Montana and Idaho Regional Centers Selected for 10-Year Partnerships to Reduce Poverty Long Term – Northwest Area Foundation to Provide at Least $11 Million to Each Partnership

Today, the Northwest Area Foundation marked the end of an 18-month competition by announcing its selection of two communities – one in Montana and one in Idaho – for 10-year partnerships focused on long-term poverty reduction. Partners for Prosperity, which developed a strategic plan for the 16-county regional center of Eastern Idaho, including Pocatello Falls, Idaho Falls and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, will receive $11 million during the life of the partnership. North Central Montana Community Ventures Coalition developed a plan for the 11-county North central Montana regional center, which includes the Blackfeet Tribe, the Chippewa Cree Tribe, and Gros Ventre/Assinaboine Tribe will receive $12 million. Partnership agreements should be finalized by March.

Four communities participated in the competitive process which culminated in each community developing and submitting a detailed strategic plan to address the root causes of poverty in their respective communities. Throughout the process, the Foundation stated it would select one, two or no plans from the competition. The Northwestern North Dakota regional center, which includes eight counties and the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold; and Northeastern Iowa regional center, which includes six counties and the Sac & Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, also submitted plans for consideration.

“This process was about more than economic development,” said Karl Stauber, CEO and president of the Northwest Area Foundation. “Each regional center reached wide and dug deep to make poverty reduction a priority in its region,” he said. “They worked hard to engage diverse perspectives, backgrounds, experiences and cultures; and they were tenacious not only to identify systemic problems that promote poverty, but also to recognize their many strengths, the regional assets, that will help develop sustainable solutions.”

“The selected entries clearly demonstrate community ownership and strategies to combine their region’s assets with foundation resources to do three things: better identify the reasons for entrenched poverty, create collaborations to develop solutions, and attract additional investments for long-term benefit,” said Stauber.

“We are excited to take our efforts to the next stage – to implement a plan that was developed by community members from all across this region, including those usually excluded from community planning” said Jessica Sotelo, director of Partners for Prosperity, Eastern Idaho Regional Center. “We feel our partnership will be a powerful catalyst for long-term poverty reduction,” she said.

“The 18-month-long competitive process changed our community because it required us to reach out and include widely-diverse segments of our region,” said Peggy Beltrone, Co-Chair, Steering Committee, Montana Community Ventures. “We broke through racial and social barriers to include new perspectives, and we are committed to getting more of our community involved,” she said. “We are eager to enter a partnership that will help this region get out, and stay out of poverty.”

Each entry was carefully evaluated against six criteria:

• Significant focus on poverty reduction. This includes a community definition of poverty that helped each community develop its strategies and determine how it would measure success. The plan needed to show how those in the lowest economic quartile would experience increased ability to participate in the growth and life of the community.

• Substantial involvement of diverse interests. The plan had to demonstrate participation by a wide diversity of people, including those not usually at the planning table due to racial, educational, economic or social barriers.

• Do not harm. The strategies would not contribute to a decrease in its overall social, cultural, economic, and environmental well-being, nor would they contribute to an increase in poverty in another community.

• Thoughtful and realistic strategies for accomplishing community goals. These had to be designed from the community’s vision for the future; address poverty in a systemic way; incorporate flexibility and benchmarks; and be sustainable.

• Development of local abilities to achieve long-term community goals. Plan had to identify the local resources – people, organizations, institutions – available and willing to invest time, talent and energy in the strategies.

• Learning and adapting in response to new knowledge and changing circumstances. The plan had to show how strategies could adjust to accommodate new information and experience. It also had to explain how lessons would be shared within the community and with other communities.

The Foundation has four, established partnerships: NorthWay Community Trust, in north Minneapolis, Minnesota; Miner County Community Revitalization, South Dakota; Central Oregon Partnership; and the Indian Land Tenure Foundation. An additional six partnerships are currently being explored and are expected to be established within the next year. A competitive process is not being used in these instances.

Candidate communities are selected based on their economic need, the opportunity for the Foundation’s resources to have an impact on change, and the potential for lessons learned in one community to be transferred to another community. The Foundation typically provides up to two years of intensive technical assistance as the candidate works to engage community members, develop common vision and goals, and then develop its strategic plan. If the Foundation approves the plan, it enters into a 10-year partnership with the community.

The competitive process was used in this instance in an effort to provide more communities with an opportunity to develop strategic plans for sustainable change. Each of the four regional centers that participated was provided up to $600,000 in planning support. The communities not selected for partnership may continue to apply what remaining planning dollars might be in reserve, and will provide the Foundation with feedback on the process.

Contacts:

• Eastern Idaho regional center: Jessica Sotelo, Director, Partners for Prosperity, 208-282-5792, or 208-681-0318.

• Northeastern Iowa regional center: Stacy Van Gorp, Project Director, Opportunity Works, 319-226-3560.

• North Central Montana regional center: Peggy Beltrone, Steering Committee Co-chair, North Central Montana Community Ventures Coalition, 406-454-6814.

• Northwestern North Dakota regional center: Mitch Monson, Project Coordinator, Northwest Venture Communities, Inc., 701-837-6102.

The Northwest Area Foundation, headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., helps communities reduce poverty in its eight-state region: Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. These states were served by the Great Northern Railway, founded by James J. Hill. In 1934, Hill’s son, Louis W. Hill established the foundation. The Foundation has approximately $367.67 million in assets. Additional information about the Northwest Area Foundation can be found at its website, http://www.nwaf.org.

