Dear Sheldon, As you conclude your term as our beloved Board Chair, we want you to know how grateful we are for you. Your pivotal role as our Board Chair has created an invaluable impact at The Miami Foundation that can and will last a lifetime. We appreciate you not only fearlessly leading a group of strategic thought partners, but … Read More
2024 in Review: Disaster Resilience
The Origin Story With the horrific collapse of Surfside’s Champlain Towers South building in 2021, The Miami Foundation saw first-hand how challenging disaster recovery efforts can be. It was difficult to nimbly mobilize funds and resources when our community needed them the most; as we found, the disbursement timeline for relief aid can often be far too delayed to make a difference. … Read More
2024 at The Miami Foundation: A Year in Review
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 ... Read More
2024 in Review: Miami Connected
The Origin Story Miami Connected launched in 2021 as a bold response to a glaring issue exacerbated by the pandemic: the digital divide. With education and everyday life shifting online, thousands of families in Miami-Dade County were left disconnected from opportunities. Initial data estimated 100,000 students in Miami-Dade were without high quality internet, exposing the need to act fast so … Read More
2024 in Review: Vote Miami
The Origin Story In 2020, The Miami Foundation launched Vote Miami (formerly known as Our Miami: The People’s Forums) to combat the limitations on access to information and political engagement opportunities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond the pandemic, the Foundation recognizes that communities across Miami have unequal access to the opportunities and information that inspire civic engagement, specifically voting, … Read More
2024 in Review: Miami Open for Business
Reflections from project lead Brittany Morgan, Senior Director of Economic Resilience
Building home away from home – redefining civic engagement
Priya Kekre serves as the first-ever Director of Community Impact for The Miami Foundation. In this role, Priya leads the Foundation’s efforts to become a data-driven organization and is constructing an online community impact hub. In the fall of 2021, we took a gamble as a family: as first-time parents of a ten-month-old, we moved to Miami from Toronto, Canada … Read More
Press Forward in Year 1: taking bold action and bravely leading the way
Lindsey Linzer serves as the Vice President of Community Investments at The Miami Foundation. In this role, she partners with private and family foundations, nonprofit organizations, and community members to advance social change. Lindsey helps donors turn their philanthropic visions into reality by designing and implementing innovative donor collaboratives and grantmaking initiatives. This month, Rebecca Fishman Lipsey and I spent … Read More
The climate is changing – Can we change how we insure against disasters?
As South Florida’s potential to pioneer climate resiliency comes into focus, we at The Miami Foundation are pursuing innovations in how the philanthropic sector prepares for and responds to local climate disasters. The 2024 disaster season marks the first time that the Foundation has invested in a parametric insurance policy, making us one of the nation’s first philanthropic institutions to … Read More
Steering toward Sustainability
Janell Kaplan is The Miami Foundation’s outgoing Vice President of Philanthropy. She joined our team as an intern in 2010 and has been a pillar of The Foundation ever since. In her new role, Janell will continue her work supporting charitable giving and the philanthropic sector. In my fourteen years at the Foundation, I have grown from an intern to … Read More