Since 1994, Lake Superior Magazine, as part of its mission to be the voice of Lake Superior and its peoples, has looked for individuals and groups that have significantly contributed to the well-being of the Lake and our communities. We especially seek reproduceable role models that show ways to tackle needs and improve lives. Few groups meet that criteria as well as the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation. We are pleased to honor them with our award this year and to introduce the good works it has accomplished. Congratulations!
Courtesy DSACF
A grant from the Apostle Islands Area Community Fund allowed Wilderness Inquiry to engage underserved Bayfield, Wisconsin, area students in their programs to inspire future generations to protect, conserve and enjoy the beauty of the Lake Superior.
Courtesy DSACF
Shannon Redbrook, center in gray, and her family were once homeless and helped by the Community Action Duluth, under the umbrella of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation. She has since given back to the community, bringing her experience to the Community Action Duluth board and to the Together for Health program at Myers-Wilkins Elementary School. “Giving the board my perspective as someone who has been homeless and used their services is a way I can give back,” she says.
Back in 2012, the Twin Ports area and Minnesota’s North Shore experienced devastating flash floods, gouging out roads, knocking out bridges and drowning homes. Damage estimates reached more than $200 million.
In the cleanup aftermath, the Federal Emergency Management Agency granted money to repair public
Courtesy DSACF
Vickie Meyers (in car) remembers getting out of the house by 6 a.m. to make bus connections for her 9 a.m. work then working late, after buses stopped, and paying three hours of wages to get a taxi home. That changed when she got a car through the Community Action Duluth Drive program. “A reliable car is independence for me,” she says. Her transportation coach, Susie Green (by car), says transportation is one of the largest opportunity barriers for low-income people.
infrastructure but, despite a federal disaster area declaration for 13 counties, denied any individual homeowner claims. “It has been determined that damage to dwellings, in this event was not of such severity as to warrant Individual Assistance,” the FEMA director wrote to Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. Meanwhile, state legislators debated what aid the state could afford, with one southern Minnesota legislator declaring “cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching” at funding proposals.
All of that left uncertainty for those families in the 1,700 homes affected by the flood waters, 17 of which were destroyed and 154 with major damage.
And winter was coming on.
Luckily, a collection of locally based organizations, collaborating with the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, weren’t waiting on outside help. “We raised about $2 million for that flood; we did it in a coordinated way,” recalls foundation President Holly C. Sampson. Money to help repair homes or replace furnaces, as well as to rebuild nonprofit organizations and small businesses, came through a variety of resources, like the community foundation, the Northland Foundation and the United Way, along with local offices of the Red Cross, Salvation Army and other emergency management agencies.
The local response has become a role model across the Midwest, and Holly has come much into demand to speak to groups interested in preparing to meet their own disasters.
“How can we even be better prepared for the next disaster? We’re convening a number of organizations across all sectors to plan for the next disaster,” Holly explains.
Taking the lead to create opportunities and support the local community has been the beating heart of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation from its very “impossible” conception back in 1980.
That year the economy of the Twin Ports region reached a bleak point with frighteningly high unemployment as major manufacturers and later the U.S. Air Force base packed up and left town. Residents were leaving, too, eventually dropping the city population from around 100,000 to around 82,000.
Local charities were victims of that economic downturn just at time when they were most needed.
Into that gap stepped local individuals, led by Kay Slack, then president of the local United Way board, and local United Way director Jay Hess.
They heard about the community foundation concept, where local financial resources of individuals, families and businesses are brought together to support local nonprofit endeavors.
Courtesy DSACF
Heather Kerola, left, is a parent coach for Family Forum in Superior, which is under the foundation’s umbrella. Heather has helped Cindy Looker, right, to complete online training for becoming a foster parent.
“Raising money was very difficult,” Kay recalls. “Other communities could fall back on their community foundations to buck up the nonprofits that needed it.”
Writing about the foundation’s creation in the book The Will and the Way, Kay described seeking advice from local and Twin Cities businesses and organizations who looked at northern Minnesota’s economic situation. Many declared such a foundation unachievable.
Courtesy DSACF
Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Board Chairman Jim Zastrow and President, Holly Sampson.
Holly says Kay explained later to her, “Holly, we decided not to listen.”
A $1 million funding pool was considered the minimum; Kay, Jay and supporters set a $3 million goal.
The start came when eight “can do” local folk, as Kay describes them, won a three-year administrative grant from the Blandin Foundation. National grants, including from the Bush Foundation, were sought and achieved.
Kay wrote of the founders: “They saw a need, conceived a possible solution, found successful models and created their own version. … We hope their story will encourage others to ‘go for it.’”
In 1982, the Duluth Area Community Foundation was incorporated. Bula Hess was hired to direct it; she and Holly have been the only two at the helm.
“She got us off on a very solid foundation, meeting the right people in the national foundation firmament,” Kay says, “and Holly has continued very aggressively.”
By 1983, the foundation reincorporated as the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation and Wisconsin’s Douglas County Disaster Fund came under its wing, used as matching funds for a major grant.
“It was a big thrill when we decided to include Superior,” Kay says. It seemed the perfect fit.
