Duggan Cooley: CEO, PCF

This is Karen Carmichael and I'm sitting down today with Duggan Cooley, CEO of the Pinellas Community Foundation. The Pinellas Community Foundation is a 5 0 1 C3 charitable organization dedicated to strengthening Pinellas County. They provide philanthropic expertise.

Community leadership and investment oversight to support local nonprofits and the people they serve. By 2019, the Pinellas Community Foundation had celebrated its 50th anniversary with a solid brand enhanced presence in the community, community, responsive granting, and ever increasing assets, which are now more than 150.

Million dollars. Duggan launched his fundraising career at age six with door to door requests to support him in the annual community, bikeathon for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. And since then, his life has been consumed with service for nonprofits and he is raised more than [00:01:00] $100 million in support of well-respected community institutions

Duggan, welcome to Radio St. Pete.

Thank you. It's exciting to be here.

So how did you end up in St.

Petersburg?

I credit my parents with, , a lot of volunteer work in the community and our, our family drive to give back. So after high school , I had volunteered a lot, went to University of Florida, and then was looking to come to the west coast of Florida.

, Pinellas County is a great place to be. St. Petersburg is incredible. Uh, we've got beautiful beaches, but then we have a pretty vibrant nonprofit community. And that is really what, what drew me here , is finding work , in the nonprofit world.

So clearly this is, in your DNA, right? What does a typical workday look like for you?

Uh,

one, one thing I love about, uh, being with Pinellas Community Foundation is that no day is the same. And as much as I can try and schedule out my time, and I'll have appointments on the calendar. , you never know what it might bring. And today, today is a great example of that. We had, meetings this morning talking about, , some of the disaster related [00:01:00] work and response that we're continue to be involved in, had, .

Wonderful meeting this morning with an attorney about an estate gift from a donor that's coming to the foundation. But then come Monday it'll be any number of other things. It might be community response, it might be working with people to continue to address issues of homelessness, fundraising work every day is different and I love that.

The variety keeps me excited, , and also reminds me of so much good that is done in the community by so many people.

St. Petersburg certainly does have a lot of nonprofits and they serve a very important role in our town. So can you speak to that a little bit?

Yes. Non nonprofits , are such an important part of the community, our economy as well.

, they serve a variety of functions, everything from arts and culture, , to feeding people who are food insecure, to providing healthcare services, education, you name it. There is a nonprofit that is somehow connected. To a, a community function, but they play a [00:02:00] really important role in disaster response.

So many people in our community rely upon nonprofits, , as they continue to recover from the recent storms. , our nonprofits address the needs , of vulnerable community groups, um, helping low income families, helping seniors. , and really , they are there , to provide continued support and they're essential to our community and our culture.

They're everywhere , and play such an important role in the life of our community.

So earlier we were chatting a little bit about like, what's one nonprofit that you would like to just chat a little bit more about? What can you tell us about the St. Petersburg Free Clinic? That's one of my favorites, so I'd love to hear a little more.

Yes. And so we, we have been proud supporters of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic for, for many years. What they do, , in food distribution to the community, , and how they have been able to grow over time to meet the ever increasing need. Um, they believe it or not. , they're one of those organizations that they've, they've got the St.

Petersburg name, but they make sure that food is delivered all up and down the county. And [00:03:00] so they have, uh, an incredible ability to, to deploy a great de degree of resources for our community. They also help when it comes to disaster response. The work that they do and providing accessibility to healthcare is also so important, , but their leadership, their board also are about community engagement, partnership collaboration.

Everything you want in a nonprofit, the service delivery side, , but also the ability to have a, a partner that you can work with to address community needs as they arise. They're, they do incredible work in St. Petersburg and beyond.

, I'm the president of my neighborhood association and directly after the of storms, we sat, I sat with our board and I said, we need to do something.

So I said, you know, there's this, we are St. Pete Fund. And the treasurer immediately said, it's managed by the Community Foundation. Yes. That's the one we should donate to. So what can you tell me about the We are St. Pete Fund?

Sure. , and I think that this is one of those unique functions of a community foundation.

And [00:04:00] Pinellas Community Foundation is proud to step up in times of disaster, in times of great need in the community. , whether it be when we are experiencing issues with covid or, or most recently with the storms and the city of St. Petersburg, we partnered with the city. Knowing that residents would need help.

, and this first came about because of Hurricane Helene, , and us being so coastal here, the flooding was incredible. , but then even became even more urgent after, uh, after Hurricane Milton. And so worked with the city of St. Petersburg to find a way to be a repository for donations that would help the residents of St.

Petersburg and the city. And. PCF , were explicit that this was meant to benefit not only residents in St. Petersburg, but our businesses as well. And so we have received over a million dollars in contributions. The City of St. Petersburg itself, , seeded the fund with $200,000. , but then large contributions came in.

