Youth Leadership Institute (YLI), which serves both youth and youth-serving organizations, heeded this request. Nou Yang, current board chair, and Sally Brown, the board treasurer, worked together to take the program they’d help create, manage, and run and started the process to make it into an independent nonprofit.

A Strong Foundation

“We are a new nonprofit, but we are not new to this work or the community we serve,” Nou said. “The story started a long time ago and we have a strong foundation.”

The strong foundation came in the way of established partnerships, funders, and community relationships, in addition to thriving and impactful programs that created the important and rare space for youth to lead other youth.

Having worked in nonprofits for most of their careers, Nou and Sally turned to Propel’s Fiscal Sponsorship program to help fill in the gaps in their knowledge so they could create a resilient and sustainable organization.

Laura Ciotti, Propel’s Senior Fiscal Sponsorship Program Manager said, “Given their experience running YLI’s programs prior to coming to fiscal sponsorship with Propel, Nou and Sally had a strong foundation and understanding of their needs and goals. I was excited to see how they used Propel as a resource during their time in our fiscal sponsorship program to strengthen their financial management skills, secure sustainable funding, and build their confidence to launch as an independent nonprofit.”

The organization recently transitioned out of Propel’s Fiscal Sponsorship program after receiving their own 501c3 status. As the organization moves into the next phase, Nou and Sally are excited to continue doing what they know works: elevating youth voices and leadership.

“YLI is an adaptable organization that is creating a new model of leadership for youth of color in the Twin Cities. I’m really looking forward to seeing them continue to grow, thrive, and amplify youth voice and power,” Laura said.

Proven Programming

YLI is committed to developing changemakers in two ways:

1. Elevating youth voice and leadership, and
2. Building the capacity of individuals and organizations that work with youth.

In this work, both Nou and Sally said, they let the youth lead.

“Youth spend the majority of their time being told what to do and in YLI  they get to decide what they want to do and how to do it,” Nou said.

The impact of this work is far-reaching. Having worked with over 700 youth, they have seen how the community they have worked in has been changed by YLI and vice-versa.

“We have had the great opportunity to bring people together across differences, and because of our model, we’ve seen the youth learn from different viewpoints and perspectives which makes them stronger and more effective leaders,” Sally said.

Through their youth mentorship, leadership retreats, cultural sessions, and action teams, youth have many pathways to grow and be involved at YLI. You can learn more about their program offerings here: yli-mn.org/ourwork.

“As we continue to build on different levels of leadership, we really are creating the next generation of nonprofit leaders. They are getting a great deal of experience on how to facilitate, consult, and manage an organization, which is exciting for us to see,” Nou said.

Given their work to build their organization over the last three years, Nou and Sally invited youth into the process so they were able to have hands-on experience in managing an organization.

Nou and Sally both said it was important for them to build the capacity of young people and rely less on a single leader to hold knowledge in the organization.

“We do with youth what Propel does with clients,” Nou said. “We coach and support so that one day they can do it on their own.”

YLI and Fiscal Sponsorship

Through Propel’s Fiscal Sponsorship program, YLI focused on building their capacity in accounting and finance, and building the fundraising capacity of their organization.

“All the support we got through Propel made us feel like we are safer,” Sally said. “We knew we could ask questions and found support from others that made it feel less like we were out in the world of being a new nonprofit by ourselves.”

Nou and Sally reiterated that Propel’s fiscal sponsorship model allowed them to build their confidence as nonprofit leaders, which in turn they were able to share in some of their programming with youth. The support from the program was a fit for them because they knew they were ready to become an independent nonprofit but needed some help getting there.

Once they got their 501c3 status, they had the skills to use QuickBooks for nonprofits and implement other technical pieces that make a nonprofit run.

“We know that even though we are transitioning away from the program, we can always come back and ask questions and seek support, just like our youth can come back to us,” Nou said.

Next up for the organization, they are going to focus on building their human resources infrastructure, hiring staff, creating more communication and marketing plans, and growing their youth equity consulting and training services. To support or get involved with the Youth Leadership Initiative, you can learn more here: yli-mn.org/take-action.

