Jennifer McComb, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5Fm this morning to talk about helping those most in need.
The Community Foundation of the Florida Keys has been all about giving back for many years.
McComb said, “Our mission is to connect people, resources and needs. We just finished up our best year ever in 2023, gave out over $2 million. We just had a really nice wrap up of the year with a lot of donors coming in at the end and helping out our homeless shelters and animals and education. It’s just a great job.”
The morning marketing exchange will begin tomorrow.
McComb said, “Last September, we had our second annual Florida Keys Nonprofit Day, and we had over 100 people gather in Marathon and our headlines the speaker talked about AI and how you can use artificial intelligence to make your nonprofits more efficient. What came out of that is a group of nonprofit professionals are meeting I believe it’s monthly and it’s tomorrow at 8:30am. If anyone’s interested in jumping on the Zoom call with them, I understand it’s really a lively conversation. My colleague, Kevin, who does most of the marketing for the Community Foundation participates in it. They just chat about what they’ve tried with AI and other marketing techniques and what worked for them and what didn’t to share information so that every nonprofit isn’t trying to invent the wheel. They can learn from each other.”
The Leadership Success Academy is coming up, too.
McComb said, “It’s a Community Foundation’s I’d say most important training of the year. We have several trainings, but this is our signature one. This will be our 17th annual if you can believe that we’ve been doing this board member training since 2008. The price hasn’t even gone up that much. It’s $149 for two days and includes, two full days of speakers and you’ll learn about strategic planning, finance, fundraising, all that fun stuff that goes along with being a board member for a nonprofit. For the very first time ever, we’re going to be holding it in Islamorada, first time since 2008, at the Islanda Resort. The dates are March 26 through 27th. Anyone who’s interested whether you’re a board member now or you’re thinking about board service, you can register at the website. We have some really cool speakers this year, several new ones. There’s been a recent merger as of January 1, the Florida Keys Outreach Coalition that helps homeless and also with other at-risk needs throughout the Keys has merged with AH Monroe. They’re going to chat with the group and tell the whole story of how this merger came about, because it’s really a big thing and other nonprofits can learn from it.”
The legacy challenge is a big part of growing the funds available for the grants given out by the Community Foundation.
McComb said, “We just started a legacy challenge a couple months ago. We’ve already documented over $30 million of future gifts to help the Florida Keys. So this is super, super exciting. It’s really big for us. Twenty-five individuals have participated and we’ve given out over $150,000 in grants. Now how this legacy challenge work is you don’t have to give anything at all today. You just have to pledge that when you pass away that the Florida Keys, nonprofits through the Community Foundation will be a beneficiary of your estate and it can be a tiny bit, but to participate in the challenge, if you document at least $25,000, we’ll write a check right now for $2,500 to a nonprofit of your choice. If it’s over $1 million, we’ll give out $10,000. We’ll write the check right now. It’s really done some good for an example, Take Stock in Children. They had two different individuals pledge over a million and then one pledge $25,000. So they actually got a check for $22,500 in the last in the end of last year. So it can really help nonprofits raise money now and then also plan for the future.”
The Florida Keys Volunteer Center is an initiative of the Community Foundation.
McComb said, “The Community Foundation’s really proud of our Florida Keys Volunteer Center, that’s now over a year in business and going strong. We have a few hundred volunteers signed up on the site. We also have lots of nonprofit opportunities that are constantly changing. The website is volunteerkeys.com. We hope everyone will check it out. It’s totally funded and managed by the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys. I would just like to thank all of our donors that have kept us going. We’re really proud of all the things that we’ve accomplished and it couldn’t be without the donors to the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys.”
For more information, click here: https://cffk.org/