Grantee Learning Logs

This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation Grant aimed at elevating the profile of microbusinesses, accessing data on needs and practices, and creating a pipeline to resources and funding. This important work is developing and testing an idea that has the potential to transform the ecosystem of support for microbusinesses that have not received adequate visibility or resources to date. ACER will uplift those unmet needs and work to improve the ability of public agencies to provide rapid response to microbusinesses impacted by crises.

This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation grant to align the stewardship of Pine Ridge tribal lands with community needs and aspirations. The next phase of the work is to form an innovative public/Native nation partnership that indigenizes conservation by bringing the Oglala Lakota peoples' perspective to co-management of the 133,000-acre, tribally owned portion of Pine Ridge Reservation, designated the South Unit of Badlands National Park. This work has the potential to transform the way Native nations manage and regain cultural connections to their lands within national park boundaries.

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