The post Youth Leadership Initiative appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

“Music is a need to have, not a nice to have.  Music is foundational to supporting academic success,” says Walker|West executive director Braxton Haulcy.

Walker West Music Academy (Walker|West) is the oldest African American community music education school in the United States.  It was started in 1988 by musicians Rev. Carl Walker and Grant West in the historic Rondo Neighborhood.  A neighborhood which was torn apart by the demolition of numerous homes to make way for Interstate 94 in the late 1950s.  By the late 1980s the neighborhood had succumbed to the “crack cocaine” epidemic and had become an arts & culture desert.

Rev. Walker and Grant West answered the call to serve the Rondo Neighborhood, providing a safe place for children to engage in a positive life-affirming learning environment. The mission of the organization has always been, in one way or another, to bring the healing power music to its neighborhood.

Today, Walker|West has grown to meet the needs of the community thanks to dedicated faculty –all of whom are teaching performing artists, through partnerships, and enthusiastic student-musicians of all ages. With over 3,000 donors, they now have their sights currently set on a capital-campaign and connecting with higher-net worth donors to ensure students always have access to high-quality music education in their own neighborhood.

“Music is a need to have, not a nice to have.  Music is foundational to supporting academic success,” says Walker|West executive director Braxton Haulcy.

A Healing Force for the Community

“We are constantly working to meet students where they are,” Haulcy said.

The sentiment is true: the organization encourages students to play the kinds of music they are most interested in, and they try to meet them where they’re at. Literally. As they have grown over the past few years, they’ve formed partnerships with schools (i.e. WALKER|WEST WITHOUT WALLS) to ensure music education is available to those schools who have faced budget cuts in the neighborhood.

“We still have the ‘No Child Left Behind’ legacy in the Twin Cities, which excludes arts and music from the core school day curriculum in many of our elementary and middle schools. We know music education, and the students who have access to it, perform better academically,” Haulcy said.

“Minnesota has the second highest education opportunity gap in the nation between Black and White students, which I believe is directly tied to taking music out of schools.  Historically Black people have used music as a tool for communication and engagement.  Music is embedded in our DNA” Haulcy said.  With their partnerships, and ongoing outreach, Walker|West continues to develop relationships with schools and the surrounding community, so that students of all ages have access to music education.

Additionally, Walker|West hosts a concert series (i.e. RONDO COMMUNITY MUSIC SERIES) for adults and families.  They also have a dementia friendly gospel choir (AMAZING GRACE CHORUS) for people suffering from dementia and their caregivers.

“Music is central to healing and success for our community, especially in this time in the Twin Cities when we have dealt with both racial challenges and COVID-19,” Haulcy said.

In the early days of the pandemic, Walker|West didn’t miss a day of lessons. Ninety percent of students stayed taking lessons as everyone navigated the uncertainty and trauma of the months to come.

“We weren’t going to stop the music, and we didn’t,” Haulcy said.

In 2021, the organization was named one of ten Regional Cultural Treasures by the Ford & McKnight Foundation.

“This recognition was important because it acknowledged the impact Walker|West has had on the arts and culture landscape in Minnesota over multiple decades” Haulcy said.

Investing in a Legacy

In 2019, the organization underwent a major transformation with a strategic plan that had the organization bringing the power of music to all ages from infants to elders with its LifeLong Learning model.  During this transformation Walker|West significantly increased its community engagement to bring the power of music to our community and broaden our reach.

Additionally, they made it a priority to increase faculty wages and start a capital campaign for a new facility.  A significant part of the capital campaign is to increase staffing and program capacity to serve more students and families.

“As a BIPOC organization – Walker|West has been undercapitalized and underfunded.  The capital campaign will give us the opportunity to build new and sustainable relationships,” Haulcy said.

Working with Propel

Propel and Walker|West have a strong history. Most recently, the organization took advantage of Propel’s Recovery Capital Loan product to ensure operations could continue to run smoothly while they address cash flow concerns from a reimbursable grant.

“Propel has always been a good partner to us,” Haulcy said.

“They’re willing to help us solve problems, and they understand our work,” he said.

