NORTHWAY COMMUNITY TRUST

Ultimately, the efforts of support for the neighborhoods of North Minneapolis are to benefit the lives and futures of the children.

About NorthWay Community Trust

NorthWay Community Trust is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to expand economic opportunity, strengthen the social fabric and improve life circumstances for North Minneapolis residents.

We aim to leverage assets, investments & resources in order to:

• address underlying systemic problems that create poverty in the lowest quartile of community residents
• work across sectors, organizations, programs, and traditional neighborhood boundaries.

WHAT WE DO

Incubation of Ideas

The economic challenges facing many today have forced us to dig deep. We began looking outward, as much as inward, to understand our particular hurdles, their origins and trends; and to identify like-communities across the nation who have begun to turn those trends in their own cities, around.

Urban areas that have seen pockets of deeply entrenched poverty devolve, experience constrained educational, social and economic opportunities. Out of those crises, were born thought leaders with an untethered determination to give back to their communities once they found a way out their own destitution.

Inwardly, we found a resilient community, eager to be an instrument of progress and rise to the demands that positive change will require of them. As we listened to those people, we imagined, and returned to our white board to draft the program areas we would develop to help those individuals prepare themselves to do their part.

Northway Community Trust is committed to organize and support the long-term collaborations necessary to:

1. Reduce the rate of unemployment in North Minneapolis
2. Improve high-school graduation rates for Northside students
3. Increase the number of businesses owned and operated by Northside residents.

Engaging Partnerships

Inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone® project, which sought to create a tipping point in the neighborhood so its children would become surrounded by an enriching environment of college-oriented peers and supportive adults, we developed our own Northside Achievement Zone. “NAZ” went into planning and program design to provide comprehensive resources to North Minneapolis families and youth with a focus on education and family engagement. NorthWay made national news recently when The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported on the program. The Chronicle lauded NorthWay for providing $500,000 in funding to support NAZ efforts and other resources to foster collaboration among groups providing services on the Northside.

NorthWay Community Trust leveraged its resources to support the local partnerships that remain critical to the success of Northway efforts:
Achieve!Minneapolis, Emerge, Grassroots Public Policy Institute, Plymouth Christian Youth Center (PCYC), PEACE Foundation, Subzero Collective, Urban Works, W Broadway Coalition, Woman Venture.