St. Petersburg ARPA

Pinellas Community Foundation, in collaboration with the City of St. Petersburg, launched an initiative in 2023 to support both community mental health and the infrastructure of nonprofits.

This project is supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP2658 awarded to the City of St. Petersburg by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. This effort utilizes funds provided by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

Accountability – view documents related to selection of Lead Agency and SSO

The following principles were developed for and refined by the Pinellas CARES Nonprofit Partnership Fund experience, also led by Pinellas Community Foundation. They informed the entire ARPA process, from design to implementation and closeout.

PCF will exhibit transparency with all transactions from this fund while providing an opportunity for the community to observe and participate in our collective efforts.

PCF will share accountability with our grantees for the outcomes of this project and provide an opportunity to learn from both success and failure.

PCF will act with urgency to ensure funds are deployed to organizations in a responsible yet rapid fashion to meet critical needs without unnecessary delay.

PCF 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.

PCF will apply a lens of equity to deliberations and decisions to ensure the needs of our most vulnerable community members are addressed.

COVID-19 increased financial and social stress on our community and led to an increased need for mental health support. Neighborhood-based social services provided in a comfortable, trusted environment will help address these concerns in the St. Petersburg community. In addition, the local nonprofit community has repeatedly expressed the need to increase their administrative capacity in order to better deliver their services.

This initiative has two parts: 1) Community Support Hubs (“Hubs”) to address the need for mental healthcare and other services in St. Pete neighborhoods, and 2) a Shared Services Organization (“SSO”), which supports small nonprofits with administrative and other needs.

1. The Hubs uses a partnership model to deliver licensed care from therapists, neighborhood outreach, and resource navigation/case management to residents of St. Petersburg. Gulf Coast JFCS and PERC (People Empowering & Restoring Communities) are the partner organizations administering the Hubs program.
2. Hypatia Collaborative is the entity selected to administer the Shared Services Organization program. Hypatia has been providing administrative support, evaluation and research services, and other assistance as needed to help build the capacity the St. Petersburg nonprofit community.

All providers were carefully selected using a strong due diligence process, followed by a public application and review process. For more information, please reach out to the PCF Grants team at gr****@********cf.org. There are no additional funding opportunities available with this project.

Each program will produce annual reports, which will be shared here and to City elected officials and administrative staff as they become available.