Address: 2333 34th St. S, St. Petersburg, FL 33711
Phone: 727-865-4650
Email: info@healthystpete.foundation
Web: https://healthystpete.foundation
Born from the sale of Bayfront Health System in 2013, Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg is a private nonprofit foundation that stewards an endowment designed to promote health equity in southern Pinellas County, Florida. The foundation works alongside residents, organizations, and leaders to create a community in which all people can lead healthy lives, regardless of race. It invests in community-driven solutions, supports strategic partnerships, shares knowledge, and advocates for policies and strategies that improve the conditions in which residents live, work, learn, grow, and age.
Data reveals that local health disparities are starkest and most concentrated in the zip codes of the South St. Petersburg Community Redevelopment Area, an area impacted by histories of redlining, institutional disinvestment, and discrimination. As such, that’s where the foundation focuses its efforts.
Program Information:
The Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg employs a social determinants of health lens in its work, understanding well-being as an outcome of educational opportunity, economic stability, social and community context, neighborhood and built environment, as well as health care access. It also favors a systemic approach to change. With an eye toward lasting impact, the foundation strives to go beyond ameliorating symptoms to address the policies, conditions, and structures that create and perpetuate barriers to health and equity.
Financial Information:
Total Assets: $192 million (FY25)
Amount Dedicated to Health-Related Grants: $3.6 million (FY25)
Special Initiatives and/or Representative Health and Human Services Grants
Healthy People—The foundation partnered with Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital to fund four multi-sector collaborations working to promote positive change in the social and environmental factors that shape our health. Informed by the Healthy People 2030 framework, the funded collaborations use evidence-based solutions to drive improvements in health while addressing systemic inequities. ($250,000 per collaboration)
Systems Change Leadership Cohort—The foundation contracted social impact leader FSG to develop and implement a systems change curriculum for 20 local organizations who champion change in our community. The program equips leaders with the skills, mindsets, and relationships they need to mobilize collective action and drive lasting systemic change. ($250,000)
Capacity Building: Strengthening Organizational Resilience—The foundation awarded $10,000 capacity-building grants to 25 local organizations working to advance racially equitable health outcomes in south St. Petersburg, Florida. The selected nonprofits will each participate in a Core Capacity Assessmentthat offers tailored recommendations for building their organization’s capacity in leadership, adaptability, management, technical capacity, and culture. The assessment will guide how each organization uses its grant funding. ($10,000 per organization)
St. Pete Thrives—St. Pete Thrives is designed to support programmatic, direct service work that helps create a community in which all people can lead healthy lives. Offered in partnership with Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, this funding opportunity will jointly award grants of up to $50,000 to 10 nonprofit organizations serving individuals residing in the 33705, 33711, and 33712 zip codes. ($50,000 per organization)
Together With Our Community – Together With Our Community is a rolling deadline grant that supports emerging community needs and opportunities as they arise. It offers grants of up to $2,500 to mission-aligned nonprofits working in the foundation’s priority zip to support community-based activities, events, or new programming/projects. ($2,500 per organization)
Foundation for Healthy St. Petersburg and GIH
Being part of Grantmakers in Health allows the foundation to connect with and learn from other health-focused foundations doing innovative work with similar goals. Its team strives to be a learning organization, and its membership in GIH supports that aim. From conferences to publications and learning communities, the team can take advantage of GIH resources that support its growth and impact plus contribute back to the learning and growth of its peers.
Role of Philanthropy in Meeting Pressing Needs
“Philanthropy has a powerful opportunity to not only fill in gaps that address immediate needs but to also help craft a healthier future through a collaborative approach to long-term structural and systemic change. Direct services are often critical to community health; the Foundation for a Healthy St. Petersburg funds such services and will continue to do so as long as our community requires them.
Simultaneously, we believe philanthropy is uniquely positioned to champion and drive collective action that seeks to remove structural barriers to a thriving community. This requires a longer-term focus on conditions like strengthening trust between groups, amplifying the voices of those most impacted by inequities, addressing policies and practices that reinforce barriers to health, and shifting mindsets. Philanthropy cannot do this work alone, and progress will be incremental and not always linear. As a convener and community leader, however, we have an opportunity to bring people to the table around a common goal of community health that ultimately serves all our interests.”
–Dr. Kanika Tomalin, President and CEO