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Dear Email Alert Readers,
This free service by Florida Funding Publications
provides information critical to grant seekers and fundraisers. Visit our
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for more information on the grantseeking world.
Remember each alert comes with several
HOT GRANTS due in a given month. Scroll below for 3 Hot Grants. PLEASE NOTE DUE DATES!
***2005 FOUNDATION GUIDE
ANNOUNCEMENT***
For those of you who ordered the
Complete Guide to Florida Foundations, we again thank you for your patience.
The book is on schedule for a late March shipping. Below we have compiled
some of the statistics, numbers, and information about the new book. We
are sure you will be happy with the addition of more than 800 new Florida
foundations as well as almost doubling the amount of assets.
For those of you who haven’t ordered,
read the stats and order NOW (order form available on-line)
***Click
HERE for the Complete Guide Stats, including total number of foundations
and assets!***
THE 2005
COMPLETE GUIDE HAS BEEN SENT FOR PRINTING…EXPECT YOUR COPY SOON IF YOU
HAVE PLACED AN ORDER.
Florida Funding Staff
In this update:
I. News
1) STATE EYES
LAND FOR ACQUISITION
2) ORANGE GROVE TROUBE RESULTS IN MASS SELLING
3) SURVEY GAUGES BUSINESS
ATMOSPHERE
II. Order The Complete Guide to Florida Foundations, 18th Edition, 2005
III. Hot Grants: March 2005, Part
III
I.
NEWS
1)ENVIRONMENT
Florida legislators
participated in a helicopter flyover of critical environmental lands on
Saturday. The tour highlighted the need for a state appropriation for
land acquisition.
BY REBECCA DELLAGLORIA
rdellagloria@herald.com
Six Florida lawmakers,
including the chairman of the house budget committee, toured a vast area
of environmentally sensitive land in South Miami-Dade County by air
Saturday as part of an effort to provide state funds to purchase the
land.
The helicopter tour, arranged by the South Florida Water Management
District, surveyed a portion of a 3,250-acre swath of land, including
coastal wetlands, between the Everglades and
Biscayne national parks that the county has deemed in imminent danger of
development.
Environmentalists and water management district staff hope to secure
the land in an ongoing effort to restore natural water flows to Florida
and Biscayne bays.
Joining state Rep. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Republican, and Rep.
Marco Rubio, a Miami Republican and House majority leader -- who are
pushing for the allocation of $25 million in state money toward the land
purchase -- was Rep. Joe Negron, a Stuart Republican who chairs the
committee that writes the state budget. His support is key to gaining
state funding.
''Our purpose here is simple: to convince Joe that it is a responsible
use of state money,'' Gelber said after the tour. ``Those of us here
think it is.''
Though the $25 million from the state wouldn't be nearly enough to
purchase all 13,200 acres of land that Miami-Dade's Department of
Environmental Resources Management has eyed for years, combined with $40
million from a county bond issue last year, it could help buy the 3,250
acres of critical land within the Biscayne Bay
watershed.
The $25 million is anticipated to come from a surplus in revenue
collected from a surge of construction that followed last year's
hurricanes.
Negron said he was ''impressed'' with the nature of the water projects
after getting a guided tour of the land. But he shyed away from giving
the funding a ringing endorsement.
''I'm optimistic that there will be enhanced environmental spending
this year,'' Negron said.
Gelber, however, stressed urgency: ``If we don't buy this now, it may
be so prohibitive that we can't buy it in the future.''
2) Disasters, rising land values compel growers to sell groves
BY SUSAN SALISBURY
The Palm
Beach Post
When the barbed-wire fences go up around a citrus grove and cattle are
brought in to graze, then you'll know.
You'll know that the grove has been sold to a developer, and that the
developer is simply waiting for the right moment to move forward, brokers
say.
For the famed Indian River grapefruit region,
that moment is going to come sooner than anybody expected.
''The storms and the canker accelerate the whole question of whether
the citrus industry will remain a viable economic return for South
Florida farmers,'' said Jerry James, a longtime St. Lucie
County resident and retired real estate attorney turned developer.
Rick Minton, a former Democratic state representative from Fort
Pierce and a member of one of the oldest
citrus-growing families in the area, puts it more bluntly. ''You may be
seeing the end of a great industry in Florida,''
said Minton, who is now president of Minton Realty. ``They may have to
burn every tree in the whole state.''
Those are real estate businessmen talking, so it could be argued that
their perspective conforms to their hoped-for reality.
Mickey Umphrey, chief deputy appraiser in the Indian River County
Property Appraiser's Office, said when it comes to land sales, the talk
isn't just hype.