Um, from the raises from the Foundation for Healthy St. Petersburg, 450 donors have [00:05:00] also given to, , the, we are St. Pete fund and early disbursements from the fund went to the city of St. Petersburg. They've had teams in neighborhoods responding to immediate needs. So funding was made available to those teams to meet needs that are not getting met in other ways, and that allowing those neighborhood teams to be creative.

Meet the need on the spot when there's not another funding source, , but very shortly, the city of St. Petersburg in the next a about a week. , we'll, you'll start to see announcements about other ways that the community can access those funds. , individuals, , are residents that , are in need.

As our other funding sources have sort of started to diminish, the immediate response is starting to diminish now. Now we're moving into to mid and long-term recovery. So funding will be available for residents, , and then small businesses as well. So there's a way to, to stay in touch with that. , we encourage people to stay, , alert to, , information that will come from the city of St.

Petersburg, their press releases, but also from Pinellas Community Foundation about how to access [00:06:00] support.

So disaster aid is clearly still important.

It absolutely is still important. And , for some people, , their recovery is done and everything is great, but there are many people in our community who are still hurting, who need help, and their recovery will take a long time.

And so aid is still needed. So if there's anyone who wants to continue to provide support to residents, we welcome that. , we wanna make sure , that the, and we're continuing to receive wonderful gifts from the community , and beyond coming into this community for help. , but the disaster aid, the need is still there.

You know, one of the largest disasters that we can probably think of , in the last, , in certainly in, in my generation, would've been Hurricane Katrina. And even though that happened, so to what is now so long ago. , they are still working on recovery. So long-term recovery is really long-term. So , our community will need help , for quite a long time.

Even though you drive around in certain places, it looks great and everything looks wonderful, that's not the story for everybody. [00:07:00]

Sure. And just because all of the trash has been picked up doesn't mean that what's going on behind those doors. Is perfect, right? That's right. It's taking a long time for people to recover.

It was interesting to me, I was at the city council meeting when they first, , announced all the things that happened , post storms. And, uh, I was listening to Amy Foster say that one of the things that, that, , the city is being really careful about is not dispersing the funds too soon and letting people take advantage of whatever FEMA and insurance has for them because of the fact that recovery is so long term and in six months.

When all of this other stuff starts to dry up. This money that is in the, we are St. Pete fund is gonna be really important to people to, , to get back on their feet again.

Yes, absolutely. , we do know e even on the private philanthropy side, 90% of the money that comes into communities to help with disasters is used in that initial response phase and providing for the immediate needs of residents , and really.

About only 10% of that funding is made available or is available for the long term. [00:08:00] So now is a critical time, and it's wonderful to have the resources to deploy. Money was made available in the, uh, the immediate aftermath, , but residents really, really need help now.

So Duggan, what else can you tell us about the community foundation?

Sure. Pinellas Community Foundation has been in our community since 1969, so we, we have sort of operated, I think, in many ways under the radar, , and done wonderful things in the background of the community. But , we have served as a bridge between donors and organizations in the community, making sure that critical work is able to be done, uh, that we can build and sustain our arts and culture.

, we work with so many nonprofits, , over our history. Almost 600 nonprofits have received, uh, funding through Pinellas Community Foundation. , there are, , numerous, funds of the foundation that do incredible things to support our nonprofits. , over, I, I think over a hundred million dollars now has come out through the foundation for the benefit of the, , the community. [00:09:00] But we, , it is incredible to be at the helm of that and to work with our board and our staff team, , to make resources available for the community. , but , it's an exciting place to be.

There's always something happening. There's always a need to be met, and it's exciting to sort of be in the middle of all of that, , through a great organization like Pinellas Community Foundation.

So if our listeners wanted more information,, what can they do?

Yes, for sure. Um, can follow us , on social media if they'd like to.

Our website is a, a wealth of information to, , pins. Pinella cf.org is our website and always updated a great place to find out about resources, about charities, about charitable giving, about initiatives that are happening in the community , or things like disaster relief. Um, trying to make, , make sure that information is accessible and points people to where in our community, , help is available.

But also where people , can give if they're, if they're on the side and they haven't necessarily been affected, but want to help, then, then we make that. Available for them too. And I, and I will point out too, there [00:10:00] are people in our community that were affected by storms and they too were giving. , and so , it's incredible to see the generosity of our community, especially in times of great need people step up.

Isn't that true? That's what St. Pete's all about though. Yes, I know. This is a amazing town. It really is an amazing town. It was, uh, it was heartwarming to see how everyone came together, , post storms and just work together to try and get. Everybody back on their feet. Duggan, thank you for joining me today.

It was really a pleasure to learn more about you and of course about the foundation.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here and to share a little bit more about what's going on in the community, how people can help , and how we are helping. Okay. Thank you.