New Northwest Area Foundation Report Describes Evolution of Its New Mission

Northwest Area Foundation, St. Paul, has released a new report that reviews the foundation’s deliberate evolution in the first few years of a new mission: Helping communities in its eight-state region reduce poverty.

The report, "Focusing for Impact," describes the first six years of a 10-year process to change the way the foundation does business. In the mid-1990s, the foundation was awarding two- to three-year grants in 39 categories ranging from the arts to medical research to agriculture to poverty reduction. It annually reviewed thousands of inquiries and requests, ultimately funding slightly over 100 grants a year

In 1996, the board of directors and president questioned the cumulative effect of the foundation’s assets on the region. The board, senior management and staff participated in an intensive, two-year planning process that dramatically changed the way the foundation made its grants. Beginning in 1999, Northwest Area Foundation directed all distributions to realize its poverty-reduction mission in two ways: By working directly with communities to help them develop and implement sustainable strategies, and by gathering lessons learned and sharing them with others.

The foundation decided "community" would be its field of action and evaluation, based on the belief that a community’s chance for success increases if it owns its poverty reduction initiatives. The foundation decided to work with select communities through three programs: Ventures, which enters into 10-year partnerships with a small number of communities; Horizons, which provides small rural communities with support to strengthen leadership systems; and Connections, which develops practical tools, strategies and services communities can use to advance their poverty-reduction efforts.

"Focusing for Impact" describes how the lessons learned by Northwest Area Foundation have lead to strategic decisions that focus the foundation’s programs for increased social and economic impact, with emphasis on rural and Indian Reservation communities. It also describes how the foundation arrived at four outcomes communities must achieve if they are to reduce poverty for the long term:

To download the report (PDF, 30 pages), visit the Northwest Area Foundation’s Web site.