while faith-based and Christian centered, does not require recipients to be “faith-based but must serve a purpose consistent with traditional Christian values.” This grant offers up to $10,000 by LOI prior to application invitation.
Grants for the Environment
While PCF makes environmental grants across several of it’s programs, it conducts funding completely centered on supporting the local environment through the Cathleen W. Grant Field of Interest Fund for Environmental Protection, which funds organizations that are “concerned about the preservation of a clean, healthy environment, Cathleen Wells established a fund to safeguard and improve Pinellas County’s natural resources.” Environmental grants occupy a much smaller slice of PCF’s giving, but an important given Florida’s deregulation and devolving environmental protections as record numbers move to the state, putting further pressure on fragile ecosystems.
Important Grant Details:
Foundation grants are often approximately $10,000 to $12,000 each. View information about past grantees in the grant recipient directory. This foundation focuses much of its giving on the Clearwater, Florida community but elsewhere in Pinellas County, Florida, too. Tampa Bay and St. Petersburg groups also receive PCF grants.
Past support has gone to the PACE Center for Girls Pinellas, Lighthouse of Pinellas, the Florida Orchestra, and the Tampa Korean United Methodist Church.
Some PCF grant opportunities are open to unsolicited applications, while other opportunities are available by invitation only. The application system is all online. Direct general questions to the foundation staff at info@pinellascf.org.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
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