Research & Resources
For additional information on what organizations around the nation are saying about the root causes that should be addressed to create economic opportunity, check out the research, tools, and resources below.
Standford Social Innovation review:
What is collective impact and how can it help secure Florida’s future?
Community Foundation of the Florida Keys
More than 27,000 homes were either destroyed completely or received substantial damage in the Florida Keys due to Hurricane Irma. How is the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys helping residents recover?
Florida Children’s Council
What does a “two-generational approach” mean and why does it matter when creating pathways to prosperity?
Federal Reserve System
COVID-19 response and recovery efforts have underscored both the importance and fragility of childcare. This brief was developed by a Federal Reserve System work group to provide context on childcare system challenges and considerations for addressing the needs of working families with young children.
Learn About the Prosperity Initiative Share Your Promising Practice Florida Nonprofits Stepping Up – Giving Back
Businesses, nonprofits, community leaders, and volunteers across Florida are supporting relief efforts to address the COVID-19 crisis. Shown below are a few of these leading organizations that are stepping up and giving back.
Also available is the Florida Chamber COVID-19 Resource Center providing daily updates on what other employers are doing to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus, where the virus is spreading, and other relevant information. Please visit www.flchamber.com/follow-facts-not-fear/ and feel free to share this with your office, your family, and your friends as we’ve made this available to everyone who is interested in the latest information and guidelines.
Gulf Coast, Barancik Foundation Launch COVID-19 Response Initiative
Gulf Coast Community Foundation and Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation have introduced a philanthropic initiative to fortify key health and safety organizations in the region amid the growing COVID-19 crisis. The foundations announced total commitments so far of $1.5 million to support the initiative and they positioned the funding as a challenge to Gulf Coast donors and other philanthropists in the community to match that amount.
Prosperity Initiative Promising Practices
Through the Florida Chamber Foundation’s Prosperity Initiative, we are highlighting organizations that are working on issues such as food deserts, homelessness, access to healthcare, and other poverty-related problems. Across the state, businesses are sharing their stories of how they are creating, supporting, or participating in programs to help their communities, teaming up with private and public sectors to come up with solutions that work, and investing back into the communities that need it the most.
Do businesses or organizations you work with have a story to share? Is there a business in your community that has started or partnered on a program that is making a difference? Share your story with us – we’ll share it with Florida’s business community as a Promising Practice.
Below are examples of how businesses, non-profits, and other organizations are working in their communities to help fight poverty-related issues.
4Rivers – Feed the Need
The Florida Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program provides meals to students, but this program does not cover other hungry family members. 4Roots and 4Rivers come alongside meal program sites – over 60 in Orange and Seminole counties – to provide Family Meals to students’ family members, and others in need. Click here to learn more.
Location: Orange and Seminole Counties
A Gift For Teaching
A Gift For Teaching has been providing classroom resources that empower teachers and inspire future leaders since 1998—with a vision that every student has the
tools and experiences to succeed. Through multi-platform “Free Teacher Supply Stores”, A Gift For Teaching has supplied Central Florida schools with nearly $135 million worth of learning materials.
With the understanding that art enrichment accelerates both academic and personal development, A Gift For Teaching launched A Gift For Music to provide tuition-free musical strings education to under-served urban youth in Orlando. School SmARTS was created to integrate curriculum and deliver supplies needed to bring an entirely unique arts education to students across the school district. Click here to learn more.
Location: Central Florida
Achieve Escambia- Gulf Power, United Way of Escambia County
Born out of the business community with Gulf Power, Baptist Health Care and Navy Federal Credit Union leading the way, Achieve Escambia is a cradle to career collective impact effort focused on the complex system of education and workforce development. Achieve Escambia is an “all-in” partnership of Escambia County stakeholders from the education, non-nonprofit, business, faith, equity, economic development, military, law enforcement, judicial and philanthropic sectors committed to aligning community resources so everyone is empowered to achieve success. Click here to learn more.
Location: Escambia County
Be Essential – Tallahassee Community College
When COVID-19 hit, the Tallahassee area unemployment skyrocketed and many workers were looking for ways to gain the skills they need to be marketable in record time. Fortunately, Tallahassee Community College offers more than 140 courses, certificates and degree programs that lead to in-demand jobs, and many of these programs can be completed in 90 days or less. In response to the pandemic, the College launched the TCC2Work Be Essential campaign in the summer 2020 to connect students to training and then to employers. The campaign highlighted how targeted workforce training can help students land a job in an essential role ranging from healthcare, information technology, public safety and many more in-demand careers. Financial and scholarships are available to ensure students are able to focus on their education. TCC is also looking at additional job-training marketing and awareness campaigns in the 32304 ZIP Code this spring, with an emphasis on fast-track job-training programs that include potential rapid credentialing scholarships. Click here to learn more.