Support Walker|West

You may choose to donate to the general operations, underwrite a student scholarship, or make a significant donation toward the Walker|West’s Power of Music to Heal our Community Capital Campaign.

The school is registered with the state of Minnesota as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations to support our mission and operations are tax-deductible.

Donate here: walkerwest.org/donate.

The post Walker West Music Academy appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

“Duluth is full of crafting inspiration. We’re at the start of the Northland, between the prairies of central Minnesota and the North woods, right on the big lake, and a product of many cultures,” said Carmel DeMaioribus, co-Founder, and current Board Treasurer of Duluth Folk School.

DeMaioribus says every town should have a folk school. Duluth Folk School, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was created in 2015 to fill a need in the Duluth community to help people learn how to work with their hands, everything from making canoe paddles, felting wool, keeping bees, sharpening knives, bicycle maintenance, to brewing beer.

“It is so satisfying to learn skills and work with your hands, and to do so with others is especially nice,” DeMaioribus said. “Building together is a great way to connect with people, and it helps preserve traditions and knowledge, and also creates a more self-sufficient, sustainable, and joyful community.”

A Sustainability Ethos

The trim of the windows in the current Folk School building was repurposed from wood of the original building, built in 1915. When a local school was selling furniture and other items, the staff of the Folk School bid on a whole science classroom. Even tabletops are made of flooring from an old church. This kind of sustainability – what DeMaioribus calls a “sustainability ethos” – permeates the handcrafting community of the school and helped to inform the way the organization wanted to grow.

“We have had so many things going on at Duluth Folk School that it sometimes felt like an unwieldy beast,” DeMaioribus said. “But now, we are all feeling like we are on the same page as a board and staff, and it is really exciting.”

Duluth Folk School is at the beginning of implementing a new strategic plan, created in partnership with Propel, that aims to expand programming, invite new teachers in, and create lasting relationships with community members who might not have thought of themselves as handcrafters in the past.

And, though it was hard to have him go, one of the founding directors left the school earlier this year for another opportunity, making the relationships created between board and staff during their strategic planning process more important than ever.

A Solid Plan

In late 2021, Duluth Folk School joined Propel’s Capacity Building Initiative: Greater Minnesota. Organizations were given the opportunity to identify a project and work with a member of Propel’s Strategic Consulting team to either plan or implement it. Duluth Folk School took the opportunity to create a strategic plan.

“We are a community-run organization, and that means there are a lot of dreams and visions; what this process helped us do was get on the same page and have a shared vision of what the organization could be,” DeMaioribus said.

“It felt good to have someone with a lot of experience with nonprofits come in and give suggestions, facilitate conversations, and give feedback,” she said. Without it, she thinks they would’ve felt a little lost.

As the board processed what to move forward and implement, the staff at Propel also connected the organization with someone who could provide accounting and financial guidance and assistance.

“Like many nonprofit leaders, we came to this work because we are passionate about our mission, but less knowledgeable about other aspects of the business, so it was great to find someone we trust to help us sort out some of our financial reporting; I am grateful to Mario for making those recommendations,” DeMaioribus said.

DeMaioribus and her fellow board members are having fun and sharing energy about the plans they have laid.

“What I really want is for everyone– our amazing community and visitors alike– to stop by and see the great things we’ve got going on here, to share a meal, and to join in the fun of learning something new and working with their hands,” she said.

How to get involved

There are many ways to get involved at Duluth Folk School:

• Take a class
• Teach: Instructors are the backbone of the Folk School’s community
• Stop by the café: Coffee roasted on premises; fresh baked goods; craft beer; and delicious food)
• Come visit
• Donate: Donations are very gratefully appreciated

Thank you to Carmel DeMaioribus and board members of the Duluth Folk School for their contributions to this story.

The post Duluth Folk School appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

Iyer, who has been the Executive Director at ILCM for 4 years, has used her time to grow the capacity of the organization to be agile and adaptable when moments like this one arise.

Honoring the work that’s been done

For over 25 years, ILCM has worked across the state of Minnesota to provide quality, free immigration legal assistance to low-income immigrants and refugees in Minnesota. ILCM also works to educate Minnesota communities and professionals about immigration matters, and advocates for state and federal policies which respect the universal human rights of immigrants. The organization is a major resource to many, and when Iyer took over as executive director in 2019, she knew she had to act boldly to show up for clients and other nonprofits doing critical advocacy work.

