Funded Partner Spotlight: New Hope Missionary Baptist Church
When LaKesha O’Neal joined the staff at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in South St. Pete, she knew building the group’s capacity would be pivotal to achieving their organizational goals.
The 114-year-old church’s buildings were in need of preservation and care. The work would be significant with a price tag to match. However, to effectively raise, manage, and deploy a large infusion of cash needed, O’Neal believed strongly that the church would need to update and expand their use of technology.
So in 2024, she applied for and received a $10,000 capacity-building grant from the Foundation and Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital. That support allowed New Hope to update their financial accounting systems and onboard a new church management system known as Planning Center.
“When the grant came along, I thought, this is perfect,” said O’Neal, who serves as the church’s administrator. “We can use this to really improve how the church operates.”
With QuickBooks, the church has the ability to generate a variety of reports on demand (and in-house). Planning Center, in turn, allows the church to better track attendance, communicate more easily with members, and centralize giving. Best of all, the two systems integrate.
In the course of a year, New Hope has gone from having to request and wait for reports to running them instantly – and from having to comb through paper sign-in sheets to having a digital record of church attendance and participation.
“To be a beacon of hope for our community, we need to operate efficiently,” O’Neal said. “We did a lot of research about what tools would be best, and we ended up with something really wonderful.”
In addition to improving church business practices thanks to updated accounting, communications, and church management software, O’Neal says the New Hope team also benefitted from attending the expert-led capacity-building training sessions the Foundation offered as part of the 2024 capacity-building grant cycle.
“It was so important for our team to hear those messages and learn those lessons together. It helped us have the same vision of where we are today, where we’re going tomorrow, and how to get there,” O’Neal said.
Today, New Hope is actively applying for additional grants dedicated to the preservation of Black churches. The church has also received a pivotal loan from the Small Business Administration to help repair and update church buildings, which suffered significant damage during last year’s storms.
“That one $10,000 grant opened the doorway for New Hope to have the capacity to apply and receive the funding needed so the church can continue to be a beacon of hope for generations to come,” O’Neal said. “That grant really was an answer to a prayer.”
In addition to religious services, New Hope offers grief support services through a partnership with Empath Health, a summer youth camp through a partnership with Tampa Bay Watch, and health and wellness programming through a partnership with BayCare. To learn more, visit their Facebook page.