The nonprofit sector is in a transition of sorts. CEOs are retiring after sharing essential experiences in both formal and informal ways. Fresh voices are stepping into boardrooms with ideas that once seemed impractical. We are going to new places—some by design, and others imposed as the world changes in larger ways. Possibility is nurtured through a combination of seasoned wisdom and new thinking. Both are important.

The Selby Foundation supports these organizations, and we also invest in post-secondary education for amazing young people, giving the future a turbocharge. We witness the ways multiple generations in one space can uniquely contribute to learning and change.

Seniors passing their knowledge on to young people is one thing. Exchanges in which people of different age groups actively learn from each other are something else. Nonprofits in our region that put youth and older adults together in intentional ways will tell you that each generation gets something big from the connections, often unexpectedly.

Throughout my career, I have been the fortunate recipient of time from those who develop future leaders. They supported me within their professional roles or because they wanted to “give back” based on what someone did for them. They understood that as younger leaders grow, different ways of thinking and doing emerge.

As a middle-aged person, I have had chances to pass along my knowledge to budding leaders. With every interaction, I also learn from them. I marvel at how much they have done with their unique gifts and how they have leveraged their experiences. I wonder how their vision of the world will take shape, and where they will eventually make concessions as all of us are required to do.

At the Selby Foundation, we have systems for supporting scholarship recipients that have worked well over many years. Simultaneously, we have learned that being student-centric—focused on what students tell us they need—can help us be more effective in programming that falls outside of financial aid. This is always informed by students themselves, and as such, constantly evolves.

When talking to nonprofit partners, the Selby Foundation learns that our decades of capital grants continue to be important. But in working to understand an organization’s capacity, we want to know more about how strategic thinking happens. The environment is changing quickly. Adaptations are required to address the realities people are facing and the fundraising that is needed to support the work. Good thinking requires a combination of learning from seasoned leaders and innovation from new ones. Multiple generations on a board of directors, on a program team, and in leadership roles can make a difference.

Let’s talk about the big picture here. How much brain power are we using to lament older systems that worked but are going away? How much energy are we devoting to the emerging world that may not come with our choice of features but requires us to adapt?

Should we laser focus on a few key areas, do more and expand, become better connected to partners, adopt new leadership practices, invest in new technology, improve systems, take a different approach?

These are all good questions. What happens when different generations come together to answer them? All generations have experience, knowledge, and the ability to bring new thinking to the table. And yet, they also bring unique lenses. The combination of personal experiences, perspectives, and peer influences takes us to different places.

Since we have the ability to seek and gather across generations, let’s do it intentionally. We have so much to gain.

Susie Bowie is the President/CEO of The William G. and Marie Selby Foundation. 

Pictured; 2026 Selby Scholar Isabella Castro-Cardona (center) joins the younger generation who will help enhance the Selby Foundation's work. Provided photo.

When we think about scholarships, we usually picture a recent high school graduate heading off to college thanks, in part, to some form of financial assistance. That scholarship story is very common, of course, but it’s far from the only one.

This month, across our region, adults who long ago left high school are returning to campus while working long hours, raising children, caring for family members and managing the responsibilities of daily life. Some are pursuing four-year degrees. Others are attending community colleges, technical schools or certification programs that provide paths to new careers and higher wages.

Assisting these adults is an important way in which the Community Foundation of Sarasota County is supporting families as they strive to disrupt intergenerational cycles of poverty.

So far this calendar year we have provided roughly $450,000 in scholarships to nearly 140 adult students across Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and DeSoto counties, and in two weeks applications open once again for adults pursuing new career and education opportunities. We don’t require that applicants tell us every detail of their lives, but, thanks to demographic data many of them voluntarily share, a portrait of our adult scholarship recipients emerges: Their average age hovers around 33; 86 percent are women; and more than 60 percent are parents. What’s more—about six out of 10 come from families in which neither of their parents earned a college degree.

One of those learners, a full-time working mother, recently shared her story with the foundation. She spoke frankly about how difficult it was to balance her job, her family and the demands of completing her degree. There were long days, real sacrifices and moments when quitting would have been an understandable decision.

But she kept at it. And, in the end, her degree changed her career and expanded what was possible for both her and her family. Neither of her parents had finished school, but today she is a college graduate, and her eldest daughter has also graduated from college and is now preparing for law school.

This mother’s story resonated with me. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I returned to school to earn a graduate certificate in strategic foresight. My children, who were in middle school at the time, watched me navigate work, family and an intensive program during one of the most uncertain periods in all our lives. I hope that my children seeing me commit to a goal and work to achieve it expanded their sense of what they are capable of.

Adult learners study after their children go to bed, complete assignments between shifts at work and press forward despite financial pressures and competing demands. They are not looking for an easy answer or path. They are looking for the opportunity to make their hard work lead somewhere new. And for those with children, their sons and daughters get to witness persistence in action.

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County’s next Adult Scholarship application period, which is open to students 24 and older, runs Aug. 15-Sept. 15. Learn more at cfsarasota.org.

Jessica Muroff is the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. 

On August 10, more than 45,000 Sarasota County students will walk into classrooms for the start of a new school year. Eight days later, on August 18, county voters will decide three of the five seats on the School Board that governs the system those students attend. A community's economic strength, its home values, and the health of its civic life are bound up, in part, with how well it educates the next generation; strong schools and strong communities move together, not on parallel tracks.

