Step Up Suncoast, Inc.

Step Up Suncoast, Inc., a tax-exempt nonprofit based in Sarasota, Florida, operates as a federal grant recipient delivering early childhood education, family support services, housing counseling, tax assistance, and energy assistance programs to low-income populations across Florida. The organization holds a diverse portfolio of federal grants as both prime recipient (43% of 87 recent awards) and sub-recipient (57%), with no federal contracting footprint — all work flows through grant programs, not contract vehicles.

Step Up Suncoast's prime recipient role centers on early childhood education and family services. The Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Head Start is the dominant customer, funding a $13.047 million Head Start and Early Head Start award (January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2030) and a $2.017 million Early Head Start Expansion award (September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2031, CFDA 93.600) to deliver educational instruction, health and nutritional support, and social-emotional development programming to preschool-age children, infants, toddlers, pregnant women, and low-income families in Florida. The organization also holds concurrent Early Head Start — Child Care Partnerships funding from the same office. Beyond early childhood, Step Up Suncoast holds prime recipient grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Comprehensive Housing Counseling grant, October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025) and the Internal Revenue Service (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA, grants in 2022, 2023, and 2025 with performance periods spanning fiscal years, providing tax preparation and filing services to low-income, elderly, disabled, and rural populations). The HUD housing counseling program requires the recipient to provide pre-purchase home buying counseling, mortgage delinquency and default prevention assistance, and foreclosure counseling; VITA funding extends services to underserved populations in hardest-to-reach areas through volunteer-staffed tax assistance sites with electronic filing capacity and quality control protocols.

Sub-recipient activity dominates by count (50 of 87 awards, or 57%). The Florida Department of Commerce serves as prime grantee on the majority of sub-awards, passing through Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), and Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funding to Step Up Suncoast for energy assistance, home weatherization, and community services delivery. The Florida Department of Health and the Florida Association of Healthy Start Coalitions also pass through child care food program and Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) funding. A single sub-award (October 1, 2024) describes emergency financial rental assistance for homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing, suggesting Step Up Suncoast also operates HUD-funded homeless services with case management and housing search components.

The organization has grown its federal award activity materially — three awards in 2022 to fifteen in 2026 — with recent activity dominated by ACF and HUD. Combined obligated funding across all 87 awards (prime and sub) totals $304.1 million, with work performed in Florida and customer concentration split between HHS ACF (31 awards by count), HUD (17 awards), Department of Energy (12 awards), and the Treasury IRS (8 awards), covering 87% of the award count. The organization's grant footprint reflects a service-delivery mission oriented to underserved and low-income populations rather than a contracts-based federal business model.