PINELLAS CARES

About The Pinellas Cares Nonprofit Partnership Fund
Pinellas Community Foundation led the county’s nonprofit granting efforts in support of organizations helping residents most affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19).
The Pinellas CARES Nonprofit Partnership Fund addressed the needs of our most vulnerable residents whose health and well-being were impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The fund provided over $18 million to augment nonprofit response efforts providing critical care of community residents.
Read the evaluation report to learn more about the impact of this effort.
Important Notice: The fund is closed and no longer accepting applications.
Guiding Principles
We will exhibit transparency with all transactions from this fund while providing an opportunity for the community to observe and participate in our collective efforts.
We will share accountability with our grantees for the outcomes of this project and provide an opportunity to learn from both success and failure.
We will act with urgency to ensure funds are deployed to organizations in a responsible yet rapid fashion to meet critical needs without unnecessary delay.
We will ensure accessibility to nonprofits of a variety of sizes and abilities to ensure funds reach deeply into the community to provide the necessary support.
We will apply a lens of equity to deliberations and decisions to ensure the needs of our most vulnerable community members are addressed
Funding Priorities
This fund will focus on organizations that offer direct services provided in the following areas:
- Providing greater access to food to address the sudden increase in food-insecure households.
- Addressing the behavioral health needs of the community to promote good mental health, crisis intervention, and resiliency in light of increased isolation and stress.
- Supporting eviction mitigation through legal aid for residents who require assistance to understand and protect their rights.
Programming must be focused on human services, not animal welfare.
More specific examples of programming that fits within these funding priorities can be found in the FAQs section below.
Population Priorities
- Communities of color
- Children and the elderly
- People experiencing homelessness
- Persons employed in high-risk pandemic response jobs (e.g. front-line workers, nurses, medical housekeeping staff, nonprofit employees, law enforcement, first responders etc.)
- Residents with language barriers
- Persons with disabilities
- Low-income families
Eligibility Criteria
- Nonprofit organization as defined in IRS Code Section 501(c)(3), having such designation for AT LEAST one year at the time of application
- Identified needs are Coronavirus/COVID-19-related
- Demonstrated ability to offer expanded services addressing one of the fund’s priorities
- Known commitment to addressing the needs of identified priority populations
- Trusted ability to accomplish organizational mission
- Proven performance on prior commitments to the community
- Exhibits a defined plan to safely deliver services (e.g. ensuring social distance)
- Assurance that funds granted will not supplant existing program funding sources, but will expand capacity or sustain already expanded programming
- Expected ability to expend funds by December 30, 2020