Location: 32304
Increasing Awareness of College Opportunities
With its main campus in 32304, Florida’s poorest ZIP code, Tallahassee Community College understands how poverty can effect achieving one’s own potential. The College provides extensive wrap-around services and have increased investments to raise awareness of opportunities for residents in the area to earn a postsecondary degree or credential. The value of a college education, for the individual, their family, and their community, is well-documented. TCC’s open-access mission means it is ideally situated to provide a pathway for any student who would like to pursue their education and enter a high-demand career field. As a result, the College targeted a direct mail campaign to 15,500 households in 32304 which resulted in a 23% increase in enrollment from the prior spring. Click here to learn more.
Location: 32304
Believe Miami
In October 2019, AT&T launched Believe Miami, a local initiative focused on removing barriers that keep local youth and young adults from achieving their dreams. The AT&T Foundation has committed $300,000 to Dibia DREAM, His House Children’s Home, Miami Marlins Foundation, Pridelines, Breakthrough Miami, Miami Rescue Mission, and Florida International University to help provide youth and young adults with resources they need to succeed in school and life. Click here to learn more.
Location: Miami
Biz Town – Junior Achievement
This engaging, hands-on program introduces 5th graders to economic concepts, workplace skills, and personal and business finances in a student-sized town built just for them. Students first take part in a series of classroom lessons where they learn about working in and being consumers in today’s world. They work together to create business plans, calculate operating costs, design a marketing campaign, apply for jobs, vote for city officials, and explore careers. Then, they put their skills to work by becoming citizens for a day in JA BizTown. During their time at JA BizTown, students operate a simulated economy and take on the challenge of running businesses, including getting hands-on experience as both employees and consumers, paying rent, taxes and utilities, purchasing insurance, depositing paychecks and buying other business’ products, handling customer service, and more. Click here to learn more.
Location: Tampa
Bosses for Babies – The Children’s Movement of Florida
Bosses for Babies is an initiative that brings together business leaders in Florida who are ready to take action in support of early childhood—understanding that this is an investment both in their bottom line and in community-level prosperity. The initiative highlights the many ways Florida businesses are taking action and enables more businesses to get involved. This initiative contributes to The Children’s Movement’s partnership with the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation. It allows businesses to support the goal of 100% K-readiness by 2030 and drives engagement with the Business Alliance for Early Learning, leading to more business-led advocacy for greater investment in early care and education. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
The Broward Business Council
The Broward Business Council on Homelessness is an initiative of United Way of Broward County and the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance. A group of local business leaders has partnered to work with Broward County, the City of Fort Lauderdale and providers in the Broward Homeless Continuum of Care to create a comprehensive plan to end homelessness as we know it. Click here to learn more.
Location: Broward County
Broward Up
Broward County is one of the areas most affected by COVID-19. It is home to 33311, the zip code with the highest number of children in poverty in the state. These two factors make life even more difficult for those families in or near the poverty line. One of 33311’s greatest champions is Broward College, and their Broward UpTM movement providing educational opportunities, workforce training, and support services directly in neighborhoods throughout the county. While many of these resources are offered for free, COVID-19 has made their job harder. Click here to learn more.
Location: Broward County
Building Readiness Among Infants Now (BRAIN) Program
A program of Helping People Succeed, the BRAIN is available to all parents of newborns in Martin and St. Lucie counties to help give children the best start possible. Home visits include mother/baby physical assessment, immunization schedule, home safety information, information on brain development, information about community resources and the Ages and Stages Development Monitoring system. Click here to learn more.
Location: Martin and St. Lucie counties
Bullard Family Foundation Back to School Bash
The Bullard Family Foundation held a virtual Back-to-School Bash on August 1, with Thaddeus Bullard aka WWE Superstar Titus O’Neil broadcasting live from Amalie Arena. The Bash included celebrity appearances, raffles and giveaways, DJ’s and entertainment, magic shows and museum tours. The virtual event, powered by Microsoft, was sponsored by WWE, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and AdventHealth and provided information on health screenings and requirements. Click here to learn more.
