Grantee Learning Logs

OutFront Minnesota Community Services will work to make schools safe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth by building community-based leadership teams across the state of Minnesota and organizing a youth summit for youth from across the state to share ideas and strategies for making schools safer.

The Fargo-Moorhead Coalition for Homeless Persons (in a formal alliance with the North Dakota Coalition for Homeless People, the West Central Minnesota Continuum of Care and multi-state community partners) will create a coordinated assessment and referral system to more effectively assess, shelter and house people who are experiencing or are at risk of homelessness in their community.

The Wagner Area Horizons Team will engage both Native and non-Native people who live in Wagner on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in a series of conversations and workshops about race. This will include developing and sharing a new curriculum for understanding differences in Native and non-Native leadership.

MAVA will convene conversations with partners, cities, volunteer managers, volunteers and citizens interested in building new strategies to engage a diverse citizenry in community problems. They will develop strategies and curriculum to train cities throughout Minnesota to grow citizen volunteerism in problem solving and public service.

Connector Academy and Lab,' a project of the Cleveland Neighborhood Association, will train residents to become leaders in their community and make change in their neighborhood. Residents will work together, learn from one another and support one another in creating innovative community-building projects.

The Promise Neighborhood – Central Minnesota will lead community engagement and capacity building efforts to achieve educational, economic and community aspirations in the Talahi neighborhood in St. Cloud.

The 'Public Art and Community Engagement Project' will advance the development of vibrant public spaces and public art in Fargo-Moorhead to more strongly connect citizens with the community and each other.

The Autism Society of Minnesota will engage public school educators and parents of and students with disabilities to improve student outcomes in employment and post-secondary education.

Teen Up,' an initiative of Partnership Rapid City, will create online youth engagement technology, provide opportunities for youth to participate in city planning and cultivate all that youth have to offer by engaging them in service and in advisory and leadership roles throughout the community.

United Way of Steele County will examine disparities in income, education and health among low-income residents and people of color in Steele County. They will also design and implement a collaborative, multi-sector initiative at the intersection of these disparities to create change in their community.

Main Street Square will research, develop and implement a successful community arts collaborative and clearinghouse that will create a sustainable, equitable future for the arts and artists in Rapid City.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will hold talking circles and lead a community assessment to guide the development of a network of home and community-based service providers who qualify for Medicare and state reimbursement programs. This network will help elders and adults with disabilities in their community continue living independently.

The Barbara Schneider Foundation will work together with four Native nations--Red Lake Nation, White Earth Nation, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and Rosebud Sioux Tribe--to create culturally distinct programs for prevention of and intervention in mental health crisis and wellness recovery. Each Nation will identify strengths, needs, priorities and barriers to wellness, and develop a collaborative response plan for their community.

This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation grant. Helpline Center will test the coordinated social services delivery model they developed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in two new cities: Brookings and Watertown. They will document their efforts to share with others. The work in Sioux Falls has been very successful and as the state explores what is possible for a statewide system, having two medium-sized towns pilot the Sioux Falls model will further contribute to the efforts to build a statewide network.

To create a rural community and economy that exists at the intersection of food, art and entrepreneurship

To identify community-led strategies to address homelessness in the Minneapolis Native American community

To host a monthly community forum, encouraging the community to share ideas and thoughts on how to improve the economic, social and cultural status of the city of Two Harbors

To mobilize a collaborative effort to ensure families receive meals during the COVID-19 outbreak

A collaborative process for landscape conservation in Western North Dakota

To develop long-term, community-based, proactive solutions to climate change in order to reduce vulnerability and reinforce the strengths of people, infrastructure and institutions of Moorhead-Fargo

To create capacity and support for African American businesses to survive and recover during COVID-19

To partner with justice-involved youth and their families in Itasca County to design and pilot a whole-family solution led by Itasca County Public Health that is appropriate, sustainable, and impactful

To promote high quality research relevant to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians that will advance the tribe's problem solving capacity and economic development, and uphold its positive images

Mni Wizipan Wakan (Water Bundles) Project to manage and protect water rights

To create a fund and fill gaps in resources accessible to immigrant and undocumented communities in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic

To identify short-term and long-term collective strategies to address the opioid epidemic and create a regional hub for treatment and family services for people addicted to opioids in the Minot North Dakota area

Studies show that high quality out-of-school-time programs really make a difference in the lives of young people. However, young people of color and from families with lower income access these programs at lower rates. Urban Arts Academy is creating “Agents of Change”: a highly collaborative, sustainable youth program model fueled by youth-driven engagement. The 20 organizations in the Agents of Change collaborative believe that they will better serve youth and families in the Bancroft, Bryant Central and Powderhorn neighborhoods of Minneapolis if they truly listen to youth and work together.

To address critical gaps in North Dakota’s behavioral healthcare system using data, evidence and innovative financing

To unite MHA Nation community segments in Fort Berthold Reservation and overcome isolation

Tribal community conversations to identify the need for and methods of improving the competency of Lay Advocates who represent parties in criminal and civil cases before six tribal courts in North Dakota and Minnesota

To strengthen the South Dakota One Health Producer/Provider/Veterinarian Network (PPV Net) to more effectively communicate information regarding zoonotic disease and other public health issues among livestock producers, medical providers and veterinarians in an effort to improve the quality and continuity of healthcare among both human and animal populations in South Dakota

The Latino Economic Development Center leads a collaborative that includes a broad range of immigrant business owners who are served by the African Economic Development Solutions, Council on American-Islamic Relations - MN Chapter, and African Development Center. This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation Grant effort that supports the collaborative's long-term strategy to transform past disinvestment in the immigrant community. Collaborators will provide immediate access to financial resources to impacted immigrant business owners and rural areas.

The BrandLab would like to see the Twin Cities develop the most inclusive and diverse marketing industry in the nation. There is still a long way to go to realize that vision, but the BrandLab is committed to this cause through their Fearless Leaders work. This highly collaborative initiative, guided by a diverse group of professionals from Twin Cities marketing and creative firms, will focus on developing and facilitating workshops for local firms about diversity and inclusion. BrandLab’s biennial “State of the Industry” report is an important tool to measure and share the progress of this work.

To work with local growers and food service directors in building a hub that will aggregate and distribute local foods to schools, healthcare organizations and other nonprofits in the region

To collectively develop solutions to solve the Personal Care Assistants crisis

To facilitate the expansion of Minnesota’s Safe Harbor laws to include labor trafficking

This grant supports the Native American Community Clinic to adapt its telehealth visit model to meet an urgent need for coordinated health care for Native Americans living in Minneapolis. This work will transform the existing health care system serving Native Americans, prepare for when extra state funding ends and a possible recurrence of COVID-19. This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation grant to support this work.

This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation Grant for the Mni Wizipan Wakan (Water Bundles) Project. This work aims to manage and protect water rights on the Ihanktonwan (Yankton) Reservation by creating a political, scientific and legal basis for tribal-federal government co-management of the landscape and hydroscape of the Missouri River Cultural Basin that passes through tribal lands. This grant supports developing and testing an idea that has the potential to transform the way tribes manage water.