“When I started at ILCM, I joined an informal group of other executive directors who were also taking over for long time founders, many of whom were white and had been at their organizations for years,” Iyer said. “I was looking to balance what had done in the past, with what else we could be doing, and it was refreshing to hear others were in the same boat.”

Something Iyer and her fellow nonprofit leaders knew was that to be successful as leaders and organizations, they were going to need to do things differently than they’d been done before.

Financial leadership & planning for adaptability

Iyer and her staff went through a strategic planning process in 2022 where they asked themselves an important question: How could they make sure they had the resources they needed right now, AND grow the work they do?

At the time, the organization was looking at the future of their work in regard to immigration. Who would be in power? What kind of changes would they need to be prepared for as they continued to serve people who benefit from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)? How could they prepare for deportation defense? What would their role be in serving Afghan refugees?

“Whatever came our way, we wanted to be able to gear up really quick to do those things,” Iyer said.

Iyer, a lawyer, advocate, and organizational leader, credits her time spent in Propel’s Financial Leadership Cohort as one of the things that prepared her to lead her organization through this time.

“The training was one of the best I have taken as an ED because I walked away with the tools to do my job better right away,” Iyer said.

Recovery capital and capacity

In 2021, Propel launched its Recovery Capital loan product, that provides flexible-use, long term capital funds to nonprofits. The loan proceeds could be used, for example, to bolster infrastructure and increase stability in organizations as they recovered from the pandemic, and the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd.

For some this meant business model updates, strategic infrastructure improvements or creating reserve funds. For others it means investing in new staff or other tools, to support an organization’s development capacity.

“We were in a time of great flux – and still are – when we decided to apply for a Recovery Capital Loan,” Iyer said. “We wanted to be able to create an environment where we could do our complex and often difficult work well and support our staff doing it.”

Iyer worked with Propel’s lending team to apply for a Recovery Capital Loan – a product that offers favorable terms, is partially forgivable, and was a way for the organization to invest strategically in their growth.

“We needed money to sustain our work and grow; it became clear we needed to invest in our fund development function, and do it responsibly,” Iyer said. “This loan allowed us to do that.”

ILCM hired a Development Director with the goal of diversifying funding sources, increasing revenue, and developing relationships with key stakeholders.

After nine months in the role, their Development Director has already brought on great systems and expertise to the team offering them the capacity to increase their impact.

Growth for ILCM means showing up for coalitions like Freedom to Drive MN and being able to handle complicated cases for the clients across the state.

“I think any executive director operates with a certain amount of fear and concern, but these investments have made those feel balanced for me,” Iyer said.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­Support ILCM

There are many ways to support ILCM:

• Donate: the organization is grateful to individuals and institutions; their generosity makes it possible for the staff and volunteers to support the community
• Volunteer: ILCM has opportunities for lawyers and paralegals, especially student internships and interns and volunteers in other areas
• Subscribe: ILCM sends out communications that keep you updated on our work, as well as current immigration issues in Minnesota and the U.S. and how you can take action
• Be a champion for immigrant voices in your community: “Listen to the immigration stories you hear and connect those stories to what needs to be fixed; we need individuals pushing their elected officials to transform the immigration system,” Iyer said.

The post Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

“We want mature women in main roles acting out the many complex stories and lives we embody,” said co-artistic director of PRIME Alison Edwards.

As the company has grown over the past six years, it became apparent that producing shows with roles for mature actresses – their original mission – also allowed them to begin work on changing the narrative about women over 50.

“We have an incredible opportunity to grow our mission,” Edwards said. “Our original mission was to produce plays that had more roles for women over 50 and employ the wealth of local talent for women over 50.”

She went on to explain that as they sought to produce shows, they began to see the opportunity to change the narrative – change the way people see women over 50, and to create productions that include and encourage the participation of all genders, races, sexual orientations and abilities. It is through these varied perspectives that a complete picture can emerge and be celebrated.

“Older women are traditionally portrayed in film, TV, and theater as the wife of the senator, and not the senator,” she said.