'CRAZY' PRICES
''Land is selling at crazy rates and numbers around here, more like
the Palm Beach County
prices,'' Umphrey said. ``We have stuff selling for $30,000, $40,000 or
$50,000 an acre that used to be $7,000 to $8,000 three or four years
ago.''
But many of the growers are right at home with a development take on
things.
That's because many of them are developers, too.
''I think attrition to development will happen faster than any
canker,'' said C.C. ''Chris'' Hopkins, operations manager at MBK Masters,
a Fort Pierce-based fruit shipper and packer. ``I don't feel bad for any
grower who sells out.''
Examples of growers who operate real estate companies as well include
A. Duda & Sons, one of the nation's largest growers, with citrus,
vegetable and other holdings in Florida.
Since the 1980s, its real estate arm, The Viera Co.,
has been developing the town of Viera,
a 9,000-acre master-planned community in Brevard
County.
Blue Goose Growers in Fort Pierce,
which has been in the grove management business for more than 50 years,
began Blue Goose Realty in 2001. Blue Goose Realty specializes in
marketing citrus groves and is involved in the management, sale and listing
of many properties throughout Florida
ranging from 20 acres to several thousand acres.
And then there's Mecca,
the grower whose last orange grove, Mecca Farms in northwestern Palm
Beach County,
is the favored home for The Scripps Research Institute.
Before Mecca Farms was ever linked to plans for Scripps, the company's
real estate arm, Smigiel Partners, had bought more than 1,000 acres of
citrus groves and farms in St. Lucie and Indian River
counties. Smigiel Partners has been buying and selling land since 1986,
including sites for more than 10 residential developments from Broward to
Indian River counties, such as Water's Edge in Vero
Beach.
''A year ago people were selling citrus groves for $25,000 an acre.
That was twice what they expected. Now people are getting twice that,''
Minton said.
''A 100-acre grove worth $1 million 10 or 12 years ago, that same
grove today is worth $10 million to $12 million,'' he said. ``A lot of
these people are elderly. It's their retirement. It's stupid to take the
risk of continuing to farm and make a meager living versus taking $10
million to $12 million for retirement.''
Over the past two years, agents say, the pressure on growers to sell
their land for development has dramatically increased. Some say the
current canker crisis is only going to accelerate that process.
CANKER SPREADS
St. Lucie and Indian River counties are the
heart of the state's grapefruit-growing region. Until December, canker
was undetected in the counties. The bacterial disease has been ravaging
the state's citrus trees for the past 10 years.
But late that month, canker was discovered on trees in a residential
neighborhood in Port St. Lucie. Soon after, it was found in a 27-acre
commercial grove in Indian River
County, and since then, eight
more groves have seen the infection.
''It's very unnerving,'' said Courtney Forget, whose family has been
in the citrus business in St. Lucie County since 1912. ``We are sick to
our stomachs about it.''
State officials say three of the four hurricanes of 2004 spread the
canker throughout the region, and two of them -- Frances and Jeanne --
blew about 80 percent of the grapefruit off the trees, essentially
destroying the harvest season for local growers.
Phil Holden, a Palm Beach Gardens
real estate appraiser, said the activity and price increases in land
sales in St. Lucie and Indian River counties have
been surprising, even to longtime observers.
''Nobody believes what is happening. The run-up in prices is
unprecedented,'' Holden said. ``There were very few people in the market,
including landowners, ag people and Realtors, who really saw this
coming.''
FEWER CHOICES
Canker finds on the cheaper land west of I-95 have made moving to
another parcel more difficult, in effect shrinking the choices, said John
Luther, an Indian River Citrus League director who also is president of
several grove-owning partnerships in St. Lucie County and Indian River
counties.
Despite all the factors causing land prices to rise, some prefer to
remain in agriculture, and specifically in citrus, though groves in
canker-infected areas can be used to grow palm trees, sod, vegetables or
nursery plants.
Cody Estes, president of Vero Beach-based Estes Citrus, last month
planted new acres of grapefruit and tangerines on land west of Vero. He's
hoping state officials will be able to wipe out the infection.
''The most important thing is that we find it all,'' he said.
Luther said his company's long-term goal is to stay in the citrus
business, but that the canker finds are making it more difficult.
COMPLICATED BUSINESS
''It doesn't make sense to plant something if they did find canker
next door to it,'' he said. ``It has made it a lot more complicated in
how you stay in the business.''
Observers say it's a business under siege from foreign competition,
declining consumption and governmental regulations.
The days of the small grower who supported a family on 40 to 80 acres
are over, says developer James. Only the larger growers such as Evans
Properties and Becker Holding Co. will be able to survive, and then only
by using some of their land for development, he said.
''They will eventually get into the real estate business themselves,
in co-ventures or as developers themselves. You already see that,'' James
said.
