The Miami Foundation Accelerator Grants Ideas

The Parks Foundation of Miami-Dade is a 501 (c)3 organization which fosters the recreational, educational, environmental and cultural life of the Miami-Dade County community by encouraging and soliciting support for our County’s park system.

ARTSreach is the link between youth and success. Students will use the empowerment tools they have been afforded in the Out-of-School ARTSreach Project as an avenue to discover their cultural experiences and build their talents to be creative and expressive. Art enriches us as individuals and collectively as a society. Art not only provides a healthy outlet for expression but defines our community. Youth who engage in arts are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic success.

Arts and Culture - Part of the mission of Miami-Dade County Parks is to bring a wide variety of arts and cultural learning opportunities to the youth of our community. The arts are a powerful tool for engaging and supporting children as they move through adolescence. By giving voice to their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, youth become empowered to face their challenges and pursue their dreams. A well-designed executed art education serves as a critical component to a complete education.

Miami-Dade Parks created an innovative summer arts camp, G.E.M. Girls Empowerment and Mentoring Arts Program. The G.E.M. program received The National Association of Counties’ 2013 Achievement Award and was recognized by FIU for making the 2013 Internships Dean’s List. G.E.M.’s success serves as a model of what we have made possible and we will continue this legacy for ARTSreach, aimed towards all genders. ARTSreach will provide our youth with the tools to turn challenges into opportunities.

Founded in 2011, Antiheroes Project is one of a few non-profit organizations lead by artists with disabilities in Miami. Committed to create and present performing arts and year-round workshops, it fosters inclusion through arts and education.

Fluorescent Moon increases artistic and cultural opportunities in our community, and focuses on community awareness surrounding accessibility issues, while also bridging various cultural/ethnic communities in the Greater Miami. Around 10% or our population lives with disabilities. However, just a few of them have had access to the current vibrant cultural life of our community.

Fluorescent Moon enriches the art and cultural opportunities in our community, dignify and unify our diverse multicultural and multilingual population. Its high artistic quality and the workshops series are representative of the Miami’s growing art community and at the same time, visibility of these artists will allow the artistic voices and concerns of people with disabilities to influence the general cultural landscape and identity of our community.

During 2012, Antiheroes produced Mahagonny, praised by local critics as one of the most relevant Latino theater productions that year. In 2013, Antiheroes won the NEAR Residency to develop Nomadis, cited by local press as a breakthrough work within the Miami theater scene, exhibiting the highest accessibility level of any local Latino organization. The popularity of the Wanderers workshops series inspired the creation of two new series: Finders Keepers for children and the Secret Performances.

James Echols & Annette Peikert are co-founders of Life Is Art, Soul Of Miami, and PhilanthroFest, all deeply rooted in the community in Miami. Over the past six years, their organizations have produced over one-hundred events of all kinds and sizes.

A thriving creative arts community must include the local, living and working artists. These are the soul of any city. Our artists are ill-equipped to provide a living for themselves through their work, often falling victim to scams or financial errors and lacking good marketing and sales skills. There are scant opportunities for convenient, cost-effective business education. To our knowledge, we are the only organization offering these types of educational opportunities in Miami.

We are addressing the goal: Miami-Dade Supports a Thriving Creative Arts Community. We identified this issue six years ago, that flourishing creative arts community helps maintain a region’s brand identity and helps lure tourists. We state it that local artists speak to and about a community's soul. They tell our story.

We are addressing the goal: Miami-Dade Supports a Thriving Creative Arts Community. We identified this issue six years ago, that flourishing arts helps maintain a region’s brand identity and helps lure tourists. We state it that local artists speak to and about a community's soul. They tell our story.

Like many start-up entrepreneurs, artists do not have the knowledge or experience that running a successful business requires. We aim to fix that and create a thriving creative arts community

We are about connecting people, passion and philanthropy; enriching the cultural landscape of Miami; and empowering individuals with information & inspiration. We are a grass-roots civic engagement movement. We are PhilanthroFest!

Philanthrofest helps organizations connect both on-line and in real life. We recognize that by helping organizations thrive, they are able to better serve their mission.

By participating in the PhilanthroFest festival, non-profit participants are able to engage Miamians in their cause. Individuals are able to immerse in causes they care about and see how they can help fill unmet needs. Connecting people, passion and philanthropy is a huge step in increasing civic engagement.

By giving residents a platform to meet and greet with over 100 causes we are able to positively effect the Miami metro volunteer rate and push past the 15% mark while increasing the likelihood that they will invest dollars & time into the causes they connect with. Early participation in volunteer activities promotes lifelong civic involvement which is why we are bolstering our attractors for children and young adults. We are creating an engaged citizenry which will collectively elevate Miami.

Brand building and exposure for over 100 causes at each festival; Increased interactions and lead generation for non-profits; Unique fundraising and experiential education opportunities; Exposure for over two dozen visual & performing artists; Community reach via various media including print, TV, on-line radio & social media; Additionally, participating orgs enjoy positive collateral impacts such as growing volunteer & donor base, networking & creating new collaborations with other causes.

Ignition Fund supports brilliant ideas and innovation in
the fight against sex trafficking and violence against children. Ignition Accelerator use the techniques proven to develop effective programs in this field to support social ventures broadly.

Miami has a vibrant non-profit ecosystem with major players who draw national attention for innovation. There is remarkable coordination among these institutions for tackling long-established problems.

Our world is changing rapidly and those with the least are impacted disproportionately. But the established organizations are not best suited to address needs that arise quickly. Their large size, long funding cycles, and complex procedures make rapid change difficult for leading non-profits.

Ignition Accelerator will clearly spur economic growth. It will also bolster civic engagement and raise volunteer and charitable participation through new avenues to participate for all.

The impacts are multiplied across each of the eight targeted segments as each graduating class will support multiple social venture organizations. There will be particular emphasis on health and safety, arts and culture, and education while creating economic and social benefit through effective programs.

Ignition Fund supports programs, organizations, & individuals with innovative responses to social problems. CoFounder Sandy Skelaney, has built organizations from the ground up and successfully consults social venture organizations to create processes & procedures, obtain funding, and train organizations to deliver upon their social purpose. CoFounder Morgan Ware oversees foundations who fund social ventures and brings that skill to clients and the many non-profit boards she sits on.

The Rhythm Foundation was founded in 1988 with a mission to promote cultural awareness through the presentation of live music and related media programming. We have become a leading presenter of world music in the US.

Dance Band Night will be a consistent series that brings people together to share a love of dance and music, centered on specific social dance styles of greatest relevance to the diverse North Beach community. In its heyday, the historic oceanfront structure hosted dances for area senior citizens. Now the neighborhood is a melting pot of young South American and Caribbean residents. We will build an event that allows people of all ages to share a cultural experience, literally dancing together.

The series provides residents with a rich arts and cultural environment and sustains an artistic community. With the regular activation of the Bandshell, a cultural gem in the heart of a lively but underserved area, we will anchor a cultural scene in North Beach connecting with the new art cinema, the mama-y-papa restaurants, working with area musicians and dance schools. We will showcase the vitality of the area through the music and dance traditions of the diverse people who live there.

Dance Band Nights is modeled on the popular Midsummer Night Swing series in NYC’s Lincoln Center, with whom we have block-booked artists in the past. Ours is a new series, but we have worked at the Bandshell for more than ten years, and have just been awarded a contract by the City of Miami Beach to manage the facility year-round. With another series we produce, Big Night in Little Haiti, we have found the consistency to be key in building community and meaning links with neighborhood partners.