Location: Hillsborough County
Children’s Forum: Help Me Grow
Help Me Grow Florida promotes early identification of developmental, behavioral or educational concerns, then links children and families to community-based services and supports at no cost to parents and caregivers. Help Me Grow serves Florida families with young children birth to age eight. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Children’s Forum: INCENTIVE$
Early Childhood Educator INCENTIVE$, an affiliate of Child Care WAGE$®, rewards early childhood educators with financial incentives based on their education and continuity of employment. By retaining the early childhood workforce, INCENTIVE$ provides children with more stable relationships and better-educated teachers. INCENTIVE$ addresses individual professional development efforts and low wages, but does not affect budgets, regular wages or parent fees within the child care program. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Circles USA
A Circles USA chapter gathers people who are motivated to move out of poverty and matches them with middle-income and high-income volunteers who can support and encourage them on their journey. Through mentoring, education and training, and the right resources, individuals and families are able to break out of poverty and become upwardly mobile. Click here to learn more.
Location: National program.
Florida Circles located in Boynton Beach, Gainesville, Orlando and St. Petersburg
Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation
The Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation is a Florida-based private foundation focused on making grants to promote the arts, education and initiatives that utilize nature and the sciences. The Foundation utilizes the arts to inspire and raise educational outcomes for students, and enrich the overall quality of life in marginalized communities. Click here to learn more.
Locations: Southeast and Northeast United States
Delivering Good
Now in its 35th year, Delivering Good has helped millions of people living in low-income families, as well as those affected by natural disasters. Their vision is to build a more equitable world, in which children, adults, and families facing economic, medical, social, and environmental challenges have the useful items that they need and value, in order to overcome adversity and reach their full potential. Delivering Good works with a network of local community-based nonprofit and government agencies, with 15 partners currently active in Florida. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Eagle Academy
Eagle Academy provides free two-generation summertime learning opportunities. Eagle Academy is a free six week program for rising kindergarten thru rising third grade students. Monday – Thursday, enrolled students spend their mornings learning ELA and math while the afternoons are spent engaging in experimental learning and STEAM activities. On Thursday evenings, parents come to the school for dinner and then attend Parent University (PU) for an hour of learning. Feedback shows that SLA children are more prepared for school and less likely to experience summer learning loss. In addition, both students & parents are more comfortable in the school environment and better equipped to navigate the school. Click here to learn more.
Location: Sarasota
Empowerment Plan
Founded in 2012, the Empowerment Plan produces durable and innovative coats that transform into sleeping bags and are distributed to those in need. The coats are distributed globally though the lasting impact lies in the company’s workforce development focus as they hire parents from homeless shelters across Detroit to manufacture the coats. Empowerment Plan is tearing down barriers to employment faced by low-income parents and providing meaningful programs intended to close the skills gap. Click here to learn more.
Location: Based in Detroit, MI
Faith Health Network
Navigating the health care system can be difficult – finding the right doctor, understanding insurance coverage and the side effects of medications. To help reduce confusion, Baptist Health Care launched Faith Health Network linking the community with “navigators” who help guide people through the health care system. Currently, the program is focused on church congregations where people often congregate and have built in trust. However, the services the Faith
Health Network provides are available to everyone, with the church and church volunteers serving to bridge the gap between those who need information and the entity that can provide it. Click here to learn more.
Location: Pensacola
Farmers Feeding Florida
Farmers Feeding Florida is Feeding Florida’s produce recovery initiative that works in partnership with farmers and packers throughout the state to rescue and distribute wholesome and cosmetically blemished produce that can help to ease this burden. The initiative offsets out-of-pocket costs for packing materials to enable them to scale up donations to multiple truckload quantities. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Feeding Florida
Feeding Florida, formerly Florida Association of Food Banks, is the state’s network of food banks working to solve hunger. The statewide network unites 12 member food banks to provide a healthy, adequate, and consistent food supply to every community every day. Feeding Florida member food banks support more than 2,200 local charitable agencies, which provide food directly to individuals and families in need to ensure a hunger-free Florida. Each year, the Feeding Florida network provides food to the 2.8 million Floridians facing hunger, including over 850,00 children. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Finance Park – Junior Achievement
The mission of Finance Park is to provide students with opportunities to understand how to budget, save and invest; to become armed with the confidence and understanding to take control of their financial futures. At JA Finance Park students have the opportunity to experience their personal financial futures first-hand. Here, 8th grade students participate in an immersive simulation that enables them to develop skills to successfully navigate today’s complex economic environment and discover how decisions today can impact tomorrow.
