Hannah Edwards of the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the organization.
As we look back on 2025, a number of nonprofits have had some financial struggles.
Edward’s said, “There has been a lot of need in the community. One thing that we do as the Community Foundation is support the nonprofits in the Keys and we do that through several ways. One of the main ways we do that is through our community grants program. It’s called the In Paradise for Good community grants, and this year, we broke a bunch of records with our grants program. We granted out in November from Key West through Key Largo, almost $900,000 and that’s between what we grant from our future funds, which we have for the Keys, and some of our donor advised fund holders will also contribute to that. So that’s how we’re able to get that number so big. So we just had another donor advised fund holder in the Middle Keys jump into that grant program as well, with another $137,000 in grants for the Middle Keys. So that brings our total for 2025 for this community grants program over a million dollars. So we’re pretty excited about that. It was a record breaker for sure. It’s really thanks to our donor advised fund holders. They really stepped up. They saw the need in the community. When we get our grant applications from the nonprofits, we share them with them as well so that they can contribute to any of the programs that appeal to them. And they really stepped up this year as well. So that’s how we were able to break the record.”
Without the Community Foundation filling those gaps, a lot of these organizations would not be able to survive.
Edwards said, “We do our best to strengthen them as we can. We have our Florida Keys Future Fund is the main one that powers these grants. But we also have really hyper local, regional funds for the Lower Keys, the Middle Keys and the Upper Keys. We don’t have one for Key West specifically because Key West traditionally got more than the rest in grants anyway, because there are so many nonprofits based in Key West. But people living in those regions of the Lower Keys and Middle Keys and the Upper Keys can also contribute specifically for that region to that future fund, and we have regional councils which oversee the distribution of those funds. So our Upper Keys Regional Council just saw a need in the upper keys for food. They saw more food insecurity than usual in the Upper Keys. So they have just granted out 15,000 to Upper Keys food pantries. And that’s on top of the In Paradise for Good community grants that we just did. So they just gave 5,000 each to the SOS pantry at St Justin Martyr Catholic Church in Key Largo. They gave 5,000 to the food pantry at Burton Memorial United Methodist Church in Tavernier, and 5,000 to the First Baptist Islamorada Community Ministry food bank. So as they see the need, they are able to make localized grants as well.”
How do people get information on becoming involved?
Edwards said, “The website is a great place to start. Right now we are doing our annual appeal, which is, this is the only way we raise money for these grants, is through our annual end of year appeal. So right now we had a really generous family who is matching all of the donations that come in right now, through the end of the year, up to $120,000, so that’s pretty awesome. So if anybody wants to get their donation doubled, and it helps the entire Keys and 100% of what you donate to the Future Fund goes out in grants. None of that money has any administrative costs taken out of it. Whatever you donate to this annual appeal just goes right into the grant program. So this is a really great time to give back to the Keys. You can also give us a call if you want to donate something other than money, or if you want to do it another way than through the website. You can just give us a call. It’s 305-292-1502, or you can email me and we’ll help you with that. We do accept many types of gifts, I’ll say, real estate, stock, all sorts of types of securities, so if anybody wants to make a donation and have it doubled for the community, this is a great time to do it.”
You could also leave a legacy as well.
Edwards said, “We do have our legacy challenge, which is still happening through the end of the year, and so to take part in that, you just need to document a gift through the Community Foundation, to a nonprofit in the Keys, and we will make a grant right now to the nonprofit in the Keys of your choice in an amount that corresponds to the amount of your future gifts. So, for example, if you plan to leave 25,000 to the Community Foundation sometime in the future, and you show us that we are, say, the beneficiary for that amount from your IRA, or what have you, then we will grant $2,500 to whatever charity you would like in the Keys today. So that’s a really nice way to get some more money out there today too. We’ve had a lot of people taking advantage of that.”
It looks like 2026 could see some challenging times, as well.
Edwards said, “We’re so proud of our local nonprofits for working so hard and being so creative to do as much as they can for this community. They work really hard, and just hats off to everybody in the nonprofit community.”
For more information, click here: https://cffk.org