Navigating Florida's Changing Funding Landscape and How Philanthropy Can Respond
This educational webinar will help Florida funders and nonprofit leaders distinguish between statutory requirements, legal exemptions, organizational risk decisions, and activities that remain permissible while showcasing real world impact. With a goal to help funders and nonprofit partners understand the distinction between activities restricted by the law, activities subject to specific funding conditions, activities covered by statutory exemptions, and activities that remain permissible.
Key Takeaways:
- How can we think about minimizing harm and maximizing harm and maximizing impact?
- What is Philanthropy's role in using our collective voice?
Attendees will leave the session with a better understanding of what the law actually requires, how to not over comply and tools to help their nonprofit partners better understand the impact.
Convened by Florida Philanthropic Network and the ACLU of Florida
Registration
Member - Complimentary
Featured Speakers
Bacardi Jackson
Bacardi Jackson joined the ACLU of Florida as its Executive Director in May 2024, making history as the first Black woman to lead the organization. She brings a wealth of experience and a passionate commitment to justice to the organization. Most recently, she served as the Deputy Legal Director of the Children’s Rights Practice Group at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), where she led efforts to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and advocate for equitable access to mental health services and high-quality public education.
With over 20 years of litigation experience, Bacardi is a seasoned trial attorney who has made her mark in state, federal, and administrative courts. She previously served as a managing attorney for the Tucker Law Group, a Black-owned litigation boutique, where she established and managed the firm’s Florida office. Her diverse clientele included Fortune 100 companies, colleges, universities, governmental entities, and individuals, whom she represented in civil rights, employment, catastrophic personal injury, and other complex civil cases.
Bacardi’s impressive academic credentials include a bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University and a law degree from Yale Law School. Following a prestigious federal clerkship, she practiced at the international law firm of King & Spalding in Atlanta before joining Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Philadelphia. Her early legal career was marked by internships at several legal services and civil rights organizations, including the SPLC. She also co-taught an undergraduate law course in Yale’s African and African American Studies Department with the Honorable Justice Fleming Norcott.
Her extensive public service includes working in Congress for U.S. Rep. John Conyers and U.S. Sen. Harlan Mathews, spearheading national programming on Voting Rights at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, serving as a court advocate in the Manhattan Criminal Court for the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, and developing a transition program for returning citizens as a New York City Urban Fellow with the NYC Department of Correction.
Bacardi has been recognized with numerous accolades throughout her career. She was the inaugural recipient of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s Distinguished Young Leader Award and has been recognized as a Florida Super Lawyer since 2020. In 2023, Stanford University’s Centers for Equity, Community & Leadership honored her as a Changemaker, and Legacy magazine named her one of South Florida’s 25 most influential and prominent Black women in business and leadership in 2015. Beyond her professional accomplishments, Bacardi has dedicated significant time to serving on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, further demonstrating her commitment to community and justice.
Kara Gross
Kara Gross is the Policy and Advocacy Director for the ACLU of Florida. She advocates for statewide legislation and policies defending and advancing civil rights and liberties across ACLU’s priority issue areas, including criminal justice reform, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights, and freedom of speech.
Prior to joining the ACLU of Florida, she served as Senior Assistant General Counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Prior to that, she was an associate director of legal programs at a statewide nonprofit domestic violence advocacy organization.
Before moving to Florida, she lived in New York City and was an associate at Morgan Lewis in their Labor and Employment Practice Group, and prior to that she was a litigation associate at Debevoise & Plimpton. She began her legal career clerking for the Honorable Theodore H. Katz, United States Magistrate Judge, in the Southern District of New York. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from Brooklyn Law School, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Washington University. During law school, she served on the Executive Board of the Brooklyn Law Review, interned at NOW Legal Defense Fund (Legal Momentum), and worked at the NYC Commission on Human Rights. Prior to law school, she lived in Washington, DC, and worked for Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
She is admitted to practice in Florida, New York, New Jersey and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nastassia Janvier
Nastassia “Tazzy” Janvier is a Florida attorney and Legal Defense Fund (LDF) Racial Justice Fellow at the ACLU of Florida. Her practice focuses on constitutional rights and racial justice, with an emphasis on the First Amendment, voting rights, and economic justice. She leads the ACLU of Florida’s legal work on Senate Bill 1134, a Florida law restricting local government diversity initiatives. She has held leadership roles across the nonprofit sector. As CEO and chair of the National Black Law Students Association (NBLSA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, she led the organization and raised more than $250,000 to support its work on behalf of Black law students nationwide. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in South Florida, Janvier earned her J.D. from Howard University School of Law and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Florida State University.
David Arreola
David Arreola is a Policy Strategist for the ACLU of Florida focusing on immigration rights. David is a first generation American born to Mexican immigrants. After graduating from Flagler College, and later earning his M.B.A., he was elected in 2016 as a DNC delegate and in 2017 was elected the youngest ever member of the Gainesville City Commission and served his two-term limit. He has worked at restaurants, law firms, moved grand pianos, and assembled rooftop solar arrays. He is an avid reader, football player, and loves to keep up with the human exploration of space, but his favorite thing to do is to be with his wife, parents, two brothers, extended family, close friends, and two cats.
Isabella Campos
Isabella Campos is a Legal Investigator with the ACLU of Florida, where she specializes in racial justice work. As a recent graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Isabella is committed to confronting the history of racial inequities across the South. While in college, she served as a bilingual Policy & Legal Fellow for the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. She also produced a short ethnographic film highlighting the parallels between the political repression of the Civil Rights era and the current state of immigrant rights in Alabama. Additionally, Isabella was a plaintiff in Simon v. Ivey, challenging Alabama’s anti-DEI legislation in higher education. In Isabella’s free time, she can be found playing the New York Times’ Wordle and Connections games, spending time with her friends and family, and planning her upcoming honeymoon with her partner.
