Tomorrow, November 29, is Giving Tuesday, an excellent opportunity to help support local nonprofits. Our friends at Community Foundation Tampa Bay have excellent resources to find ones in need of support.

The giving season is here. Many people are inspired by the generous spirit during the holiday season, and they want to make a charitable gift. However, with thousands of nonprofit organizations that serve important roles in our community, it can be hard to decide which organizations should receive your gift.

Identifying nonprofits for your charitable donation requires work, faith, and an educated approach. One of the best places to start is the Community Foundation Tampa Bay’s Critical Needs List, which is a trusted and easy way to be a hero for a local nonprofit.

The Critical Needs List shows local nonprofits with unbudgeted, unforeseen, and time-sensitive financial needs that are significantly interfering with the nonprofit’s ability to provide crucial services or presents an imminent threat to the organization’s continued operations. Without philanthropists’ support, these nonprofits may not be able to provide their normal services to our community.

See these nonprofits and learn about their funding needs on the Community Foundation Tampa Bay’s Critical Needs List. Donors are able to make a contribution for the full funding request, or a portion of it. It’s an easy and safe way to support local nonprofits.

More ways to learn about local nonprofits

Another way to learn about local nonprofits is to explore the list of nonprofits who have received grants from the Community Foundation Tampa Bay’s annual Competitive Grants cycle. The Community Foundation Tampa Bay provides grants to nonprofits with projects focus on five areas: community vibrancy, economic mobility, empowering women and girls, mental well- being, and positive education.

The Community Foundation has focused its funding in these five areas since 2019 to make maximum impact in creating an even stronger community.  Some of the Community Foundation Tampa Bay’s competitive grants cycle funding in 2022 included projects focused on St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, such as:

* 360 Eats’ Sustain-A-Bowl food truck serves healthy, high-quality meals to food-insecure people in North Pinellas County, which includes homebound seniors, mentally disabled adults, at-risk youth, and families with limited reliable transportation, unpredictable work schedules, and without functioning kitchens. 

* ALPHA House of Pinellas County’s Critical Services and Residential Maternity Housing for Homeless and At-Risk Teen Girls and Women provides a safe and nurturing ‘home- like’ environment for pregnant women and girls who are healing from domestic violence and homelessness, or are at-risk of becoming homeless.

* Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay’s 3DE High School at St. Petersburg’s Gibbs High School, which is designed to strengthen and enrich the lives of our neighbors and the communities where we live and work. The 3DE model addresses structural inequities in education.

* R’Club Child Care’s Early Learning Enhancements project supports high-quality early childhood education and effective parent engagement, which is integral to high-quality early learning programming, at eight Early Learning Academies in Pinellas County.

*Shirley Proctor Puller Foundation’s M.A.S.T.R. Kids – Mental Health and Well-being project provides weekly culturally inclusive group therapy sessions to South St. Petersburg children in kindergarten through eighth grade.

The Community Foundation Tampa Bay’s 2022 annual Competitive Grant cycle provided a total of more than $1 million to 46 local nonprofits for 47 projects. However, additional funding is needed. In many cases, the Community Foundation grant is the seed funding for the nonprofit’s new project or provides partial funding for the nonprofit’s project. Additional funding is needed for the project to continue.

Lean on the experts

The Community Foundation Tampa Bay works directly with philanthropists who are interested in structuring ways to maximize their charitable donations through donor advised funds, family or business foundations, legacy gifts, or other types of giving options. The Community Foundation’s experts can advise and guide you in aligning your charitable investments with your values and interest. To speak with a member of the philanthropic team, please visit their Philanthropy Team.