Location: Tampa
Florida Power & Light RISE to the Occasion Back to School Bash at Manatee Lagoon
The Florida Power & Light Eco-Discovery Center® host the RISE to the Occasion Back to School Bash, a free family-fun day for kids to enjoy before the new school year starts. In partnership with RISE, a community-driven public-private organization established to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty in West Palm Beach’s historic north end neighborhoods, Florida Power & Light Company, Office Depot, PNC Bank, Rybovich Superyacht Marina, the Healthcare District of Palm Beach County and the Education Foundation, the Back to School Bash helps families get ready for the new school year.
Location: Palm Beach County
Florida Regional Student Success – Helios Education Foundation
In light of the widening academic achievement gaps between White students and their African-American and Latino peers, Helios Education Foundation has launched the Florida Regional Student Success Initiative, deploying four key strategies in three metropolitan regions of the state — Miami, Orlando and Tampa — which collectively represent the largest percentage of first-generation, low-income and minority student populations. This initiative is being deployed through four key strategies to ensure more underrepresented students are prepared to pursue and complete a postsecondary education and acquire the skills necessary to obtain high-demand, high-paying jobs. Those strategies are strategic investing, building and reforming systems, public and political will building, and collaborating and convening. These strategies are being implemented across the education continuum, starting with Early Grade Success, continuing through College and Career Readiness and on to Postsecondary Completion. Click here to learn more.
Location: Miami, Orlando, Tampa
Fresh Access Bucks
Fresh Access Bucks (FAB) is a USDA funded statewide nutrition incentive program that encourages SNAP recipients to redeem their benefits at farmers markets, produce stands, CSAs and mobile markets to purchase healthy produce directly from Florida farmers. At participating locations, FAB matches or discounts what a SNAP cardholder spends with FREE Fresh Access Bucks every day to spend on Florida- grown fruits & vegetables. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
FutureMakers Coalition
A collective impact initiative working along the cradle-to-career pathway to create a skilled and sustainable workforce pipeline. The pathway begins with early childhood learning and ends with post-high school credential attainment and career connections. The coalition focuses on systems change to connect untapped workforce with the education and training to fill in-demand jobs by removing attainment barriers and creating a culture of career exploration and aspiration from an early age. Click here to learn more.
Location: Southwest Florida
Grow Up Great- PNC Bank
An early learning initiative to help children succeed. A $350 million bilingual initiative founded in 2004 by The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., PNC Grow Up Great® helps prepare children from birth to age five for success in school and life. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Growing Up Great
Growing Up Great is a new initiative which is designed to build a neighborhood focused educational pathway from birth to 5th grade. It is a collaboration that brings together families, preschools, elementary schools, out-of-school time providers and community partners to break down silos and think differently about the educational journey. Program objectives focus on understanding current educational pathways, increasing kindergarten readiness and advancing student and school achievement. Click here to learn more.
Location: Hillsborough County
Habitat for Humanity of Hillsborough County, FL, Inc.
Habitat for Humanity was founded in 1976 on the concept of ‘partnership housing,’ an approach that partners low- and moderate-income families in need of adequate shelter with volunteers to build decent, affordable housing. To ensure homes remained affordable, Habitat sold them with an affordable mortgage and returned monthly payments to a fund, which allowed the work to multiply. Today, Habitat operates globally, helping 30 million people find strength, stability and independence through safe, affordable shelter. Our goal is to empower families to break the cycle of poverty and build long-term financial security through homeownership. Household income for our homeowners falls between 30% and 80% of AMI. Successful candidates have steady employment and can make monthly payments, but cannot afford a traditional mortgage. Habitat’s affordable mortgage solution keeps new home payments affordable. Click here to learn more.
Location: Hillsborough County
Homeboy Industries
The largest gang reintigration program in the country, Homeboy Industries is a work first model provider who works with former gang members to provides case management, mental health, education and career pathways. They continue to bring people together to work toward social justice, to advocate for marginalized populations, to strive to break the recidivism cycle, and to address the collateral consequences of serving time in prison. Click here to learn more.
Location: Worldwide
Homelessness Collaborative
Combating homelessness is key to creating paths to prosperity. Broward County is taking a collaborative approach with the Homelessness Collaborative. The mission of the Collaborative is to help persons experiencing homelessness find a safe, stable and dignified path to permanent housing, to end homeless as we know it in our community. Click here to learn more.