“We are notoriously depicted as not fashionable, dowdy, absent-minded, as stereotypes; and men are much less often likely to be portrayed that way. We want equal time and to be portrayed as the smart and interesting people we are.”

To achieve this goal, Edwards and her co-artistic director, Shelli Place, have sought to produce plays that don’t only focus on age, but stories where the playwright notes that characters should be played by people over 50.

“We read a lot of plays where the characters are sitting around the table talking about what they are going to do about their mother,” she said. And while that is one truth about aging and mature women, it isn’t the only one. It is played out.

Growing the mission

In 2022, the small company engaged with Propel to work on expanding their board.

“We focused our board to see what our needs were, but also giving us a path to achieve the goals we have in place as an organization,” Edwards said.

The organization, because it was used to pivoting having had to do so when COVID forced them to cancel their 2020 season, was used to moving from thing to thing, and not looking at the whole picture.

“We really had to ask ourselves – who do we need our board to make this process work, to make progress, and be successful.”

What’s next

The next production in PRIME’s 4^th season opens on March 29, 2023, at the Park Square Theatre where they will produce The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson.

“This is exciting for us as it is already progress toward many of our ongoing goals,” Edwards said.

The play features a Black character who is written into the script purposefully and features four women.

“We can cast women of color, or women with disabilities into many roles, but it is harder and more meaningful to find roles written for them,” Edwards said. “Diversity in many forms is important to us – our narrative change can’t happen unless we are telling the whole story.”

After this production, PRIME will turn its attention to fundraising for a play they want to workshop next – a play that features Latinx actresses and Spanish-speaking characters.

“Our shows are for everyone,” Edwards said. “I want people to come and see all the ways mature women rock; what I want is for women to feel empowered, husbands and partners to be entertained and to think differently, and for 17-year-old kids to see the bad asses their grandmothers are.”

Support PRIME

• Donations of any amount can be made at PRIME Production’s website.
• See a show: PRIME is proud to partner with Park Square Theatre to present The Revolutionists from March 29-April 16, 2023. Tickets are on sale now: http://www.primeprods.org/current-season

Photo: Alison Edwards & Greta Oglesby star in Roommate. Photo by Dan Norman. 

The post PRIME Productions appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

For the past two years, Ayada Leads participated in Propel’s Capacity Building Initiative for Family Engagement (CBIFE). This 2-year program, slated to begin just before the pandemic began in 2020, engaged a cohort of 12 nonprofits and/or fiscally sponsored organizations in a participant-driven capacity building model to empower families in K-12 educational systems.

The intent of CBIFE was to help participants deepen their efforts to engage families, and ultimately, create more culturally responsive, welcoming, and hospitable schools for BIPOC families by strengthening their internal capacity.

Why Capacity Building?

Ayada Leads Executive Director Habon Abdulle underscored the value of having access to capacity building funding and peers who were working in the same space as them as they navigated successes and challenges together.

“When I joined the cohort, I believed that our organization was facing a unique challenge that required a unique solution. Over the course of the capacity-building cohort, I learned that we had similar challenges to other organizations,” Abdulle said.

For Ayada Leads, capacity building means improving skills and obtaining the resources their organization needs to survive. The word “survive” was intentional. Habon, the Executive Director, emphasized how the financial challenges Ayada Leads is experiencing is not limited to their organization––instead, it is a systemic issue that many BIPOC-led and serving organizations face.

Throughout the past two years the organization focused its capacity building efforts on board development, workforce capacity, communication strategies, and office space, emphasizing the latter two.

Partnerships and capacity building

The initiative opened the doors to a collaborative effort between Ayada Leads and another Somali-serving nonprofit in the cohort, Somali American Parent Engagement (SAPA). Both Ayada Leads and SAPA work with East African students and parents. Together they identified the need to better understand the causes of opioid disorders in their community. In response to this need, the two organizations’ collaborative project is to conduct community-based research on opioid addiction. They received funding through Propel’s Opportunity Fund, a grantmaking effort for collaborative project made available to cohort participants.

