More than $1.8 million has gone to small nonprofits across Tampa Bay over the past eight years through a Pinellas Community Foundation program that skips the traditional grant playbook, the foundation announced Wednesday, July 22.

The Social Opportunity Works Fund, known as the SOW Fund, has backed more than 60 organizations working in under-resourced neighborhoods since 2018, including groups serving ZIP code 33755 in Clearwater's North Greenwood area, just south of Dunedin. The fund provides multiyear unrestricted grants without requiring lengthy applications.

The Pinellas Community Foundation describes the model as a departure from traditional grantmaking. Instead of requiring nonprofits to prove themselves through paperwork and restricted spending, foundation staff get to know grantees directly and invite two-way feedback, according to a retrospective published Wednesday by Jacqueline Roche, the foundation's marketing and communications manager.

The Willa Carson Health and Wellness Center at 1108 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. in Clearwater, a free clinic that the foundation says has provided more than 50,000 medical visits to uninsured Pinellas County residents since 2005, used a $12,500 SOW grant to run "Lunch and Learn" sessions helping seniors manage chronic health conditions. A separate SOW award funded the hiring of an executive director.

NOMADstudio, a mobile art nonprofit founded in 2013 by artist Carrie Boucher, received SOW funding for multiyear staffing. Its Art Bus brings monthly pop-up art sessions to 500 to 600 children in the custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families.

"The PCF SOW grant allowed us to bring Kinsey on full time," Boucher said in a prior PCF grant announcement. "Prior to the grant, we knew how valuable she was, but due to limited resources, we had to ration her hours."

More grantees serving youth and families

Other grantees include Cloud Nine Outdoors, which has taken nearly 100 youth and parents on half-day fishing trips from John's Pass since 2017, and AEDI Foundation's Super Sprockets STEM Saturdays, where more than 100 children have built computers and flown drones. Shihan School of Survival's Youth on Track program trains Pinellas County students in martial arts as a counterweight to youth violence and bullying.

Beyond direct grants, the fund offers help with marketing, program design, board development and financial accountability.

Nationally, 88% of nonprofits operate on less than $500,000 a year, according to National Council of Nonprofits data cited by the foundation. The SOW Fund targets organizations in that bracket.

Information about the fund is available at pinellascf.org/sowfund. No upcoming grant cycle or application deadline has been announced.