Location: Broward County
Hope Place
For Forough Hosseini of ICI Homes, investing in her community to tackle homelessness in school-aged children meant engaging all parts of the community. Hope Place, a shelter for families with school aged children and unaccompanied
youth, took an abandoned elementary school in Daytona Beach and created from it a safe, stable environment with the resources needed for families to quickly move on to their own permanent housing and self-sufficiency.
Click here to learn more or download the “A Community United” White Paper.
Location: Daytona Beach
“Some community issues are too massive for any single nonprofit to solve and yet too important for community leaders to ignore. Family and youth homelessness is one such issue for communities around the country. When homeless youth or homeless families are given the opportunity (and hope!), they almost always help themselves out of homelessness. Hope Place, a shelter for families and youth, brought together the whole ‘village’ – Volusia County’s government, the school board, six cities, a nonprofit and many community leaders who all stepped up to help this very important cause. The difference Hope Place has already made in the lives of our homeless children and families, after only one year since its opening in January 2018, is well worth everyone’s involvement including five years of my own persistence and perseverance.”
Forough B. Hosseini
Senior Vice President – Information Systems
ICI Homes
[Here4You]th – Charles & Margery Barancik and Gulf Coast Community Foundations
Public and private stakeholders across the Sarasota region are engaging in the hard work of turning data and research into a unified system of care. Barancik and Gulf Coast Community Foundations together with Behavioral Health Stakeholders’ Consortium and other nonprofits, will engage in the hard work of turning findings from a research scan of mental health services in Sarasota County into an action plan to improve the mental health care system. Click here to learn more.
Location: Sarasota County
Humana Bold Goal
In 2015, Humana announced Bold Goal, a population health strategy to improve the health of the communities they serve by 20% by 2020. Through community, clinical and business integration, Humana is taking that goal beyond 2020 and creating community partnerships to tackle issues such as food insecurity, loneliness and social isolation and unreliable or lack of transportation. Click here to learn more.
Location: Nationwide – Florida Communities include Jacksonville, Broward County and Tampa Bay
IDignity
IDignity was created to assist the disadvantaged in Central Florida in navigating the complexities and financial burden of obtaining their various legal identification documents. These documents are often required to access education, employment, housing, proper healthcare, financial institutions, and numerous other opportunities.
Through extensive collaboration and generous support of the community, IDignity Orlando has assisted over 22,000 clients in the past decade. Access to legal identification not only empowers individuals to better their own lives, it also cultivates a society that is more inclusive, productive, and secure for us all. Click here to learn more.
Location: Central Florida
Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay: 3DE
Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay has developed a partnership with Hillsborough and Pinellas County Schools to launch 3DE, an innovative high school model proven to accelerate student engagement and academic outcomes in traditional public high schools. 3DE will launch in August 2020 at three high schools with plans to expand into additional schools following the successful integration at the initial locations. The instructional model at 3DE schools is based around case method that integrates real-world concepts and experiences. Activated through local and national partners, students gain access and skills to navigate careers in high growth industries. Click here to learn more.
Location: Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties
Keeping Teachers in the Classroom – Charles & Margery Barancik
Keeping Teachers in the Classroom includes three programs: Emerging Educators to help with certification costs, career guidance and application success for future teachers; Educators Rising that is creating a pipeline for future teachers by engaging high school students; and Elevating the Profession through strategic communications and journalism to raise respect for the teaching profession within the community. Click here to learn more.
Location: Sarasota County
Launch to Tomorrow- Orlando Economic
Partnership
Advancing prosperity is no small feat and takes leaders from all areas to accomplish. The Orlando Economic Partnership’s Launch to Tomorrow program seeks to advance prosperity in their region. Click here to learn more.
Location: Orlando
LIFT Orlando
What happens when business leaders take on the challenge of generational poverty and work together to help their community thrive? Look no further than LIFT
Orlando- a group of business leaders looking to make a difference. Click here to learn more.
Location: Orlando
Lockheed Vocational and STEM Scholarships
The first of its kind within the domestic aerospace and defense industry, Lockheed Martin is launching a vocational scholarship for high school seniors and college students pursuing vocational and trade degrees. The scholarship will fund degrees at accredited vocational-technical schools to prepare students for careers in technology and advanced manufacturing that do not require a bachelor’s or advanced degree.
