Nine organizations that serve the Newtown community were recently awarded grants for disaster recovery and resilience, health and wellness, youth education, senior support and more.

The Newtown Business Council, which works to support and empower local businesses in Sarasota’s historically Black community of Newtown, recently awarded $100,000 in grants to nine nonprofit organizations. The funding will be used to help residents recover from and become more resilient to natural disasters, provide youth with after-school enrichment opportunities, assist seniors in fortifying their disaster resilience and more.

Funding for the grants came from the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, which collaborated with the Business Council through a process known as participatory grantmaking. Participatory grantmaking is a philanthropic strategy in which local communities analyze community needs and determine where to best allocate charitable dollars in partnership with a funding organization. During the Newtown Business Council’s recent grantmaking process, the Community Foundation provided platforms for discussion and decision-making and technical support, while the council oversaw all decisions related to the grant application process and worked with community members to decide on which programs to support.

“Participatory grantmaking meant something deeply personal to me because it demonstrated what can happen when a community’s voice is not simply heard, but trusted,” says Mary Butler, the president and CEO of the Newtown Business Council. “This process was about more than distributing grant dollars. It was an opportunity for people who know and care about Newtown to help determine how philanthropic resources can respond to the needs of Newtown. Community members brought their lived experience, professional knowledge, different perspectives and, most importantly, their commitment to the people who call Newtown home.”

“When people who know their community best are the ones making decisions, the impact goes further and the relationships grow stronger," says Kirsten Russell, vice president of community impact at the Community Foundation. "Our partnership with the Newtown Business Council shows what that looks like in practice, and it's a model for how we want to serve our community going forward. We're grateful for the trust the council placed in us throughout this process."

The nine mission-driven organizations selected by the Newtown Business Council grantmaking committee include:

• Multicultural Health Institute: To support Safe Together: Community Health Navigator Training for Hurricane Recovery and Resilience, which provides Newtown residents with hands-on instruction in disaster recovery, caregiver support, chronic disease management and more.
• Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition: To support the Leaders of the Future Enrichment Program, an after-school program for youth ages 5-14 that provides instruction in literacy, technology, arts, music, gardening, life skills, African American history, social and emotional development and more.
• Children First: To support Building Resilience Through Conscious Discipline, a research-based, trauma-informed program that gives teachers and caregivers practical strategies to create safe, predictable and nurturing environments where children can heal and thrive.
• Making an Impact: To support the creation of a Newtown-specific disaster recovery resource guide that will outline FEMA and Small Business Administration resources and information about housing repairs, legal assistance, food programs, services for seniors and more.
• J5 Experience: To support Rooted & Rising, a trauma-informed wellness program that helps families recovering from recent hurricanes by strengthening their communication skills, emotional regulation, healthy coping, budgeting, emergency savings planning, household preparedness, family goal setting and more.
• Business and Professional Women of North Sarasota: To support a disaster resilience education program for seniors that will include monthly workshops, hands-on activities and community partnerships.
• SRQ Strong: To support education for families on how to recover from and prepare before a storm, protect important records, create emergency plans, use disaster recovery resources and navigate recovery apps, and also help residents replace essential documents like state identification cards, birth certificates and more.
• Sarasota Prostate Initiative: To support the Newtown Men's Health Center, which provides support for men with prostate conditions and other health needs in the form of free blood tests, opportunities for discussion and learning, and more.
• Sarasota Housing Funding Corporation: To support the Newtown Community Fridge, an emergency source of nutritious food for families who lose power and the ability to refrigerate food in the aftermath of disasters.

The participatory grantmaking process began with a series of grassroots community engagement events that asked Newtown residents to share their thoughts on their community’s greatest needs and how nonprofits and funders should address them. While disaster recovery and resilience remained central to the initiative, the community-led grantmaking process also highlighted other pressing needs in Newtown, including healthcare, youth enrichment and family stability. The Community Foundation was able to draw upon additional funding sources to support selected recommendations addressing these broader community priorities.

Funding for several of the Newtown grants was made possible by the foundation’s Suncoast Disaster Recovery Fund, which anchors the foundation’s environmental resilience and recovery work. Other funding sources included the Leslie and Margaret Weller Fund, the James Franklin Warnell & Dorothy J. Warnell Fund and the Evelyn R. Talbert Unrestricted Fund.

“Communities have often been asked what they need. Participatory grantmaking goes one step further by asking communities to help decide how resources intended to serve them are invested,” says Butler. “This process connected us with organizations that are already working in and alongside Newtown, and these relationships will not end when the grant checks are distributed. Together, we hope to create a stronger network of people and organizations committed to Newtown's long-term resilience and thriving. When we trust community knowledge, share decision-making and connect resources with lived experience, we do more than fund programs—we strengthen community.”