Member Impact Fund - North Dakota
last updated on Thursday, December 19, 2024 in Affordable Housing
Member Impact Fund - North Dakota
In total, the state of North Dakota received $11.68 Million though 80 separate awards from 35 FHLB Des Moines members in 2024.
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Video Transcript:
The Member Impact Fund is a wonderful program started to assist with well, housing needs and also community development needs of our small towns.
Banks, and credit unions could provide funding to either nonprofit organizations or government organizations, and we would in fact match it three to one.
Our grant opportunity has gone towards the building of a new community clinic. It's kind of a critical access clinic for rural communities and currently it's housed in an old building. It's been needing lots of repairs.
I brought the plan up to the board of directors and I asked them to donate $100,000 toward this project and got unanimous support. I called up the president of Heartland State Bank. They also approved $100,000 donation. It would give the community 800,000 to work with.
When he mentioned $100,000, I took a little gulp, but you know, we just know it's important. Plus we live there. It's helpful for us as well.
We started the Member Impact Fund in 2023 based on two primary tenants. Keep it simple and do things through our members.
We used the Impact Fund to help take $1 of our money and make it four. So our overall donation was 25,000, which of course became $100,000. And we impacted five nonprofits in the state of North Dakota, and our largest gift went to Beyond Shelter.
A $3 to $1 match? I've never seen anything like that, and it was time to go to work, and that's where I developed the vision of a pre-development revolving fund. And I started reaching out to my network. I contacted over 24 North Dakota member banks, and thank goodness, 14 of them decided, yes, Dan, we see your vision, we're going to invest in Beyond Shelter. We're going to invest in Beyond Shelter's mission, and we're going to leverage out this great opportunity from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines.
I'm actually on a couple of other councils or boards throughout the state, and I talked to bankers and it was just exploding. Everybody, you know, wanted to participate. They couldn't believe it. We did three nonprofits. It was the YWCA of Cass and Clay County, Beyond Shelter and the Cass County Land Trust. And the total between our contribution and the three to one match was $850,000.
The grant that was provided by the FHLB Des Moines was a three for one match that allowed us to contribute $1 million to Beyond Shelter. Very rarely are you going to see a program that can really amplify or magnify projects like this in such a big, impactful way. It is absolutely a game changer, but the communities that we serve, understanding that affordable housing, accessible housing are two of the most critical needs that need to be met in our marketplace today.
The Member Impact Fund through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines was an exceptional opportunity for YWCA Cass Clay. Gate City Bank, Choice Financial and Cornerstone Bank here in town wrote applications to raise funds to support the work we're doing at YWCA. Those dollars went to work, immediately impacting our community by providing housing, by helping YWCA improve its technical infrastructure in terms of servers and computers, things that we need to do our jobs, and also funds to be able to train our staff.
The Member Impact Fund is a little different and it lets it be directed by local lenders, our members who have the pulse on their communities, what's happening and what's needed in their community, and is a strength to keep those towns and cities viable and strong. Being able to just let us amplify their reach and what they need is a key piece of being successful.
We're always putting money into our communities and trying to help fund various projects, and this was just an opportunity for us to really make an impact.
I just want to thank Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines for making such a wonderful program available to us. It's been a godsend for our community.
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