Initiative Foundation

Programs: Leadership and community development:early childhood initiative: the initiative foundation supports 14 early childhood coalitions within its 14-county region. A large number of communities continue to face significant economic challenges with higher-than-average numbers of children and families living in poverty. Affected areas include benton, cass, crow wing, kanabec, mille lacs, pine, todd and wadena counties. Coalitions are offered a variety of opportunities to participate in strategic planning sessions, leadership training and early childhood topic specific trainings. Coalitions draw from different sectors of the community and include participation from parents, business leaders, educators, elected officials, early care and education providers, nonprofit organizations and health care providers. Primary activities focus on early childhood literacy, social emotional adjustment and school readiness. Greater st. Cloud area thrive coalition is one of the supported community coalitions. The collaborative was developed to promote the healthy social and emotional development of children from birth to age 5, with an emphasis on birth to age 3. Thrive currently offers co-learning opportunities between early childhood staff and immigrant and refugee parents to explore parenting concerns. An expanded website includes resources on healthy social and emotional development and resources specific to immigrant and refugee families. Foundation staff provided training to regional early childhood initiative coordinators on fundraising ideas to support coalition goals, adverse childhood experiences (aces) programming, americorps vista opportunities, scholastic books purchasing opportunities and updates on the early childhood dental network. In 2017, the initiative foundation made early childhood grant awards totaling $102,000. Our early childhood dental network (ecdn) cavity free birth to age 5 program supported local projects that provide dental hygiene, cavity prevention and dental treatment for children in poverty in mille lacs county. The foundation also is working with central lakes community college in brainerd and st. Cloud technical and community college to support recruitment, retention, graduation and placement of diverse students in dental hygiene careers. In 2017, the initiative foundation made early childhood dental grant awards totaling $25,000. Thriving communities initiative (tci): initiative foundation staff continued their support of tci communities of emily, fifty lakes, staples, melrose, cambridge and pequot lakes. Foundation staff provided technical assistance to several dozen communities on issues ranging from workforce development, financing for community facilities, trails development and local foods. Staff continued work on the sherburne county vision project (shervision) by supporting the development of a new comprehensive economic development strategy (ceds). Thirty-seven community leaders participated in a series of three workshops and now have additional skills to serve their community by recruiting new and emerging leaders. In 2017, the initiative foundation made community development grant awards totaling $37,895. Nonprofit organizational development (npod): initiative foundation staff led its sixth cohort of nonprofits participating in the foundation's financial resiliency through social enterprise (frse) program and a more advanced 2. 0 version for previous graduates of the program. With guidance and support from foundation staff, the nonprofits assistance fund and business and marketing consultants, 16 organizations (59 different individuals) participated in these two, year-long programs and created comprehensive business plans to advance an earned-income social enterprise. Foundation staff and consultants also invested time and energy in facilitating four leaders circles for nonprofits (one in brainerd, three in st. Cloud). This included 15 executive directors and six program-level staff members. These peer-coaching circles build leadership skills/abilities, help members identify constructive steps for resolving work challenges and decrease professional isolation. Every leaders circle member reported gaining new skills in the areas of problem-solving, listening, speaking and taking action. Nine nonprofit organizations participated in initiative foundation-sponsored open office hours sessions with legalcorps. Space was provided at the initiative foundation offices in little falls and in st. Cloud. Of the nine participating nonprofits, all reported gaining new information and legal insights to increase their capacity to deliver services. Four quarterly nonprofit lunch-and-learn sessions, coordinated by the initiative foundation in conjunction with local partners, were held in st. Cloud and brainerd. Ninety-five nonprofit professionals participated in one or more lunch-and-learn in st. Cloud and 35 in brainerd. In 2017, the initiative foundation made thriving organization partnership grant awards totaling $122,870. Healthy lakes and rivers partnership (hlrp): the foundation continues to administer $4. 04 million in funding from the lessard-sams outdoor heritage council to support innovative pilot projects that prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species (ais). Fifteen of 16 funded projects remain active. Projects range from deploying an integrated pest management (ipm) strategy for treatment of eurasian watermilfoil in washington county to deploying a combination of mechanical and chemical treatment of starry stonewort (a rapidly spreading algae) at lake koronis in stearns county. In cass county, inspectors are trained to "de-escalate" confrontations with recreationalists and to encourage good stewardship without inciting resistance or resentment. Voyageurs national park is working with native american communities to restore native cattails while curtailing an invasive hybrid. These examples reflect the diversity of efforts that local partners are leading, and which have received commitments of up to $3. 5 million from the foundation through june 2019. Ais grant awards for 2017 totaled $2,035,915. Grantmaking and special initiatives: the initiative foundation awarded $3,357,104 in grants and scholarships to 260 organizations for all programs in aggregate. The foundation is in its eighth year of co-facilitating the greater st. Cloud community pillars process in partnership with the central minnesota community foundation, st. Cloud state university, times media (st. Cloud times), morgan family foundation, united way of central minnesota and centracare foundation. The initiative has elevated issues such as developing pathways out of poverty, welcoming immigrants and refugees, supporting cradle-to-career workforce training and education, launching a regional aquatic center and recognizing the mississippi river as a key ecological, recreational and cultural asset for the region. We continue to participate in the philanthropic preparedness, resiliency, and emergency partnership (pprep) collaboration between the funders network, center for disaster philanthropy and the margaret a. Cargill foundation. The pprep program helps to build the capacity of community foundations to support hometowns in times of crisis. The foundation in 2017 devoted resources to updating the disaster preparedness workbook, using what we learned from multiple disasters in our region, including the wadena tornado, kanabec county floods, and the fire that devastated downtown melrose. During the process, we engaged the nonprofit and private sectors of central minnesota and local units of government, and used their knowledge and feedback in updating our workbook.