For the second year in a row, Lockheed Martin will also offer its four-year STEM Scholarship program. This program is open to high school seniors and undergraduate students who plan to pursue a major in engineering or computer science, demonstrate financial need, and come from underrepresented or under-served communities. Click here to learn more.
Location: National Program
Miami Community Venture
Designed to deliver long-term economic benefits, the Miami Community Ventures (MCV) initiative connects low income unemployed individuals to living wage jobs and provides support to help ensure they are successful in that first job and beyond. The program includes services such as job training, child care, success coaching, and education (emphasis on financial literacy). The Beacon Council Foundation under the One Community One Goal umbrella serves as the convener working with partner organizations and facilitating operational next steps. Click here to learn more.
Location: Miami
Nemours Reading BrightStart!
Nemours Reading BrightStart! was developed to promote reading success and prevent reading failure in children through innovative programs, research, leadership and partnerships focused on children from birth to 8 years old. Practitioners and caregivers are given the tools to help build language, literacy and communications skills, wile also developing cognitive, physical and social emotional skills for each infant or toddler in their care. At-risk children who received Nemours BrightStart! instruction made significant gains in their reading readiness scores relative to peers who did not quality for instruction. Click here to learn more.
Location: BrightStart! Tools are being used 20 states including Florida
OIC of South Florida
OIC is a community based workforce development and training organization that is committed to preparing youth and adults to realize their full potential by providing training and certifications. OIC focuses on the unemployed, underemployed, and unskilled and is committed to helping those with barriers to self-sufficiency due to the past indiscretions in their background via our various Adult and Young Adult Workforce Development initiatives. Click here to learn more.
Location: Broward and Miami counties
Parramore Kidz Zone – Black Bee Honey
A non-profit business founded by the youth in Parramore Kidz Zone, Black Bee Honey is now in its second year and is run by entrepreneurs from the Parramore and Holden Heights communities in Orlando. With a mission to turn their communities “from food deserts to food oases,” the business teaches students about entrepreneurship.
The Parramore Kidz Zone (PKZ) was launched in 2006 by Mayor Buddy Dyer. For the past three years, every high school senior involved with PKZ has graduated from high school on time and enrolled in college or trade school, or enlisted in the military. The continued success of PKZ earned it the Powell Legacy Award from America’s Promise Alliance for its work transforming a community and the lives of the young people and families that live there. Click here to learn more about Black Bee Honey or click here for information on the Parramore Kidz Zone.
Location: Orlando
Pepin Academies Foundation Campaigns
Pepin Academies Foundation is a non-profit organization that supports all of Pepin Academies’ campuses. Pepin Academies are public, tuition-free charter schools that serve students with learning disabilities in grades 3-12. Pepin Academies Foundation launched its inaugural “Adopt-a-Classroom” to provide funds for teachers with needed academic enrichment materials. “Adopt-a-Student” funds will provide students with a backpack filled with needed school supplies that will be delivered directly to their school for collection. Click here to learn more.
Location: Tampa, Riveriew and New Port Richey
PGT Innovations – Sunshine Education Academy
PGT Innovations unveiled the 7,500-square-foot Sunshine Education Academy to the community in April 2019. Operated by the Venice branch of the SKY Family YMCA, the Sunshine Education Academy offers affordable, convenient child care with a focus on early childhood development programs and services to PGT Innovations’ families with young children, as well as parents who work in the Triple Diamond Commerce Park and the surrounding area in North Venice. The PGT Innovations-owned facility accommodates parents working various shifts and operates six days a week from 4:30 a.m. – 6 p.m., with flexible pick-up and drop-off hours to best fit the needs of working parents. Staffed by professionals trained by the YMCA and operated as a licensed and accredited facility, the center offers curriculum-based programs, healthy meals, and an outdoor playground to children aged six weeks to five years old.
Location: North Venice
Prosperity Broward – A Six Pillars Broward Program
Prosperity Broward is an initiative of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance Foundation which seeks to power prosperity for all by leveraging the county’s booming economy to benefit individuals in six economically challenged zip codes: 33311, 33309, 33313, 33319, 33069, and 33023.
The six focus areas for this initiative are: education/training, employment, small business development, employer engagement, support services, and policy. Click here to learn more.
