Grantee Learning Logs

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.

Expand and embed an innovative partnership model between community members and juvenile justice system leaders to transform Ramsey County justice system practices

Dakod Ohna Wasagic’iyapi, to strengthen yourself through the Dakota language

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

Partners in Change: Building Resiliency within Minnesota’s Muslim Community, and Equipping Communities to Respond to and Prevent Bias in Greater Minnesota

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

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 address structural oppression, institutional racism and systemic gaps in support for Indigenous and People of Color in the Bemidji area through the Healing for Justice (Gwekendam) process

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

A collaborative process for landscape conservation in Western North Dakota

To create a Community Investment Fund using an integrated capital model to promote access for black communities and work towards eliminating the racial wealth gap

For community engagement to advance social impact investing and equitable development in designated Opportunity Zones

To address housing insecurity and affordability affecting middle- and lower-income households in Rapid City, South Dakota

To develop culturally responsive social-emotional learning implementation framework and delivery mechanisms in North Dakota

To partner with justice-involved youth and their families in Itasca County to design and pilot a whole-family solution led by Itasca County Public Health that is appropriate, sustainable, and impactful

To develop a Domestic Violence High Risk Team in Minot, North Dakota

To develop long-term, community-based, proactive solutions to climate change in order to reduce vulnerability and reinforce the strengths of people, infrastructure and institutions of Moorhead-Fargo

To collaboratively develop a Muslim Chaplaincy program as a means to provide culturally grounded support to youth and families