RAPID TURNOVER
Nick Constant, a broker in Fort Pierce,
said properties in the region are changing hands quickly. Some estimate
most of the properties are traded once or twice every four years.
''There's so much under contract that does not show up in the records,
a tremendous amount of real estate activity,'' Constant said. ``That has
saved some of these agricultural people fortunate enough to have property
closer in. If it weren't for that, it would be a much bigger disaster.''
But the growers are crying all the way to the bank, said James, the
developer.
''The market has blessed them. I don't feel sorry for these guys,'' he
said. ``What they grow on the land is going to hell in a hand basket. The
good news is the market has quadrupled for them as far as value.''
3) New survey identifies local business
issues
The Beacon Council's new survey will help identify problems local
businesses are having and shape possible solutions.
BY GREGG
FIELDS
gfields@herald.com
It's a survey that seeks what may be complicated answers to a set of
simple questions.
The second Beacon Council Miami-Dade Business Survey is designed to
take the pulse of companies located and working in metro Miami
and provide a snapshot of how they view the local business environment.
And if the first survey, taken two years ago, proved anything, it was
this: Expect surprises.
''Some of the surprises for us were the satisfaction with
post-secondary education,'' said Frank Nero, the Beacon Council's
president.
The 2003 questionnaire also showed that area businesses were pleased
with the drop in local crime rates. ''We found not as much concern with
public safety,'' Nero said. ``I think that was very telling.''
The 2003 survey was sent to 1,656 companies in Miami-Dade. It netted
287 replies, many from small professional service and manufacturing
firms.
The Beacon Council's survey is part of its Local Business, Local Jobs
initiative. That program seeks to encourage Miami-based companies to
expand operations -- and hiring -- locally rather than looking for new
locations elsewhere.
It's a high priority for the development agency, which is perhaps
better known for recruiting outside firms to relocate to Miami-Dade.
''We probably spend 65 percent of our time on local businesses,'' Nero
said. ``We need to know what these local businesses are thinking. It
helps us craft our approach.''
The survey is being conducted by The Doug Williams
Group, a Miami management
consulting firm, and will poll the firms on a variety of issues such as
transportation, public education and effectiveness of local government.
II. ORDER THE COMPLETE GUIDE
NOW...Shipping MARCH 2005!
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ART & 
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The COMPLETE GUIDE to Florida
Foundations 2005
18th Edition ~ 2005
COMING MARCH `05
Orders filled in order of receipt. $90 +
S&H, Visa, Mastercard & AMX. Call 305-251-2203 to order.
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~More
than 4,400 Florida Foundations
~More than $15 Billion
in Assets
~Detailed Profiles and
Indexes
~Improved Search
~An essential tool for
grant seekers since 1986
~Latest edition coming
2005!
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RESEARCH~SPORTS~COMMUNITY~SOCIAL
SERVICES~ENDOWMENTS~AND MORE!
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HOT
GRANTS
Environment
(March 31)
Applications for the 2005 Alcan Prize for Sustainability,
administered by Alcan and the International Business Leaders Forum, are
currently being accepted.
The $1
million prize will be awarded to an organization that promotes economic,
environmental, and social sustainability. Additional information is
available on the award’s Web site.
Who
may apply: civil-society, nongovernmental, and nonprofit organizations in
any country that have been in operation for at least five years.
Contact: Alcan
Prize Manager, IBLF, 15-16 Cornwall Terrace, London, England NW1
4QP; alcanprize@iblf.org;
www.alcanprizeforsustainability.com/2005/index.html
NEA Foundation (Education);
Funds Available: Innovation:$5,000;Learning:$2,000;
Individuals:$5,000
Deadlines: Open
Contact: The NEA Foundation
1201 16th St., NW.,
Ste.416 Washington,DC
20036-3207
Social Justice (open deadline)
Applications
for “rapid response” grants from the Tides Death Penalty Mobilization
Fund, a program of the Tides Foundation that supports organizations
working to abolish the death penalty.
Grants
are awarded for projects whose focus involves revamping state death
penalty policies or pursuing a moratorium on executions.
There
is no maximum grant award, though most awards range up to $5,000.
Who
may apply: Non-profits, or organizations that have a non-profit sponsor.
Preference
will be given to short-term projects that involve collaboration among
groups who work to make the maximum amount of impact in the shortest
interval of time.
Contact: Michelle Coffey,
The Tides Foundation, 40 Exchange Place, Suite 1111, New York, NY 10005; (212) 509-1049; fax (212)
509-1059; mcoffey@tides.org;
www.tidesfoundation.org/dpmf_rapidresp_rfp.cfm
_________________________________________________________
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