By uniting people with organizations, we have created opportunities for families across generations.
For the past 45 years, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County has empowered passionate community members to support causes they care about through charitable giving. By uniting people with organizations, we have created opportunities for families across generations to improve their lives through cultural, educational, economic, and social support.
First orchestrated by the Southwest Florida Estate Planning Council, a committee of volunteers helped form our community foundation in 1979 to meet an increased need for an independent organization that could address the needs of the community and ensure the charitable giving desires of donors were met.
In our first decade our volunteer leadership sought to improve the quality of life as the community saw needs appear by building connections and establishing priorities. As a young foundation, the primary goal was to fundraise and prove to the Sarasota community that the foundation was a trustful and reliable partner.
Once trust was established, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County became an essential resource for the community, expanding our role from grantmaking to an organization that could convene public, private, and independent sector organizations to address larger community issues. Through a genuine sensitivity to community needs, we reflected a deeper culture of collaboration and, as this commitment expanded, the Community Foundation began uncovering and addressing deeper needs.
Once trust was established, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County became an essential resource for the community.
For more than four-and-a-half decades, the Community Foundation has embraced a community-wide culture of philanthropy by taking approaches to charitable work that empowers all who live here to participate in building a brighter community. Our dedication to supporting nonprofits and neighbors can be seen in our longstanding, time-trusted initiatives and community resources.
Partnerships connect the Foundation with opportunities to tackle large-scale challenges, one of which being the threat of homelessness. In 2000, through the ingenuity of Diane McFarlin, former editor of the Herald-Tribune and a former board chair of our foundation, an idea based around helping families avoid homelessness grew into the Season of Sharing campaign, which continues today. Since this original partnership, giving has been further enhanced by a combination of charitable partners, including The Patterson Foundation and other funders that provide significant matching dollars in addition to local donors who contribute gifts of varying amounts. By providing funds to aid rent or mortgage assistance, utility bills, transportation, and childcare, Season of Sharing results in deep connections among neighbors that focuses on supporting community members in need.
Our motto “Be the One,” which rests upon the belief that anyone can be a philanthropist. Since 2012, the foundation has invited everyone to be a philanthropist through events like the Giving Challenge, a 24-hour online giving event that has since raised more than $92 million for nonprofits in unrestricted funding. With a dollar-for-dollar matching opportunity on all donations from $25-$100 provided by our philanthropic partner The Patterson Foundation, all who live in our community have been invited to help create a community where all of us can thrive.
Beyond celebrating local nonprofits during the 24-hour Giving Challenge, community members can learn more about nonprofits in the area on The Giving Partner, an online database of more than 700 nonprofits in Charlotte, DeSoto, Manatee, and Sarasota counties. This directory serves as an evergreen online tool explore the impact of nonprofits – including core mission, programs and results, leadership, and financial health – as well as to search for volunteer opportunities and ways to support these local organizations.
Since our inception, education has been a focal point for the Community Foundation. That strategy has evolved over time, and today, in addition to the approximately $2 million in scholarships awarded each year to high school students entering college and career programs, we examine much of our work through a multi-generational lens. This focus is known as the 2Gen (two-generation) approach that has been built upon since 2012 when the Community Foundation partnered with Ascend at the Aspen Institute. The 2Gen approach intentionally and simultaneously works with children and the adults in their lives, to support families working towards economic security and social mobility, which in turn will create a legacy of success that builds intergenerational prosperity.