Responding to the community, looking forward

Like many community-based organizations led by and serving BIPOC, COVID greatly impacted the breadth of Ayada Leads’ services. Initially, they focused solely on leadership development and had started to broaden their offerings shortly before the pandemic began. As the effects of COVID began impacting the Twin Cities, they transitioned to the role of a more comprehensive community service organization.

Specifically, Ayada Leads offered interpretation services to families that needed to call schools or public services, delivered food to households, and connected families to mutual aid organizations. As a result of focusing on service provision, they shifted their capacity-building efforts to address challenges related to their new services and the transition to virtual work – something that was difficult for many organizations, let alone new ones working to increase their capacity in general.

Taking on the new service-oriented responsibilities meant staff workloads increased exponentially, which meant that they did not have the ability to focus as much staff time on capacity building. As they look to the future, they have plans to fundraise and invest in staff.

“In our cohort gathering, we learned that sustainability is more of a journey than a destination,” Abdulle said. “As the leader of our organization, I will put my focus on investing in the right people, establishing great partnerships, raising unrestricted funds, and implementing programs that will help our communities flourish.”

Visit the organization’s website.

The post Ayada Leads appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

Founded in 1988, HACER has refined their community-based research approach, and over time, they grew to offer workshops, host focus groups, develop programs, and more.

“We grew steadily for many years because as more and more people heard about the work we were doing, the more they wanted to be involved,” Rodolfo Gutierrez, Executive Director of HACER said.

In 2019, they were poised for strategic growth as they began to take on new projects and initiatives that were going to span multiple years. In 2018, the organization was selected for  Propel’s Nonprofit Infrastructure Grant Program, which provides infrastructure funding and technical assistance to organizations. Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, HACER became a go-to community partner for the Minnesota Department of Public Health and other organizations to get essential, timely, and correct information to the Minnesota Latine community across the state.

“It has been very busy, and we needed to add staff; we have been organizing vaccination clinics, testing events, distributing information, offering facemasks and hand sanitizers at every event,” Gutierrez said. “All of this has been in addition to the work we were already doing or planning to do.”

Rising to the Occasion

Over the past two years, HACER has gone from 4-5 staff to 16. With that has come an increased budget and the need for strong accounting and reporting systems. Having worked with Propel in the past, Gutierrez knew the accounting & finance consulting team at Propel could help the organization ensure they were prepared for the required reporting and accounting that comes with such rapid growth.

“Propel has been there for us in many important moments: they’ve connected us to other organizations, helped us troubleshoot technical issues, and worked with us and our board to feel sure about how we wanted to grow strategically,” Gutierrez said.

Guiterrez and HACER’s Administrative Director Gaby Hanzel have been working with Propel accounting & finance consultant John Skillings as HACER grew rapidly.

“Our organizational transformation was supposed to not be as fast as it ended up being, but it started so quickly, and we rose to the occasion,” Hanzel said. “We also recognized that with this growth, we were going to need to be able to handle more reporting, so we called John who in the past had helped us set up our Quickbooks, understand our cash flow, and make projections for future growth.”

Skillings has been working with the organization through Propel’s Financial Insights Coaching – where he is available to answer questions as they arise, and work one-on-one with Hanzel on a monthly basis to ensure their accounting systems are in order and to help them prepare for their first-ever organizational audit.

“We have a long history of working with Propel,” Guiterrez said.

“Yes, and I wouldn’t be here without John Skillings,” Hanzel joked.

Support HACER

If you are interested in supporting HACER, there are many ways to be involved; they currently have 35 active projects including an Oral History of Lake Street and projects and programs with the YWCA in Minneapolis.

You can:

• Donate to HACER
• Support and participate in studies and projects
• Talk about HACER to your networks (you can always be up-to-date by follow them on social media and subscribing to their newsletter at their website: https://hacer-mn.org/)

The post HACER appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

“Our community center is what makes us stand out and remain visible in the community,” Executive Director Christy Potts said. “Our organization works to widen everyone’s world for opportunities to find joy, make choices, and take on responsibilities, and I think people see that most clearly when they think about the community center.”

