Our Stories
Message from President/CEO Sherry E. Ristau
SWIF Response to Economic Situation
The financial landscape has changed dramatically within the past few months. It has impacted many of us – our families, communities, businesses and the Southwest Initiative Foundation.
The Foundation was founded as a permanent resource for the 18-counties of southwest Minnesota in 1986 in response to that era’s economic crisis. Core to the Foundation’s mission are the endowment funds, permanent resources that are invested for long-term growth and provide income vital to support our programs and services. Over the years, we have navigated a number of down markets but remained strong because our investment strategies emphasized long-term stability over short-term gains.
We will survive this current economy. We need to be prudent, realistic and patient. We will keep our disciplined, long-term investment approach. We will search for and implement cost-saving measures while continuing to provide our constituents with outstanding service. We will work toward our mission of being a catalyst by facilitating opportunities and challenging leaders to build on the region’s assets. We will remain a strong and vibrant organization.
We are blessed to be part of a region that, since the days of its earliest pioneers, supported its people during turbulent times. This time of economic turbulence creates an opportunity for increased and focused philanthropy. Now more than ever, contributions to the Southwest Initiative Foundation will help ensure that our region continues to be a wonderful place to live, work and do business.
Please contact Southwest Initiative Foundation President/CEO Sherry E. Ristau or Chief Operating Officer Diana Anderson at 1-800-594-9480, 320-587-4848 or e-mail us with questions. We thank you for your support.
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The McKnight Foundation Awards $3 million in Funding for Early Childhood Initiative
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| The Early Childhood Initiative will be expanding into 12 new communities statewide thanks to the generous support of The McKnight Foundation. |
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The six Minnesota Initiative Foundations, including the Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF), are excited to announce the expansion of the Minnesota Early Childhood Initiative (ECI), a statewide network of coalitions focused on quality care and educational opportunities for children ages birth to five, thanks to another phase of funding from The McKnight Foundation. McKnight announced their decision to award $3 million to ECI in February. New funding will expand the initiative from 66 to 78 coalitions statewide in the coming year.
In a nutshell, the initiative offers a unique opportunity for communities to build teams of people from different perspectives that have an interest in making a positive impact on behalf of their youngest citizens. The community organizing process allows these teams to carefully look at the assets, opportunities and partnerships currently available to youngest children and their families and craft strategic action plans that are reflective of the unique nature of their community.
“The organizing process is equally important to SWIF and McKnight as are the actual projects implemented by coalition teams,” said Sara Carlson, SWIF program officer for ECI. “We look forward to working with new communities that embrace the opportunity to build local leaders who focus on the critical early years for the next generation of southwest Minnesota, and seeing the creative ways they address the opportunities to make a real impact.”
Potential expansion sites may be a single community, a consortium of neighboring communities or an entire county within the 18-county region and may not include an already established coalition area. A competitive application process will be used, and interested communities must show substantial evidence of successful community efforts, embrace the community organizing process and demonstrate local capacity for leadership and engagement across a wide variety of community members in addition to local early care and education professionals and parents. Successful applicant communities will enter into a three-year partnership with SWIF for the process, technical assistance and implementation grant funds of $40,000 over the entire effort. A local cash match will also be required of these new expansion communities.
“Over our nearly six years of seeding ECI coalition teams across the region, we’ve learned that communities can position themselves to sustain their efforts beyond our grant funding,” Carlson said. “Our most successful teams have embraced this opportunity and SWIF has come alongside them to further assist in leveraging local investments that impact our future leaders and neighbors.”
Communities interested in beginning the formal application process for ECI expansion should begin by completing a simple online Pre-Application Questionnaire. The application process will take place this spring, and the selected expansion coalitions will be named this summer and begin the grassroots community organizing process in September 2008.
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