The Miami Foundation made big, bold promises to the community in 2024. As we look back at all that was accomplished this year, what stands out most to us are those who stood beside us in this work: the coalitions cultivated not only in our organization’s spirit of togetherness, but in the recognition that we accomplish so much more when solutions are forged in partnership.
We opened 2024 with the launch of our annual scholarship program. In partnership with local families, corporate partners, and the College Assistance Program of Miami-Dade County, we awarded 883 student scholarships in 2024, totaling $2.2 million. These scholarships help ensure that high-achieving and high-need students have the financial support they need to cover their tuition and other related college costs.
In February, the Foundation and the community celebrated Black History Month at our 9th annual State of Black Philanthropy event. This year’s event served as the launch of our Saltwater Fellowship; this new Foundation initiative boldly invests in leaders who are moving the needle on the most pressing issues facing Greater Miami, with this inaugural fellowship focusing on leaders who are addressing the racial inequities we see in our community data. Ten leaders have embarked on a year-long fellowship and each received a two-year $100,000 unrestricted grant to propel their work. We also released the second edition of our State of Black Philanthropy report, exploring the nuanced intersection of opportunity and oppression that shapes Black entrepreneurship, Black birthing experiences, and Black-led nonprofits.
The Foundation’s move to a two-year Community Grants cycle permitted us additional time to venture out into the community to get to know our grant partners, see their work in action, invest in their professional development, and fortify relationships with nonprofits in Miami. Being out in the community also allowed the team to more deeply understand all the needs and opportunities across Miami and increase our investments in nonprofits beyond grantmaking; we supported nonprofits organizations’ abilities to strengthen and scale their respective missions by providing a variety of capacity-building programs designed to support their operational, programmatic, and financial success.
The Foundation also ramped up its effort to more meaningfully engage and activate our donors and advisors. In 2024, we successfully launched our Activated Professionals Network to encourage legal and financial advisors in our community to get to know the Foundation and get hands-on engagement out in community. We hosted our first-ever Living Legends event to honor some of our most treasured donor partners who are making a difference in the community. We also continued to convene funders from the biggest foundations in South Florida for joint community site visits and to encourage collaboration.
This year, in an effort to inspire more Miamians to get involved in building the community they want to live in, we began producing knowledge resources to help the community better understand key issues facing Greater Miami. We published our second Give Miami Day report to share what we learned from the 96,000 donations received on Give Miami Day in 2023.
Our two Issue Area Spotlights on Environment & Climate Resilience and Civic Engagement provide data on the realities of these issues in our community and offer guidance on how Miamians can take action toward solutions. Additionally, we conducted a study that mapped the nonprofit programs serving Miami’s K–12 population and used it produce an Education Landscape Report. Finally, we developed a data snapshot from our artlook® Map that explores wins and opportunities for arts access within Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
2024 also marked a reimagining of the Foundation’s support of youth arts education in our community. We expanded and rebranded Music Access Miami to Arts Access Miami to be more inclusive of all the ways we can provide arts access to youth. This year, we achieved 100% participation from schools to help inform our artlook Map, allowing arts partners and funders alike to have a complete picture of the arts education ecosystem in Miami-Dade County. In the program’s fourth grant cycle, we distributed $240,000 to 12 art education organizations to increase their partnerships with Miami-Dade County Public Schools; grant partners used our artlook® map to identify communities and schools to partner with. We also recently completed the design of a survey for arts organization leaders that will help assess the developmental needs of arts organizations in Miami-Dade County. To ensure our work remains grounded in voices from the community, we created and began convening an Arts Access Miami Steering Committee. These leaders will help to inform and advise the Foundation and guide our strategic thinking on investments related to artlook® Miami map.
2024 also marked the closing out of Miami Open for Business, our small business initiative made possible by a $20 million grant from Wells Fargo. Through this initiative, we provided microgrants and low-interest loans to over 450 small business owners (and nonprofits) to help them build their assets. Most notably, we committed $6.8 million to support 14 commercial real estate purchases, housing 37 small businesses. In addition, we provided over 10,000 hours of technical assistance to over 1,000 businesses.
LGBTQ equity remains a top priority for The Miami Foundation; we make investments in the areas of highest need each year through our LGBTQ Equity Fund, led in partnership with the National LGBTQ Task Force and Our Fund. This year, we made $350,000 in awards to 12 local organizations working to support young adults aged 18-24 in need of safe and sustainable housing. We remain committed to bringing more donor partners to the table so we can deepen our investments in this space.
In July, we announced the Zero Drownings Miami-Dade Initiative in partnership with Miami-Dade County, a transformative water safety and drowning education program that provides year-round swim lessons. 725 preschool and kindergarten-aged children representing 11 different public elementary schools and nine Head Start centers have taken a lesson since they began in October. Moreover, the Foundation collaborated with the American Red Cross to develop the first-ever Haitian Creole online water safety course for parents and caregivers. This course will be used not only in Miami-Dade County, but throughout the United States.
In August, registered voters hit the polls for primary and county-wide elections in Miami-Dade. In pursuit of inspiring greater turnout, we hosted seven virtual candidate forums throughout July through our Vote Miami initiative in partnership with multiple nonprofit organizations to help voters get to know their candidates and feel more informed when getting to the ballot box. The forums covered the Board of County Commissioner races, as well as the contests for Sheriff, Tax Collector, Supervisor of Elections, and Property Appraiser. In all, the forums engaged 1,361 viewers. We supported an additional 15 in-person, non-partisan election forums and panels through a Vote Miami microgrant program. Beyond the forums, we also revamped our online voter education platform, which was accessed by more than 9,500 people.
September marked the one-year milestone for Press Forward, a national initiative housed at The Miami Foundation that is dedicated to increasing access to trusted local news and information. In just one year, Press Forward has awarded 200 grants of $100,000 each to local news outlets nationwide, convened funders for three different summits, and assembled a world-class leadership team of six full-time staff from around the country. Press Forward is the largest initiative the Foundation has ever housed, bringing in $70 million in revenue in its first year alone.
In October, we hosted a Leadership Summit to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Miami Fellows, a treasured leadership program that invests in the future of leadership for our community. 90 Fellows representing all 15 classes came together at loanDepot park, home of the Miami Marlins for an epic day of learning, sharing, and reflecting on the next chapter of leadership that can benefit Greater Miami. The day concluded with over 400 Miamians from over 20 leadership programs coming together to honor Annie Lord, Executive Director of Miami Homes for All as our 10th Ruth Shack Leadership Award recipient.
Finally, this November saw the Foundation host the 13th annual Give Miami Day. Early giving kicked off a day sooner, the Foundation debuted a giving assembly that took place in five different elementary schools across Miami-Dade, and we took our day-of support for nonprofits countywide by hosting multiple Mission Control sites. We’re still celebrating the day’s tremendous success, which saw Miami give more generously than ever before. More than 51,000 households collectively donated $39.5 million, marking a 13% increase in the number of donors from last year and 16% increase in dollars raised. Generosity is undoubtedly on the rise in Miami: the number of households that participate in Give Miami Day has more than doubled in the past five years.
Watching Greater Miami come together on Give Miami Day was just the most recent reminder that the whole of our community is greater than the sum of its parts. As we reflect back on 2024 and recognize the power of collective impact, we hope you’ll join us in thinking about what we can build together in 2025.