The new building will feature a more-accessible, all-on-one-level space for the organization featuring ceiling lifts to better work with folks with physical disabilities, wide automatic doors, and wider hallways. The opening of the new building could serve as a metaphor for how Potts has approached running the organization since starting as Executive Director in 2018.

“I saw becoming ED at LISTEN Center as such a unique opportunity — I was so excited to be at an organization with such a strong history and community ties, and it was exciting for me to see all the opportunities we had to grow and change for the future,” Potts said.

As is common in the nonprofit sector, even more so in the past few years, Potts took over for an Executive Director who had been with the organization for multiple decades. In this case, 40 years.

Once she was in the role, she knew she needed support in updating staff policies, planning for growth, and building a working relationship with her board. With the support of her board chair, she reached out to Propel’s Strategic Services consultants.

Propel engages with nonprofits as a mutual and trusted partner using a three-step approach: assessing where your board is currently at, coming to an agreement on where you need to be (and how you want to be together), and then establishing an action plan to move forward toward your mission, together. Potts and her board chair have worked with Propel to define what steps need to be taken to move toward durability.

“I wouldn’t be where I am without Propel,” Potts said. “The team has been patient and thoughtful as we build out a plan for where I need to grow, and what I need from my board, and vice-versa, in order to create a stronger and more resilient organization.”

That included creating new policies, updating procedures, and continuing to be flexible and responsive during the pandemic.

“We are a 50-year-old organization, and I want us to be around in another 50 years,” she said. She sees the strong foundation of the organization and is excited to help cultivate the structure it needs to grow and continue to be what the community needs.

“I am so excited about where we are at,” Potts said. “We are growing in the right direction, not only literally with the opening of the new building, but figurately, too. I can tell how this work with the board will impact the whole organization.”

As she prepares for the opening of the new center, Potts sees it as a place where not only more clients can be welcomed, but a place for staff to feel supported as well.

“My colleague has said I move at the speed of light, but I think everything takes time, as long as you keep working on it, we’ll get there together,” she said.

To support listen center, you can donate at the pay pal link on their website, or via Facebook.

The post The L.I.S.T.E.N. Center appeared first on Propel Nonprofits.

Ibrahim, the Founder and Executive Director/Editor of Sahan Journal, has worked with a team of staff and freelancers to build an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit digital newsroom fully dedicated to providing authentic news reporting for and about immigrants and communities of color in Minnesota.

When Sahan Journal applied to be a fiscally sponsored project at Propel Nonprofits, a strategic decision that allowed them the ability to accept grant funding and build the infrastructure they need to grow into the organization they hope to be, they cited the following statistic:

In 2017, foreign-born immigrants comprised nearly 9 percent of the state population, according to the Minnesota State Demographic Center. If you factor in the U.S.-born children of immigrants, that number could be double digits.

Ibrahim noticed, while working for Minnesota Public Radio, stories about communities of color, especially immigrant communities, were underreported, and lacked nuanced and authenticity in almost all mainstream media outlets.

“I found that when people heard about, for example, the Somali community in Minnesota, it was only when there was breaking news or big events, and those are typically stories you are encountering when you read about these communities,” Ibrahim said. “Sahan Journal offers something different; immigrant communities and communities of color are always on the front page; they are always visible.”

That visibility is an integral part of Sahan Journal’s mission.  In Minnesota, reporters usually produce stories about communities of color that frequently lack nuance, context, complexity, depth and dimension. This is because the local media landscape is predominately white and newsroom leaders are not investing resources in fully covering these communities and are slow in making news coverage more inclusive, despite the increasing diversity and the rapid growth of Minnesota’s immigrant population.

“Our communities of color and immigrant communities deserve high quality journalism so they can see themselves reflected well,” Ibrahim said. “It is important for the public narrative around these communities to chronicle how they are transforming the state in terms of day-to-day life, elections, and more.”

Sahan Journal is a timely project, offering journalism that is not available in other places. As a fiscally sponsored project at Propel, Sahan Journal was able to accept grants and receive accounting and finance support as they laid the groundwork for growth before they received their own 501(c)(3) status. They also got a grant through the Nonprofit Infrastructure Grant Program, which helped them establish internal systems and pay freelance staff for their reporting.

