Grantee Learning Logs

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.

Conducting community deliberations to enhance inclusion among Brookings area businesses

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.

To build a community-based overdose prevention site in Minneapolis

To establish Minnesota Safe Harbor for All, a statewide effort to address sex trafficking and prostitution

Advance Care Planning and Palliative Care: Quality Conversations to guide End of Life decisions

To advance an interrelated food system that increases access to healthy foods and builds local wealth in Finland, Minnesota

To support five rural communities in south central Minnesota in developing a model of pairing economic development with inclusion through the Welcoming Communities Project

Implementation and evaluation of a rural grocery redistribution hub to demonstrate how distribution channels can be modified to improve rural food access and to benefit the regional economy

To elevate the profile of microbusinesses, access data on needs and practices, and create a pipeline to resources and funding

To develop a low-barrier housing model that can provide stable housing for individuals experiencing homelessness in Minneapolis, Minnesota

To support and rebuild immigrant-owned businesses in the Twin Cities

To facilitate a healing process that addresses long-standing shared trauma between Native and non-Native community members

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 supports the Minneapolis Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to expand the use of its community organizing model to protect consumers where payday lending is prevalent. This effort aims to make payday lenders modify terms of loan products under more competitive market conditions and transform how individuals access loans. This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation grant to support this work.

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

To develop a demonstration farm in Beadle County, South Dakota to improve soil and water health with input from producers such as farmers, ranchers and landowners in the James River Valley region

This grant builds on a previous Community Innovation Grant to surface innovative strategies that prevent gentrification and displacement. With this work, the Alliance and its partners hope to use the critical momentum around eviction prevention to explore and establish sustainable wins for renters in Minnesota that will provide benefit long after the temporary eviction moratorium ends.

To adapt and test an online learning model created for students with special needs, their parents, and paraprofessionals in rural southeast North Dakota school districts

To fund a coordinated social service system of care for low-income individuals called the Sioux Empire Network of Care

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

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

To increase access to adequate health care for rural school children in North Dakota by piloting school-based telehealth technology

To lead a statewide effort to increase the number of residents who participate in Advanced Care Planning in order to ensure that families and health care providers know and respect the wishes and goals of individuals at the end-of-life

To build sustainable educational efforts to improve services for sexual assault victims with disabilities, in partnership with the South Dakota Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities and Community Service for the Deaf

To assess the accuracy of current screening indicators as a predictor of successful tenancy and create more equitable, effective and accurate screening tools and an implementation plan

To further the collaborative development of equitable workforce solutions through an exchange between employers and residents on the East Side of Saint Paul

For a cross-sector community collaboration united together to solve the problems of drugs and alcohol abuse within the Karen community

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 facilitate the process of expanding community-based mental health support within three rural communities in South Dakota

Affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues in Western North Dakota. The influx of people arriving in Western North Dakota in search of jobs in the oil fields created an unprecedented demand on service providers. Williston, a community at the center of this rapid growth, experienced extraordinary burdens on services. In response, six churches in Williston, together with Community Action Partnership, Job Service ND, Veterans Administration, ND Veterans Department and the Williston Basin Resource Coalition, will collaborate on an effort to better understand and respond to this issue in their community and surrounding rural areas. Together, they will collect data about the homeless population in the area, present findings to community stakeholders, develop a plan to address the issue and test some of their ideas.

Realizing Well Care: Achieving a sustainable system for community-based chronic disease management and prevention

IN Equality: Testing a new model of partnership between community members and juvenile justice system leaders to find innovative alternatives to confining youth in institutions and to transform Ramsey County Juvenile Justice Practices

To solve the need for better access to affordable, culturally competent, quality early childhood education services (ECE) in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood (West Bank)

To build community collaboration and inspire action on climate change through rural climate dialogues

A pilot program to remove barriers to Native home ownership in South Dakota

To further develop a multi-tribal power authority and to plan workforce development of a utility-grade wind power installation

To engage communities in identifying factors contributing to high youth dropout and unemployment rates