Location: Broward County
Publix
Over the last 10 years, Publix has given $2 billion in food to Feeding America member food banks and other nonprofits. Publix is now pledging another $2 billion in food over the next ten years. The food Publix donates as part of this program includes dairy, deli, meat, produce and baked goods, and goes to more than 100 Feeding America member food banks and other nonprofits. The food is good to eat but unsalable and provides individuals and families facing hunger a way to bring more meals to the table. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
Purpose Built- Rybovich: RISE Initiative
How is one company helping to pave a path to prosperity for communities in West Palm Beach? With a partnership with Purpose Built Communities that includes private and public sectors, Rybovich is one example of a business that is investing back into their community.
“Our goal should not be temporary relief for the poor, but rather to attain enduring equity by eradicating the underlying pathology of poverty that has precluded 3 million Florida residents from achieving their God-given potential.”
Wayne Huizenga, Jr.
Click here to learn more or download the RISE Initiative White Paper
Location: West Palm Beach
Reading Recovery – Charles & Marjery Barancik Foundation
Reading Recovery is a proven formula to help catch up elementary students who struggle with reading and writing. 30 minutes a day, four days a week, select students work one-on-one with a trained teacher through specialized reading instruction. Participants are taught through a concentrated and multisensory approach, designed around the way children learn naturally in life. Click here to learn more.
Location: Sarasota County
Ride United
A transportation access initiative helping those in need overcome transportation barriers, Ride United launches with initial support from General Motors and Lyft, and leverages the strengths of local United Ways and the 211 network to address unmet transportation needs for individuals and families. The first cities involved in this initiative are partnering with Lyft to provide free rides to eligible 211 clients in need of transportation for employment, health, and other needs. Click here to learn more.
Location: National, including Jacksonville, Tallahassee and
Tampa Bay Area
The Roundtable of St. Lucie
The Roundtable of St. Lucie County, composed of elected officials, law enforcement agency leadership, the heads of numerous agencies that affect policies and funding, and respected community leaders and partners, have been working together for over 25 years to identify and implement research-based, comprehensive solutions to achieve and sustain long-term success for youth and their families. At the heart of their efforts is a commitment to identify and eradicate implicit bias and systemic racism in our society, in particular, the criminal justice system. Click here to learn more.
Location: St. Lucie County
SAP4Kids
GENYOUth, the child health and wellness nonprofit, and SAP, market leader in enterprise software sales, believe that the most promising solutions come from the efforts of public and private sectors working together. In that spirit, GENYOUth and SAP joined forces to create the SAP4Kids Program, which helps families find food and other resources during the COVID-19 crisis. GENYOUth has also launched a COVID-19 School Nutrition Fund that provides grants of up to $3,000 per school to supply much-needed resources for meal distribution and delivery to help ensure that our children continue getting nutritious meals. Through the combined power of SAP technology and GENYOUth’s unmatched access to school communities, these programs aim to connect people to local resources, while also providing ways that organizations can offer additional support. Click here to learn more.
Location: National Program
Seedfunders Opportunity Fund
Seedfunders, a St. Petersburg-based early stage investment firm, has launched the Seedfunders Opportunity Fund, to make pre-seed investments in Black-owned startups throughout Florida. Research shows that entrepreneurs of color often have uniquely positioned ideas for technology-driven businesses, but cannot raise the capital to get started. The new Opportunity Fund will supply that capital. Seedfunders has made 24 investments in a wide range of technology startups since it was founded in 2017. The new fund will have slightly different investment criteria than the organization has used in the past. Click here to learn more.
Location: St. Petersburg, Miami, Orlando
Student Finance League
How can having the right money, business, and life skills help Floridians be prosperous? The Student Finance League partners with organizations, shelters, schools, law-enforcement, and federal agencies hosting workshops and seminars to teach money, business, and life skills. The focus is on language, vocabulary, conversations, and confidence, leveraging student’s strengths, goals, and abilities, to promote equality, stability, and opportunity. Click here to learn more.
Location: Miami
Tampa Bay Lightning Hunger Relief – Goals for Food
Tampa Bay Lightning and The Mosaic Company are partnering on a program to help Feeding Tampa Bay. The Tampa Bay Lightning and The Mosaic Company announced hitting the milestone of 6 million meals donated through the ‘Goals for Food’ program. The program links the success of the Lightning to feeding food insecure families across the Tampa Bay region, where approximately 700,000 people, including 250,000 children, are not sure from where their next meal will come. Click here to learn more.