The district arrives at this school year with a genuinely strong record to build on. In July, the Florida Department of Education released 2025-2026 school grades showing Sarasota County Schools earned an overall “A” rating for the 23rd consecutive year, with the district's overall accountability score rising 32 points over the prior year. Fourteen schools improved a letter grade, and none declined. Every district-managed middle school earned an A, and every school in the district earned an A or a B. Among the most notable results: Emma E. Booker Elementary School and Booker Middle School each earned an A for the first time since Florida's school grading system was established in 1999.

That record is arriving alongside a genuinely different landscape than the one school boards navigated a decade ago. Enrollment growth has flattened alongside an aging county population, expanded voucher and homeschool options give families more choices than ever, and expectations around school safety and student mental health keep rising. None of this is primarily a funding story, even though funding still matters. Federal pandemic relief was never meant to last, and property tax revenue moves in cycles with the housing market. The harder, more permanent question is whether a board has the financial acumen to match a genuinely finite set of resources to its highest priorities, year after year, regardless of the funding cycle.

State policy adds another layer of change, regardless of who leads Tallahassee next. Florida's 2026 governor's race already shows a real contrast on education policy, with the leading candidates staking out different positions on school grading, choice expansion, and public school funding levels. Whoever wins in November, a change in the Governor's Mansion can shift funding formulas, accountability rules, and choice policy statewide. School boards don't set that direction, but they translate it into decisions for actual schools and students, which makes local governance every bit as consequential as state policy.

Taken together, these shifts call for genuine financial fluency, disciplined long-range planning around enrollment and facilities, and the judgment to keep district schools a compelling choice for families in a far more competitive landscape than the one their predecessors faced. It's something like rebuilding the plane while it's still in the air. The schools have to keep running and serving tens of thousands of students every day, even as the board reworks the assumptions and systems underneath them. That is a meaningfully higher bar than the role most voters remember from a generation ago, and it puts board members in charge of setting the direction and vision for public education as it is redefined, reimagined, and reengineered for what students and the workforce now need.

This is where every registered voter has a role, whether or not a child in your household is walking into a classroom this month. Because Sarasota's School Board races are nonpartisan, every voter in the county, regardless of party affiliation, is eligible to help decide these three seats. Early voting runs August 8 through August 16, and Election Day is Tuesday, August 18. If you want to learn where candidates stand before you vote, SarasotaVotes.gov and VOTE411.org are good places to start, along with each candidate's own platform.

Primary and off-cycle elections like this one typically draw a fraction of the turnout of a presidential race, which means a comparatively small number of ballots decides who serves. In a low-turnout election, a single vote is not diluted among the crowd; it carries more weight than it will in almost any other election you'll take part in this decade. Cast yours and help decide who governs the system educating the students walking into classrooms this month, and the community they will graduate into.

Jennifer Vigne is President and CEO of the Education Foundation of Sarasota County and host of the podcast Education Conversations. 

Image generated by AI

We’re lucky to live in Sarasota, where our schools reflect what this community looks like. And arts and culture are a huge part of that. It’s exactly the message I want every family in our county to hear as the new school year begins.

Kids head back to class on August 10th. Backpacks are getting packed. Crossing guards are back on duty. But before that first bell rings, I want to make one thing clear: here on Florida’s Cultural Coast, arts and education aren’t two separate conversations. They’re the same conversation. Arts aren’t extras. They’re essential to a complete education, and that’s exactly how we treat them here.

Every student in our county should have access to art instruction and experiences, not as a bonus, but as an expectation, one that reflects who we are as a community. Visual art, theatre, dance, and music. Sometimes it shows up woven into other subjects, too: theatre alongside a history lesson, music built into a math lesson on patterns. For example, at Patriot Plaza, we manage tours where students learn about patriotism and civics through visual art.

Arts instruction builds the skills employers keep asking for: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity. And as AI reshapes so much of what we do, a strong creative voice may be one of the most valuable things a student carries into adulthood. So, ask your kids and their teachers what they’re doing this year that ties into arts and culture. EdExplore SRQ makes that easy to find. It’s a searchable platform that connects teachers and families to hundreds of vetted, standards-aligned experiences with our local nonprofits and teaching artists. In-class visits, hands-on programs across the arts, history, science, and more. Every one of them is reviewed by the school district so it ties back to what your child is learning. Take a look and take your family exploring.

Whether your family has been here for generations or you just moved for a new job, here’s what it means to live on Florida’s Culture Coast: our arts and cultural organizations are woven into how this community raises and educates its kids. That’s the depth and breadth of what’s available to your family.

This isn’t just enrichment, and it isn’t just a break for families who are stretched thin. Arts engagement builds real skills, and it enhances wellbeing, helping students build confidence, find a sense of belonging, and connect with their peers and their community That’s what we keep seeing, study after study. One more thing before I let you get back to packing lunches. Save the date: our Arts in Education event is November 7th at the Sarasota Art Museum, featuring performers from Sarasota County Schools. I want to see you there. If you’d like a reminder closer to the date, sign up at sarasotaarts.org and we’ll make sure it lands in your inbox.

The school year is starting. Let’s make sure every student has the opportunity to experience the arts.

Brian Hersh is the CEO of the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County. To learn more, visit sarasotaarts.org. 

Pictured: A student drawing at the Arts in Education event last year. Provided photo.