In Miami, we uplift each other.
Dear Miami,
I am guilty of being an incurable optimist, and I will always believe that we are at our best when we uplift one another. It’s the everyday act of choosing one another that makes Miami the extraordinary place I love, a place where I can wear my accent on my sleeve and tell you within a minute that I am from Caguas, Puerto Rico.
One of the greatest gifts of my role at The Miami Foundation is being a part of the many ways we show up: supporting philanthropists to find new ways to give, strengthening nonprofits through grants and capacity support, volunteering, and sharing with you what we learn from changemakers.
Watching Amazon invest $1 million last month in 13 organizations serving my beloved South Dade was a full circle moment. Amazon stepped forward after our data spotlighted opportunities to uplift the region. And thanks to the 279+ nonprofits that take care of South Dade, this community kid got to loudly champion the people who first invested in her. That’s why the work is personal, why it is my mission to normalize love for strangers, to speak good behind your back, and to show up to the little moments that make the big ones happen.
Stay with me here for a few minutes this month to see what the Foundation and our partners did out of love for Miami, then find your own way to uplift someone. Meet me at the Give Miami 5K and Festival to support a mission you believe in and show the nation that, down here, we do not play about our own. Lift up a Hispanic leader or Hispanic-serving organization as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. Volunteer or check in on a neighbor. Every act matters.
Thank you for being part of making Greater Miami a place where all of us can thrive. I will see you all out in the community.
Los quiero,
Julissa Rivera
Senior Community Engagement Manager
At The Foundation
We Run Toward Give Miami Day
Give Miami Day has become the largest single-city giving day in the nation. Last year, 60,000+ donors raised over $40 million for 1,000+ local nonprofits. Join us to make this year even louder and more unifying. You can now register for the Give Miami 5K + Festival on Sunday, November 15, at Maurice Ferré Park. There will be thousands of supporters running, walking, skipping and dancing for the causes they love.
100% of every race registration fee goes straight to the nonprofit or issue area of your choice. Whether you are a returning champion or first-timer, the time to build your Give Miami Day campaign, rally your people, and lace up is now. Local businesses and corporate teams: don’t miss out on the chance to gather your coworkers and make an impact together! Greater Miami’s biggest day of giving is coming, and it needs everyone!
Our Nonprofits Prepare for Give Miami Day
Miami’s nonprofits are the heart of Give Miami Day, and we want to make sure they are “SET” for one of the biggest giving days of the year. This month, we hosted two in-person SET Summits in Wynwood and Homestead. Over 300 nonprofit leaders guided by eight industry experts took part in a full-day program covering fundraising, board engagement, media pitching, and marketing tools to ensure nonprofits can launch their most powerful Give Miami Day campaign yet. You can find recordings of Summit sessions here.
A huge “thank you” to Radical Partners for collaborating on this event, to the LAB Miami and Claridad (our photography partner!) and to Miami Dade College Homestead Campus for generously hosting and providing our nonprofit community with a space to connect.
Couldn’t join us, or are you ready to dive deeper? Check out our Resource Hub and Knowledge Center for a checklist, toolkits and workshop recordings. Remember, nonprofit registration to join Give Miami Day closes October 16!
Give Miami Day Nonprofit Spotlight: Tinkerbell’s Kids
These are the types of organizations that your Give Miami Day donations support.
Tinkerbell’s Kids has been a guiding light to over 1,100 children with incarcerated parents. Their “Five Circles of Support Program” brings together mentorship, preparation, support, and resources for children and caregivers. Tinkerbell’s Kids has provided educational enrichment and social support to over 500 children for at least five years. In partnership with the Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, their Jail Visitation Program maintains long-term familial stability in its mission to help at-risk children and their families. Their work is a reminder that every child deserves a support system that stays with them, no matter the circumstances.
$1M+ Invested in South Florida Newsrooms
Local newsrooms in our community and across the country are under strain – as we saw with this month’s mass layoffs at the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.
That’s why more than 100 people gathered at the Freedom Tower, once home to Miami’s first newspaper, to support and celebrate local news.
Press Forward South Florida announced $760,000 in grants to more than a dozen newsrooms and partnerships serving Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, thanks to the support of a coalition of community foundations and partners. The Newsroom Collaboration and Strength grants support media partnerships that extend reach and share resources, alongside business-side investments that help news outlets plan for the long term. Meet all the grantees here.
The Herald layoffs called for an even more rapid response. Along with The Miami Foundation, champions for local media raised nearly $300,000 in funding to protect local reporting in the City of Miami and Broward County and Spanish-language coverage lost in cuts. More is needed – join us here.