Location: Tampa Bay
T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood
The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program offers a strategy for systematically improving the education, compensation and retention of the early childhood work force. Working work with 48 colleges, universities and vocational technical schools throughout the state as well as 14 community-based training institutions, the Florida T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program serves as an umbrella for a variety of educational scholarship opportunities for people working in early care and education programs including family child care homes. Since 1998, more than 37,000 scholarships have been awarded. The turnover rate for these T.E.A.C.H. program participants is less than 6% – a testament to the success of this program. Click here to learn more.
Location: Statewide
The Learning Pavilion
The Learning Pavilion, formerly known as The Dick Howser Center for Childhood Services, is a smart-play preschool that strives to be inclusive for all children, and uses a play-based curriculum that emphasizes self worth, capability, and school readiness. Since 2010, The Learning Pavilion has partnered with Goodwill Big Bend. Goodwill provides TLP with administrative support and fundraising. In addition, business and community organizations come together to provide funding that is used for scholarship programs that help families dealing with unexpected financial issues, giving them the ability to cover a portion of the monthly fees, ensuring their children continue to stay enrolled and receive the care needed to thrive. Click here to learn more.
Location: Tallahassee
First 1,000 Days Sarasota County
From the third trimester of pregnancy through babies’ second birthday, human brains undergo a period of rapid growth. During the first 1,000 days of life, children are hardwired in ways that have lifelong consequences. To provide intergenerational cycles of opportunity, First 1,000 Days Sarasota County is ensuring every new family in our county has access to the resources needed so their children can flourish. Click here to learn more.
Uber Works
Uber has launched a new platform that connects workers with businesses looking to fill temporary shifts. The platform grew out of Uber’s business incubator, leveraging the company’s marketplace technology and operational know-how to help solve pain points that exist in finding on demand and temporary labor. Click here to learn more.
Location: Miami
UHealth Jackson Urgent Care – Back to School Kits for Kids
UHealth Urgent Care and Cutler Bay Urgent Care Center will hold back to school drive-thru events in August. The Back to School Kits for Kids will provide school supplies and free backpacks for children ages 5 to 13. Click here to learn more.
Locations: North Miami and Cutler Bay
Year Up
Millions of young adults in the US have talent and motivation, but lack opportunity. At the same time, companies have opportunities available, but lack the talent they need to succeed. Year Up brings talented young adults together with top companies and helps bridge the opportunity divide. Click here to learn more.
Florida Locations: Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami
Year Up
Millions of young adults in the US have talent and motivation, but lack opportunity. At the same time, companies have opportunities available, but lack the talent they need to succeed. Year Up brings talented young adults together with top companies and helps bridge the opportunity divide. Click here to learn more.
Florida Locations: Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami
YMCA Reads
The mission of YMCA READS! is to enable at-risk and disadvantaged children in Kindergarten through third-grade, regardless of their race, economic status, or capabilities, to increase their reading skills through structured after-school reading instruction and mentoring. Currently, the program operates in 17 public schools, 9 participating YMCAs in 13 counties in Florida. YMCA READS! is implemented in partnership with the Florida State Alliance of YMCA’s Foundation, Inc. and the local YMCA’s in Florida. Click here to learn more.
Locations: 13 Counties in Florida
National Promising Practices
Cummins Inc.
Cummins Inc. announced the launch of Cummins Advocating for Racial Equity (CARE). CARE is another step forward in Cummins’ intent to take a leading role in undoing systemic discrimination against the Black community in the U.S. The creation of CARE is the first step in Cummins’ effort to undo systemic discrimination; and since its creation in July 2020, the company has developed strategies and initiated work in four identified areas:
– Achieve police reform
– Realize criminal justice reform
– Create economic empowerment by building Black wealth and income
– Drive social justice reform in healthcare, housing, workforce development and civil rights, including voting rights and education
Research & Resources
For additional information on what organizations around the nation are saying about the root causes that should be addressed to create economic opportunity, check out the research, tools, and resources below.
Standford Social Innovation review:
What is collective impact and how can it help secure Florida’s future?
Community Foundation of the Florida Keys
More than 27,000 homes were either destroyed completely or received substantial damage in the Florida Keys due to Hurricane Irma. How is the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys helping residents recover?
Florida Children’s Council
What does a “two-generational approach” mean and why does it matter when creating pathways to prosperity?
Federal Reserve System
COVID-19 response and recovery efforts have underscored both the importance and fragility of childcare. This brief was developed by a Federal Reserve System work group to provide context on childcare system challenges and considerations for addressing the needs of working families with young children.