Taxpayer fund doles out millions to Manatee County nonprofits

Mote Ranch’s Carolann Garafola spent 52 years working with children and adults with special needs.

But sitting at her kitchen table with her reading glasses on and laptop open, flipping through a fairly thick packet of papers, she doesn’t look retired. 

Garafola volunteers for the Manatee County Children’s Services Advisory Board, and she’s in the midst of reviewing grant applications for the next fiscal year, which begins in September.

When asked how much time she dedicates to the board, Garafola counted 68 applications on her spreadsheet. Each one takes about 1.5 hours to score.

“You do the math,” she said. 

That’s 102 hours just sifting through grant applications. That doesn’t include the weekly meetings from February to May that are supposed to last from 3 to 5 p.m., but often run late. The rest of the year, meetings are held monthly. 

This is Garafola’s sixth year and second term with the board.

“The work that these men and women are doing on this committee is truly a labor of love,” said Elena Cassella, executive director of Foundation for Dreams, an East County nonprofit that serves children with special needs and receives program funding from Children’s Services.

In 1990, the county carved out a dedicated millage fund to serve abused, neglected, at-risk and economically disadvantaged children. 

In 2024, the .33 mill generated $15,078,577. The county maintains a 20% reserve for emergencies and special initiatives based on emerging needs throughout the year. 

The remaining funds are distributed through annual grants. 

Cassella said the fund should be a model for every municipality in the nation. Garafola spent her career in New Jersey and said her home state has nothing like it. 

The program is completely results driven, so nonprofits have to demonstrate how their programs are making a measurable impact on Manatee County children. 

Courtesy image

In the case of Foundation for Dreams, Cassella has to prove that the adaptive programs the foundation offers are improving behavior and developing daily living, social and hygiene skills.

She described the grant process as “rigorous,” but distilled it down to one major question that needs to be answered through the application: What is the human impact?

As an artist, it broke Garafola’s heart to see a music program be denied because the impact of teaching a child how to play an instrument didn’t fit within a line graph.

At the same time, she understands that the guidelines must be stringent because the program is doling out tax dollars.

Additional grant criteria consider how long the nonprofit’s leadership has been in place and how much the nonprofit is asking of the county in comparison to its overall budget. 

If a nonprofit wants the county to cover 60% of its operating expenses, that request would receive a lower score than a nonprofit requesting just 20%.

Cassella said best practices in the nonprofit world recommend keeping any one source of funding under 30% of the overall budget, so if that source were to dry up, the nonprofit could continue to operate. 

“It’s a great use of tax dollars,” Garafola said. “It goes into the community, and results come out to make the community a better place.”

Raise a pinwheel

During meetings, board members raise a blue pinwheel when voting yea. 

Pinwheels for Prevention is a program through Prevent Child Abuse Florida. Blue and silver pinwheels are displayed in the month of April for Child Abuse Prevention Month. 

The program chose pinwheels because they are symbolic of the “happy, healthy childhoods all children deserve and the commitments from families and communities that make them possible.”

However, the whimsical nature of the pinwheel doesn’t take away from the seriousness of the decisions the board is tasked to make. 

Garafola said discussions can get "contentious,” but it’s because the board members care, and everyone comes from a different background.

The board is made up of 13 members, five who are child advocates from the community at-large, such as Garafola. The remaining seats are filled according to the person’s role in society. 

There are seats for a physician, licensed mental health professional, a judge and a criminal justice representative. There are also seats that represent the Manatee County School Board, the Florida Department of Children and Families, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the United Way.

Garafola ordered 50 pinwheels this year. 

They’re spinning on mailboxes and in gardens on her street in Mote Ranch. She’s also given them to friends in Palm Aire, where she’s a member of the Palm Aire Women’s Club and sits on its charitable committee. 

As the vice president of the Lakewood Ranch Republican Club, Garafola also has friends and pinwheels spread around Lakewood Ranch and the River Club, too.