“South Florida takes freedom really seriously because we are a region that is built on people who fled here, often from places where news was censored or co-opted,” said our President and CEO Rebecca Fishman Lipsey. “We understand that part of the building blocks for a free society is access to high quality, local news.”
The grants were shaped by the coalition’s new study, South Florida Local News: Community Needs and Opportunities, which found an ecosystem that is vibrant but fragmented, and where the language you speak and the neighborhood in which you live can determine your access to trusted information. Read the Executive Report or dive deeper.
Press Forward South Florida is an initiative fueled by the Community Foundation of Broward, Coral Gables Community Foundation, Key Biscayne Community Foundation, The Miami Foundation, and the Ocean Reef Community Foundation. It is made possible with support from Knight Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Press Forward and other local donors.
The Art of Giving:
A Legacy of Impact by The Jorge M. Pérez Family
Over 11 years after establishing The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation at The Miami Foundation, the Pérez Family has captured the story of what’s possible when private resources, community organizations, and individuals come together with vision, drive, and generosity.
The Pérez Family Foundation’s new impact report “The Art of Giving: A Legacy of Impact by The Jorge M. Pérez Family,” celebrates the artists, scholars, institutions, community members, and leaders who the Foundation has had the honor of supporting.
The belief that “giving is better than receiving” grounds the Pérez family’s life’s work – a philanthropic legacy that has grown into more than $350 million in giving, 1,100+ grants made, and $280 million dedicated to arts and culture, alongside investments in education, health and well-being, the environment, and economic development. The Pérez family believes that caring about your community and investing in its future is one of the greatest legacies anyone can pursue, and these impacts are a reminder of what sustained generosity can build for Miami.
The Jorge M. Pérez Family Foundation is a charitable fund housed at The Miami Foundation. To learn more about opportunities to create your own legacy, please contact us at philanthropy@miamifoundation.org.
Miami Fellows Go to School on Miami’s Hardest Questions
Few systems shape Miami’s future as directly as its schools. During their August Education Lab, Miami Fellows Class XII stepped inside Miami-Dade’s education ecosystem to examine not only how decisions are made, but the values that shape them. Across conversations with the superintendent, elected leaders, educators, providers and community organizers, Fellows navigated competing perspectives and explored how power moves from policy to practice. They left more able to make the hard decisions Miami will need them to navigate: to sit with nuance, look beyond the headline for the fuller picture, and ask better questions before reaching for solutions. Most importantly, Fellows considered the responsibility behind every hard decision.
Now in its twelfth class, the Miami Fellows is The Miami Foundation’s civic leadership program that grounds emerging leaders in the systems shaping Greater Miami and in the relationships that make change possible. Get to know Class XII here.
Our Leaders, Recognized
Uplift moves in every direction. This month, our President and CEO Rebecca Fishman Lipsey was named a Titan 100, among Miami’s top 100 CEOs and C-level executives. She also won the Women Building Miami Award at CAA’s 11th Annual Invest: Miami Leadership Summit. Our Chief Operating Officer Nikisha Williams was a finalist in the nonprofit category of the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce’s Badass Women of the Year awards. Please join us in celebrating them!
Philanthropic Partner Spotlight: McDermott Will & Schulte
Philanthropy takes many forms, and we see the countless ways people and companies across our community choose to give back. Since summer 2025, The Miami Foundation has partnered with the law firm McDermott Will & Schulte to bring pro bono legal counsel to 17 Miami nonprofits, resulting in 398 hours of service valued at more than $500,000. They work across LGBTQ+ advocacy, youth development, creative arts, immigrant support and public health, bringing questions on intellectual property, fundraising law, tax compliance and how to read new Executive Orders.
Legal expertise is among the supports nonprofits told us they want most and often struggle to afford, which is why shared services, or the fractional expertise that organizations access together, keep surfacing in what we hear from the field. McDermott’s attorneys are meeting that need directly, at no cost.
As we get closer to Give Miami Day, we know that generosity and community building goes beyond dollars given. We’re grateful to McDermott for showing up for Miami’s nonprofits, and for the example that all of us can step up to offer exactly what our community needs.
If you work at a law firm or are a lawyer interested in offering pro bono support to nonprofits in our community, please reach out to our Community Engagement Manager Rob Collins.
“Nonprofits are navigating a great deal right now, and the legal questions they face have become increasingly complex. These organizations are doing meaningful work across Miami, and they should not have to choose between advancing their missions and addressing the legal issues that come with running an organization. By helping nonprofits better understand the legal landscape, we can give them the clarity and confidence to focus on what matters most: serving their communities.”
– Jayme Cassidy,
Pro Bono Transactions Counsel, McDermott Will & Schulte
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