economic development/business lending:economic development: the initiative foundation provided $2. 68 million to fund new loans and investments during 2017. The effort leveraged $45. 2 million from private sources. We estimate that this volume of loans contributed significantly to the creation of 75 jobs and the retention of 67 jobs. We continued to provide support to ensure that our entire region has access to micro-lending programs through partners that include region 5 development commission, southwest initiative foundation and st. Cloud state university. We maintain funding and referral relationships with the small business development centers located in our region. The economic development team continued to meet with a workgroup create a business support model to better serve new american entrepreneurs, with an initial focus on east africans based in st. Cloud. Enterprise academy will serve an initial class of entrepreneurs in february 2018. Focused outreach with community banks, chambers of commerce and volunteer business groups through our thriving communities initiative (tci) remains a priority to increase loan deal flow in all communities. We also focused on partnerships and capacity building for local economic development organizations. Support included strategic planning, linking to other funders and job creation opportunities, challenge grants to spur membership growth, and development of technology tools and/or programs to develop, attract and retain skilled workers.

communications & iq magazine:marketing and communications: the foundation in 2017 published four editions of initiative quarterly (iq) magazine. Circulation for the year averaged 13,500 per edition (against a 15,000 goal) with an estimated "pass-along" readership of up to 60,000. Iq advertising sales continue on an upward trend with a renewed emphasis on publishing consistency and new business development. The initiative foundation website at ifound. Org saw an average of 5,130 unique page views each month against a goal of 2,740. More than 62,200 individuals received information through email marketing. The foundation in 2017 also saw a 25 percent increase in social media following across all platforms (facebook, twitter, linkedin, instagram, pinterest) and published 19 news releases against a goal of 24, resulting in 361 stories/mentions-translating to 4. 4 million impressions.

administrative:the foundation's financial position is strong. The organization's endowment surpassed $50 million this year while the lending portfolio neared $15 million. During the past five years, net assets have grown from $50. 3 million to $66. 6 million. Endowed assets include $10 million associated with designated component funds and $42 million of general asset endowment assets. The foundation's spending policy guides endowment use. An allocation of 5 percent is drawn from general endowment each year to support programs and operations. Currently, this amount is $1. 9 million of the $6 million annual budget (which excludes loan activity). Other significant funding sources are provided by mcknight foundation ($1 million annually) and other foundation, state and federal grants, along with a small amount of earned income. The foundation ended 2017 at 121 percent of budget for total sources of funds and 102% for total uses of funds. Investment returns were strong (16%). The initiative foundation continues to seek grant funding resources from a variety of public and private entities for program support and operations.