Sylvia Burgos

Northwest Area Foundation

651.225-7704

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Montana lands anti-poverty grant $12 million fund expected to leverage another $75 million for northcentral Montana

By PETER JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Writer

Northcentral Montana won a $12 million economic development grant Monday, elating members of an anti-poverty coalition.

The 10-year grant from the Minnesota-based Northwest Area Foundation is expected to leverage $75 million through other grants and fund-raising, officials said.

"We are elated," said Cascade County Commissioner Peggy Beltrone, who was co-chairwoman of the North Central Montana Community Ventures Coalition steering committee.

"We worked hard over more than two years and came up with a very competitive plan to reduce poverty in our area, which was the largest, poorest and most diverse of the four areas competing for grant money," she said.

The coalition had applied for the huge grant to help reduce poverty and boost economic development in 11 northcentral Montana counties and three Indian reservations.

"Although $12 million is a huge amount of money, the needs in Northcentral Montana overshadow that amount 10-fold," Beltrone said.

"We realize that we need to make this money work toward real system changes in such areas as health care and housing, rather than helping individuals," she said.

The Northwest Area Foundation, established by heirs of Great Northern Railroad founder James J. Hill, also awarded a similar, $11 million grant to a 16-county area in Eastern Idaho.

"This process is about more than economic development," said Karl Stauber, CEO and president of the foundation. "Each regional center reached wide and dug deep to make poverty reduction a priority in its region.

"They worked hard to engage diverse perspectives and cultures, and they were tenacious not only to identify systemic problems that promote poverty, but also to recognize their many strengths that will help develop sustainable solutions," he said.

The foundation selected the Montana and Idaho proposals based on a combination of their need, opportunity to help and potential impact, he said.

Next, the steering committee will get more details of how the program funding will work in a conference call next week with foundation officials, said Beltrone. Partnership agreements will be signed in March.

The foundation will continue to provide support as the coalition develops specific boards and ways to put its ideas into practice.

As an example, Beltrone said the coalition wouldn’t necessarily use the money to supplement existing government or community programs, such as food banks, but might start a food bank and find ways to support it in an area that lacked one.

Similarly, she said, the coalition found that the single greatest barrier to succeeding was lack of access to good health care. Providing health insurance for thousands of people or increasing the treatment capacity of rural clinics would be out of reach for $1.2 million a year, she said.

But a study showed that Native Americans in the region receive some $13 million less in health care benefits from the federal government than a similar number of federal military of civilian employees would get, she said.

"We can be an advocate for the federal government to change that disparity," Beltrone added.

Her co-chairman, Blackfeet tribal planning officer and former state legislator George Heavy Runner of Browning, was attending a San Francisco housing conference and couldn’t be reached for comment.

But fellow Blackfeet planner and coalition member Mike LaMere said he was "kind of stunned at news of the grant after so much hard work."

"When we were first invited to start this process by the foundation nearly three years ago, it meant some white communities coming together with tribes to talk about poverty for the first time," LaMere said. "It took a while before we could talk with each other with confidence."

LaMere said he foresees the coalition grant as helping the Blackfeet Reservation in several ways, such as developing better youth and social service programs.

"We’ll also be looking at the area economy as a region, not just as individual tribes or counties," he said. "Maybe we can do a regional tourism market study and help develop more tourism related businesses."

Paul Tuss of Havre, executive director of Bear Paw Development, called the grant "very big news for northcentral Montana."

"Hundreds of people in the 11 counties have worked very diligently over two years and overcome some large obstacles such as racism to geographical distance," Tuss said. "So the announcement is like crossing the tape first in a race and learning we won a pot of gold.

"But in the great scheme of things, if we just threw the $12 million over 10 years at poverty symptoms, it would be a drop in the bucket," he added. "We need to leverage the money, drawing more private contributions to implement our plan, which will cost $75 million.

"Economic development is just one key piece to the plan, which also covers strategies for improving health care access, housing availability and transportation," he said.

For instance, part of the plan calls for working with existing first-time homeowner programs to augment and expand them, Tuss said.

Another part would create a program in which savings by low-income people could be matched with private dollars. That enhanced saving would help them save for future needs, not just plan for crises, he said.

James Parker Shield of Great Falls, an advocate for urban and landless Indians, said he was "relieved we got the grant after all that hard work."

Shield, who helped with the economic development planning, said he was glad many economic development and private sector folks volunteered to help.

Some of the group’s ideas included spurring tourism-related businesses on the reservation and in smaller communities and creating revolving loan funds and business incubator counseling groups for business start-ups and expansions. Urban Indians wanting to start business particularly need help, Shield said, because many are ineligible for federal programs directed at Indian reservations.

Altogether, the planning report recommended more than 100 specific action steps to make improvements in seven major areas: health care, youth and family, economy, transportation, housing, education, and community and culture.

The foundation invested $600,000 to jumpstart the planning by the Montana and Idaho coalitions, as well as two other states that didn’t win grants.

In Montana, more than 400 people were involved, Beltrone said, including many low-income people who were interviewed.

"The foundation challenged us to involve people who are very low income so we could understand what they consider barriers to success," she said. "We have learned a great deal from their perspectives."

About 40 percent of the people actually involved in writing the report were Native Americans, she said.

"It was a cross-cultural and regional event that we hadn’t ever done before, involving urban and rural, Indian and non-Indian," Beltrone added. "Everybody involved in the coalition feels we made great strides toward becoming more united as a region."

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20031209/localnews/3406.html