Jorge M. P\u00e9rez, a billionaire developer and co-founder of The Related Group, appeared at the summit with Jennifer O’Flannery Anderson: President and CEO of the Community Foundation of Broward, to talk about the critical importance of philanthropy in the region.<\/p>\n
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“It was very important for us to publish the report because we feel that it shows others what great things can be accomplished by giving,” P\u00e9rez told a crowd of 200 at the summit in Fort Lauderdale. “We look at this as a way of showing people that it’s great to do philanthropy.”<\/p>\n
Established in 2015 as a donor-advised fund at The Miami Foundation, the Jorge M. P\u00e9rez Family Foundation’s total contributions span arts and culture, education, health and well-being, economic development, and the environment.<\/p>\n
“I don’t really want to be known as the guy that built a thousand buildings,” said P\u00e9rez. “I’d much rather be known as somebody that cared about society and gave back and created a family tradition of giving.”<\/p>\n
“My proudest philanthropic achievement was to be able to help establish our Family Foundation,” said P\u00e9rez’s wife, Darlene P\u00e9rez. “For us it was a way to truly give back to the different areas we feel passionate about…”<\/p>\n
The arts have long been the centerpiece of the family\u2019s efforts, accounting for $280 million of total committed funding. Their flagship initiative, P\u00e9rez CreARTE, was launched in 2019 to fund local cultural organizations across categories such as Arts Access, Arts Education, and Artist Fellowships. By its fourth cycle, CreARTE has awarded over $16 million to 56 nonprofits. Grantees have leveraged this support into an additional $22.7 million in outside funding, reaching approximately 900,000 people in South Florida.<\/p>\n
“The CreARTE grant has invited us to dream even more boldly about the future,” said Dejha Carrington, co-founder of Commissioner, one of CreARTE’s recurring grantees. “By providing essential capacity-building support at pivotal moments in our growth, this partnership has not only helped sustain our team but also given us the runway to map out our long-term strategy and goals.”<\/p>\n
Beyond local grants, the family\u2019s landmark $35 million gift in 2011 to rename the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) established the first major U.S. art museum named after a Hispanic donor. <\/p>\n
PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans said the family’s ongoing involvement \u2014 nearing $100 million in total cash and artwork \u2014goes beyond financial contribution: “It was about being involved and supportive and passionate about this project that we are all a part of.”<\/p>\n
The family’s philanthropic reach extends across several other areas:<\/p>\n
\u2014 Education ($35 million invested): Initiatives include the Jorge and Darlene P\u00e9rez Scholars Endowment at Florida International University (FIU) and long-term support for KIPP Miami and The Education Fund\u2019s Food Forests for Schools.
\u2014 Health & Well-Being ($21 million invested): Highlights include an $11 million commitment to the Jackson Health Foundation for Jackson Memorial Hospital\u2019s new emergency room facility.
\u2014 Environment ($7 million invested): Support includes title sponsorship of Aspen Ideas: Climate and funding for Miami Waterkeeper and The Everglades Foundation.
\u2014 Economic Development ($7 million invested): Direct grants to the Allapattah Collaborative CDC and Grameen America, which provided microloans to over 8,600 low-income women entrepreneurs in its recent grant cycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marking over a decade of structured giving, The Jorge M. P\u00e9rez Family Foundation released a new philanthropy report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-411136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}