The foundation’s goals, outlined in a grant application at the time, were ambitious: addressing needs on the Iron Range, where unemployment rose to 80 percent in some places; breaking down rivalries between Duluth and Superior; introducing a broadened sense of community; bridging the public-private sector gap; responding to areawide issues; and attracting outside dollars.
Those advisers who balked at the idea of a community foundation in northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin in 1980 might be shocked (and maybe a wee bit chagrined) at what local people had grown by 2016.
Last year, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation recorded $66 million worth of endowments, covering 400 charitable funds across 10 counties – seven in Minnesota and three in Wisconsin.
It achieved a milestone last year, too, when it exceeded $50 million given out in grants and scholarships since 1983. The grants and scholarships ranged from $500 to $70,000, Holly says, and funded everything from education to parenting classes to veterans’ needs to animal rescues to … well, if the community needs it, the foundation or its affiliated funds probably cover it.
Some funds managed by the foundation are quite specific, like for the Lake Superior Marine Museum Association. Others are dedicated to specific geographic areas, like funds for Two Harbors, Minnesota, and Bayfield, Washburn and Ashland, Wisconsin, all designated by local groups. “We take care, really, of all of the back office work, so they can concentrate on ‘How can we build these resources and address the most critical needs?’” Holly says.
“It’s hard for the small towns to have expertise to invest, that’s the main carrot (with the foundation),” says Kay.
Especially advantageous is that 40 percent of the foundation’s assets are unrestricted, allowing it to help set a course as community needs arise – like the 2012 floods. “The needs that we face today are going to be very different 20 years from now,” Holly says. “It’s critical that we continue to build resources for today, tomorrow and the future.”
Foundation Board Chairman Jim Zastrow, a retired banker, is enthusiastic about the foundation’s current emphasis, focusing on ways to eliminate the “opportunity gap” that’s causing an economic and social divide.
Courtesy DSACF
A grant from the community foundation’s Lone Wolf Fund helped create an ongoing “Experts in the Field” program. The program brings experts to the Minnesota North Shore both to interact with students and to train
“This is a major part of our focus, and where we’re going in the future,” he says. “We’re trying to help alleviate the disparity that youth from low-income households have compared to high-income households – the gap is growing dramatically, and it continues to grow.”
To achieve that goal, the foundation is mobilizing the community through education and engagement while seeking funds. Already a $1.5 million Margaret A. Cargill Foundation grant has been received and distributed to about 10 smaller organizations such as Community Action Duluth, the YMCA, Churches United in Ministry (CHUM) and parenting and childhood programs.
“We regranted to various organizations in the Twin Ports to alleviate the opportunity gap issue,” Jim says. “Right now there is a public education campaign designed to inform and motivate the community to do its part in narrowing the gap.”
Jim has worked with the foundation board for seven years and even longer with its general work. “I observed, through the years, all of the various ways that the community foundation has been involved with change in the region and with some of the initiatives – Young Leaders, Speak Your Peace, the flood work that was done – the community foundation took a leadership role with.”
He echoes the community foundation concept, which is “private giving for the public good.” The charitable work of the foundation always will remain unfinished and evolving, says Jim, making it “daunting but very rewarding.”
But the optimism of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation founders lives on, especially looking to our community’s future generations.
“Think about all these kids as your kids,” Holly says. “We really think we can inspire more people to become engaged in this life-changing work.”
Courtesy DSACF
This map shows the seven Minnesota and three Wisconsin counties served by the foundation.
By the Numbers
To take a snapshot of the work of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, we can look at its 2016 annual report. Here are a few enlightening numbers:
- 830+ donations by individuals, corporations or foundations.
- 38 honor and memorial gifts to funds for specific and unspecified purposes.
- 240 grants direct from the foundation and from affiliated funds given out to organizations.
- $3 million+ total for all grants.
- 164 scholarships direct from the foundation and affiliated funds given to individual students.
- $833,920 total for all scholarships.
- 220 members on 36 board and affiliate committees supported by 11 staff members.
Past Achievement Award Winners
2016 Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society
2015 Paul Pepe – director of Tourism Thunder Bay
2014 Lee Radzak – historic site manager of Split Rock Lighthouse
2013 Larry Macdonald – Bayfield mayor
2012 Bad River Watershed Association
2011 Mike Link & Kate Crowley and Josephine Mandamin – walked around the Lake
2010 The Great Lakes Shipwreck Preservation Society
2009 The Great Waters Initiative
2008 Kurt Soderberg – retired executive director, WLSSD
2007 The Earth Keepers Initiative
2006 Ray Clevenger and creation of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
2005 Gaylord Nelson
2004 Nature Conservancy
2003 Davis Helberg – retired executive director, Duluth Seaway Port Authority
2002 Elmer Engman – diver, founder of “Gales of November”
2001 Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
2000 Crisp Point Light Historical Society
1999 C. Patrick Labadie – maritime historian
1998 John and Ann Mahan, authors, publishers, photographers
1997 North of Superior Marina Marketing Association
1996 Cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan & Ontario
1995 Lake Superior Binational Forum
1994 Craig Blacklock, photographer