Hannah Edwards, Director of Philanthropy and Outreach for 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.
Community foundations are public charity organizations that serve a specific geographic area and typically hold charitable funds for donors and for local organizations.
Edwards said, “We invest those funds together to benefit the whole community. And while community foundations all have that basic structure, no two are alike because they all serve very specific areas. So we serve the Keys, which we all know is a geographically challenging area. So our roles here are going to be different from, say, the Miami Foundation. So for us here in the Keys, we really focus on a few main roles. One is that we are ready to act in times of disaster. We want to be able to get money where it needs to go quickly in case of any type of disaster, whether that’s a storm or a COVID type situation, where we’re ready to go, we have a fund set up. We have the resources ready. We have all the infrastructure in place. In the past, during the past three major hurricanes, we raised and distributed over three and a half million dollars to the community. So that is one main role that we take seriously, in fact, I’m going up to Marathon today. United Way is doing a communication in crisis workshop. So I’m going to be there today.”
The Community Foundation also supports and strengthens local nonprofits.
Edwards said, “We do this through a variety of programming and through a community grants program. So our nonprofit programming, which we call the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, is kind of the umbrella that that all falls under. And we have our Leadership Success Academy, which is an annual training program for nonprofit board members and senior staff members, so CEOs, directors, that type of thing, and that will be in the fall this year. We also have in September, in conjunction with the United Way of Collier and the Keys and the Ocean Reef Community Foundation, we do a Florida Keys nonprofit day once a year that is held in Marathon, and it is a day of training and networking for all the nonprofit professionals in the Keys, it’s always a great day. We pick speakers that have great information that’s relevant to what situations we’re all dealing with. So for instance, last year, talked about finding new streams of revenue for nonprofits, which, of course, was extremely relevant and great information. So that will be in September again. We also have the morning marketing Exchange, which is a smaller, more casual initiative. It’s facilitated by myself and the Ocean Reef Community Foundation, and it is a peer led forum that we have once a month. It’s the third Wednesday morning of the month, and we exchange practical tips on marketing and AI use and that type of thing for local nonprofits. So sometimes we will choose a local nonprofit to lead the session if, for instance, one of our organizations is particularly excellent at something, we’ll ask them to present on that. And then sometimes we bring people in who are subject matter experts from other places to present to us. So, for instance, this last week, we had somebody from Pride Philanthropy, and she talked about nonprofit events, are they worth it? How to make them worth it, how to know if your events are worth it, which is something that is very important to all of us, because a lot of our board members say events, events, events and events are a lot of work. So we’re like, wait a second, yes, events are great, but what is the real return on investment for this event? So that was a great session.”
This month the TDC will talk about AI.
Edwards said, “Chad’s nickname is Chad GPT. He is really good at AI. So he’s going to talk about how he’s using Claude right now. And I just, whenever I talk to him, I just ask him a million questions, because he’s very smart. So then additionally, we have our annual unsung heroes celebration, celebrating the Keys volunteers. Every nonprofit nominates a volunteer that has been extremely helpful during the past year. And we honor the people that don’t expect to be honored. And it’s always a wonderful luncheon that just leaves you feeling really good, because there are so many wonderful people in the Keys doing so much for our community and not expecting a thank you. So it’s nice to be able to give them that. And then, of course, we have our annual community grants program, and that is where we are able to do a competitive grant program for all the nonprofits in the Keys. They can apply for grant funding for their projects. We raise money for that once a year, at the end of the year, that’s the only time we ever fundraise, because we don’t want to compete with our nonprofit partners. And then we also ask our fund holders if they want to participate in the community grants. So that has really allowed us to increase what we’re able to grant out year over year. This past year, in 2025 we granted out over a million dollars for the first time, and that was really thanks to our very generous donor advised fund holders. So we’re so grateful to them for taking part in this community grants process.”
Connecting donors is another role of the Community Foundation.
Edwards said they “support our donors and to connect donors, to connect generous people with causes that they care about and projects that they might not even know about. There are a lot of needs in this community that people don’t even realize about. I was just talking to one of our board members, and I was interviewing her for our annual report, and I said, what was a moment that really stayed with you about your service on the board with the Community Foundation? And she said it was one meeting that we had, and I’ve heard this from other board members too. They were meeting during COVID right when the school shut down, and during their board meeting, somebody said, well, what can we do? Because the children that rely on school lunches are not going to eat during COVID when they’re at home. And people on the board said, what do you mean they’re not going to eat? And they said, well, they rely on school lunch, and a lot of them, often bring food home to their families through the schools, and without the schools being open, they’re not going to eat. And she said that so many people did not realize how many children in our community rely on getting food through the schools, and they were able to act quickly and do something about it. But that’s something that we do is we are able to tell people this is a need and they do care. Everybody wants kids to eat in this community. So it’s connecting the people that care with those needs that they care about.”
The Community Foundation is celebrating 30 years of service this year.
Edwards said, “We were founded in 1996 by a group of caring citizens and community leaders. It’s a big group, and I know you’ve all heard of a lot of the names, and we’ve heard a lot of different stories about how the idea came about, but it perhaps came about while people were sitting in a swimming pool, having a discussion that may or may not be true. We don’t know. That’s a legend, but basically, they talked to professionals in the community foundation field, and they all said, don’t do it. You don’t have the geographic area, you don’t have the resources. You’re not going to be able to do it down there. You might as well just join the Miami Foundation. And they said, no, we’re going to give it a try and here we are today. So it took a while, and it takes a while for these things to happen, because you have to educate the community about what the foundation is and does, and then people have to get involved and make investments, because it’s really making an investment in the community for the long term. So over the years, it grew gradually, and then probably in about 2018 it really started to grow more rapidly, and that’s where we’re seeing within the past, from 2018 or so to 2025 we went from granting out in our community grants program less than $100,000 to branding out over a million dollars. So you really see that rapid growth during that time, and that’s really thanks to our committed board members and our committed leaders. So that’s where we are today, and it’s just exciting. It’s so exciting to see what has happened over the last 30 years, and that’s what we’re going to be celebrating on May 6, and it is open to the public. It’s at 6:30pm in the lobby of the Tennessee Williams Theater in Key West. We are going to have a private reception for the current and past trustees and founders prior to the event, because we do want to thank them for everything they’ve done for the community over the past 30 years. And then we will open it to the public at 6:30. We’re going to have a performance by the Keys Community School of the Arts choir. Then we will be talking about where we are today and where we’ve come from, and the impact that everybody is having together on this community. So it should be a really fun event. I hope, if anybody is interested in just finding out more and seeing what we do and joining us, please come. It’s low pressure, short program, cake, champagne, hors d’oeuvres. It’s going to be a really nice evening.”
The Green Parrot Charity Bingo is coming up on Monday.
Edwards said, “We’re not on the regular schedule, but another nonprofit dropped out, and we were happy to take their spot. So please come out, play some bingo, do some jello shots. It’s always a fun evening. We’ve got some good prizes and gift certificates, some bottles of champagne, bottles of rum, gift certificates to your favorite local watering holes and restaurants. So I hope to see you all there, and it’s at seven o’clock at Green Parrot.”
For more information, click here: https://cffk.org/