Our Stories
Celebrating 25 Years of Opportunities, Impact and Growth
For 25 years, the Southwest Initiative Foundation has been impacting
communities, businesses, organizations and families in southwest Minnesota.
As one of six regional funds founded by The McKnight Foundation in response
to the 1980s economic crisis, we were created to provide financial resources,
creative leadership and most importantly, hope for a brighter future.
Since our inception, we’ve seen amazing things happening—people
throughout the region are supporting our businesses, investing in our
youngest citizens, energizing our future, capturing our community spirit and
leveraging our resources—and we believe with great certainty that the future
of southwest Minnesota is filled with great promise.
Here are just a few of our region's many great stories...
Supporting Our Businesses
Southwest Minnesota is home to Main Street shops, multi-generational family businesses,
booming corporations and international companies. When these businesses thrive, so
do communities – and technology plays an increasing role in their success.
More than ever, people rely on electronic communication, websites and social media
to find information, products and customers. Granite Falls-based MVTV Wireless President Dan Richter says high-speed broadband internet is no longer a luxury for
businesses and rural communities – it’s a necessity. And that’s why MVTV continues to
find new ways to make it available.
 MVTV is a nonprofit, member-owned corporation providing Wireless Broadband
Internet Service, which works by transmitting information from a tower, or access point,
rather than a phone line or cable. Not having to bury lines to each home or business
allows for a more cost effective way to provide internet to more people, especially in a
rural setting. MVTV’s member-based model also helps keep costs lower for consumers.
More than 3,200 subscribers throughout 16,000 square miles of central and southwest
Minnesota currently receive MVTV service and those numbers are growing. MVTV staff see
their work as a way to help businesses, support job growth and keep people in the region.
From the beginning, the Southwest Initiative Foundation’s (SWIF) loan funds have
been a unique tool to support these same efforts. Providing gap financing through
multiple loan programs is a way to directly impact businesses and help strengthen
local economies. Along with business financing, SWIF’s education, networking
opportunities and technical assistance through the award-winning Entrepreneurship
Initiative and Microenterprise Loan Program provides options to meet the diverse
needs of entrepreneurs and businesses during any stage including start-up, expansion
and transition.
In 2000 and 2001, MVTV received loans from SWIF’s Revolving Loan Fund to help
finance an expansion. These funds helped fill the gap of what was needed for the
project and what MVTV’s bank partners could provide. Dan credits SWIF for their
important role in the project, as well as the Small Business Development Center, for
giving him confidence and assistance to successfully move MVTV forward.
 Support to MVTV not only fit SWIF’s business
development programming at the time but also
aligned with a new technology initiative. In 2000, SWIF
launched the Rural Technology and Telecommunications
Project (TNT) to help businesses, communities and individuals understand
and implement telecommunications technology. While this is no longer one of
SWIF’s initiatives, effects of these efforts can be seen as support for increased
technology accessibility expands throughout the state.
MVTV continues to expand to improve service as well. They received a Pilot
Broadband Loan from the Rural Utilities Service Broadband Initiative Program
in 2002 and were recently awarded funding through the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act, which is supporting updates to the current system, new
access points that will nearly double its service area, and the addition of 1,500
new customers.
In response to customer inquiries, MVTV also recently began offering Web design
and hosting, providing a needed vehicle to get businesses online at an affordable
cost. Through a connection made at a SWIF business education seminar, Dan was
able to create a partnership with Hutchinson-based Vivid Image to create basic
websites that MVTV then markets and manages for its customers.
MVTV’s dedication to quality and accessibility are helping keep rural Minnesota
connected – and supporting businesses, families and communities through
their innovation and investments.
Photos: MVTV Wireless technicians like Luke Richter get a unique view of rural Minnesota from their service towers throughout the region.
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Investing in Our Youngest Citizens
Books and television don’t usually go well together but a creative project of the Willmar
Early Childhood Initiative (ECI), one of the Southwest Initiative Foundation’s 14 coalition
communities, has them aligned for success.
In partnership with the WRAC 8 local access television channel, Willmar ECI produces
20 to 25 minute shows where books are read on-camera and aired throughout the
week. Read Along offers quality learning time without hands-on interaction by
parents, guardians and child care providers—during lunch or dinner preparation, for
example—and encourages reading as entertainment.