For the past 18 months, Sahan Journal has played an important role in telling the story of the Coronavirus Pandemic and its lasting impacts in Minneapolis. They sent reporters out into the community following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and have subsequently covered protests, elections, and politics across the city. Now a staff of 11, they met in person for the first time in October 2021 and covered the Minneapolis municipal elections on November 2, 2021.

“As a nonprofit newsroom, we want to create and reflect vibrant, inclusive, and welcoming communities,” Ibrahim said. “We want immigrant communities and communities of color to be informed, the more you consume news information, the likelihood you vote goes up and that is how we can strengthen democracy.”

If you want to support the Sahan Journal, visit their website to read up-to-date stories and donate.

Photo: The Sahan Journal staff poses for the first time together in the fall of 2021, having been a remote newsroom during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Photo by Ben Hovland.

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The programming for youth is scaffolded so youth can learn to work with horses over time.

“Our curriculum starts at the ground-level, then kids move into riding,” Jenny Benton, a founding Board Member of The CREW said. “Our program isn’t a camp. We hope that the kids who come to us, stay. As they become adults, we want them to continue to be part of The CREW as volunteers or staff.”

“Our work is student-led,” Benton said. “Yes, we have rules to keep youth, staff, and animals safe, but youth so rarely have the opportunity to choose what they want to do. Some come out to the pasture to read books. Some want to draw while they are there. Some want to train the horses. They have autonomy over how they spend their time.”

Youth get to choose how they spend time with horses: they can read and draw near them, or learn to work with them directly.

Horses & Racial Equity

A brief conversation with Benton and another founding Board Member, Kenatia Gilmer, makes the connection between horses and racial equity very clear.

“When I think about what it means to be an equestrian, I think of someone who lives horses,” Gilmer said. “They are taking care of them, the land they eat from, the stable they live in. All of it. In Minnesota, equestrian life is a prestigious and exclusive space, and historically and currently a space where white people dominate.”

Gilmer and Benton pointed out how common it is for white people in Minnesota to grow up on farms, have family land, or second homes that are cabins and to own boats. Youth of color don’t have the same access to this culture because of systemic racism.

“We want to kick down that stereotype,” Gilmer said. “Connecting with a horse allows our kids to check in with themselves, to learn empathy, to learn to steward a place and belong to it. That practice shouldn’t be exclusive to only white people.”

The organization focuses on recruiting volunteers of color who work directly with the kids.

“We want our kids to know from the first time they step out of the car that this is their space, and it is absolutely possible for them to have horses and all the opportunities the equine industry has to offer,” says Benton.

Seeing adults who look like them working with the horses helps them internalize this is truly a path they can choose. The CREW has several ally volunteers who have been working with them since before the program launched to find grant opportunities, provide grant writing guidance, foundation contacts, and other opportunities to expand their program.

“We are doing something unique, and we can see people are starting to catch on to the importance of what we are doing,” Gilmer said. “I keep thinking about how in the first few weeks of programming, one of our youth taught me that grass is sweet-tasting, and that’s why the horse was eating it. There is something so important about being connected to a place, especially after what our kids have been through during the pandemic and following the murder of George Floyd.”

Fiscal Sponsorship & Growth

As the organization grows, The CREW recognizes the need for a strong foundation in bookkeeping, budget development, and grant writing.

“We need to be able to apply for grants, seek out mentorship, and be connected to others in the nonprofit sector,” Benton said. “Propel offers that and through our work with them we are able to gain resources to move ourselves forward.”

The CREW hopes to continue to reach kids and communities, and one day become a statewide recognizable program.

For now, they are focusing on purchasing a van to provide transportation to and from the barn and finding a sponsor for an experienced lesson horse as the kids advance to riding.

To grow, Benton, Gilmer, and the board are focused on their fundraising program by seeking out grants and individual donations, as well as building collaborative relationships with other nonprofits which serve urban youth.

“We have a huge opportunity to diversify who has access to careers related to horses, to the land they live on…it is exciting, and I think people will want to be a part of that,” Benton said.

To learn more about the The CREW, visit their website. You can make donations here: https://www.thecrewurbanyouthequestrians.org/make-a-donation.

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