Independence wins $100K for fighting poverty

from The Portland Business Journal

Independence is one of four communities receiving $100,000 each from the Northwest Area Foundation's third annual Great Strides Awards, an initiative created to reward communities for the significant progress they have made to reduce poverty over the long term.

The 2007 winners are Independence; Brinnon/Quilcene, Wash.; White Earth Indian Reservation, Minn.; and Westhope (Bottineau County), N.D.

The money will go to community organizations which will decide how the funds will be used for community benefit. Each community has also been offered an additional $40,000 grant to finance their efforts to share their stories and lessons learned with other communities that may want to replicate or adapt the poverty-reduction strategies.

Twenty-eight communities in St. Paul, Minn.-based Northwest Area Foundation's eight-state region -- South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon -- applied for this year's award.

Independence, with a population of 7,515 and poverty rate of 11 percent, won the award for a community approach to reducing poverty, embracing new immigrants, creating tax incentives for better wages and developing community assets.

Community members have worked together to creatively reduce poverty through business incentives, public/private partnerships, infrastructure projects that led to economic expansion, economic diversification, historic preservation and tourism.

Winners were chosen because of steps they've taken to date to reduce poverty over the long term. Each submission was evaluated against five key criteria:

* inclusiveness: involvement of community members from diverse sectors and groups;
* regional impact: interaction with and awareness of other communities facing similar issues in their geographic area;
* asset-based perspective: recognition of the community's existing strengths;
* economic engines: involvement with businesses and other organizations that fuel the local economy; and
* leadership: efforts to nurture leaders from different public and private sectors, ages and genders.