In addition to being a replicable project, Read Along provides opportunities to easily
engage other community leaders as readers, including those who read in both English
and Spanish. And coalition coordinator Jodi Wambeke says many people—from child
care providers to nursing home residents—say they enjoy the show.
There are no limits to who benefits when a community invests in its youngest citizens.
As Willmar ECI knows firsthand, there’s also no limit to creating lasting impact when
creativity and collaboration are involved.
Photo: Rudy Vigil and Jodi Wambeke use their talent, time and
energy to produce Willmar ECI’s Read Along programs.
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Energizing Our Future
A passing glance at hundreds of wind turbines dotting the horizon shows renewable energy
has a place in southwest Minnesota. It also has a place for southwest Minnesota youth.
 Since 2007, the award-winning Youth Energy Summit (YES!) program of the Southwest
Initiative Foundation and Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center, Spicer, has
educated students about energy opportunities and issues while inspiring them to
get involved in their communities. In 2009, Prairie Ecology Bus Center, Lakefield, was
added as a partner to support additional teams, including Windom.
The Windom YES! team’s energy action project featured research and construction of a
vertical axis wind turbine at the Windom Area High School. Students learned first-hand
by constructing the turbine—doing everything from wiring to welding—themselves.
They also developed presentations to teach fifth and sixth graders about wind energy
development and hopefully foster continued excitement for the program.
YES! shows students—our next generation of entrepreneurs, engineers, farmers,
educators and community leaders—why they should take more than a glance at what
their future in southwest Minnesota can be.
Photo: The Windom YES! team educated students and community members to build momentum for their projects.
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Capturing Our Community Spirit
Southwest Minnesota communities are filled with caring, active, generous and
hardworking people who want to make a difference. Individuals approach
opportunities and challenges with a can-do spirit. Businesses give back. Organizations
engage citizens to get things done.
These qualities are also shared by the Southwest Initiative Foundation’s (SWIF) 21
community foundation partners, including the Balaton Area Community Foundation
(BACF). SWIF’s community foundation program helps local, volunteer leaders organize
common goals, build energy around positive change and retain wealth in order to
meet local needs.
Founded in 2007, the BACF mission states it is “dedicated to making Balaton a growing
and healthy community by providing opportunities for everyone to impact the present
and invest in the future.”
 Some may find this a pretty lofty goal for nine community members with additional
family, work, church, school and service organization commitments. But if you need
convincing that this group is making an impact, look no further than Lions Park.
Frequented by playful children and adults using the picnic shelter, Lions Park is located in
the heart of Balaton. In June 2009, BACF began fundraising for the playground and was
able to raise enough money to replace the outdated set with newer and safer equipment.
The outcome one year later—a welcoming spot for Balaton youth—isn’t the only
benefit to this project. BACF Board Chair Del Rutz noted its visibility raises awareness
about BACF and ways for others to get involved in its efforts.
The playground project helps community members envision other improvements
and changes that can be accomplished through generous financial support and
many helping hands. This helps BACF work on another goal—fundraising for their
endowment.
An essential component to SWIF’s community foundation program is creating an
endowment fund, or permanent fund, whose dollars are invested and only the interest
earnings spent. This approach ensures BACF will have the financial resources to support
worthy causes well into the future.
 As of June 2010, BACF’s endowment totaled more
than $70,000. Local fundraising efforts have been
enhanced by two challenge grant opportunities. SWIF offers a challenge
grant of up to $25,000 at the start of each new community foundation
partnership. In addition, The Schwan Food Company awarded a challenge
grant of up to $25,000 for gifts to the endowment. Headquartered in
Marshall, the company has a desire to support communities where their
employees reside and offered a similar match to the Marshall Community
Foundation in 2005.
A larger endowment means larger investment returns…and more money
available for grantmaking.
As the playground equipment started going up, BACF was also helping
another group of citizens feel more at home. BACF awarded its first
endowment grant of $750 to Balaton Colonial Manor for upgrades in
residents’ rooms.
Projects that may otherwise not take place find momentum and means
through local community foundations, helping quality people give back
to create an even better quality of life.
Photos: Dennis Swan,
Gayle Kaup, Del Rutz and others volunteered many hours fundraising,
planning and assembling
the new playground
equipment in Balaton’s Lions Park.
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