Citizen Portal
Sign In

Regional foundation outlines local investments, asks Winona County for modest funding increase

5675824 ยท July 8, 2025

Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts

Subscribe
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Aaron, philanthropy director at the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, briefed the board on SMIF's programs and local investments and asked the county to increase its annual support from $6,000 to $6,300 for fiscal 2026.

Aaron, philanthropy director with the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF), presented an overview of the foundation's regional work and the organization's recent activity in Winona County.

SMIF described itself as a donor-supported foundation that invests in entrepreneurship, early childhood and small-community vitality across 20 counties in south-central and southeastern Minnesota. Aaron said the foundation has invested more than $170 million in the region since 1986 and reported that SMIF had deployed about $9.1 million in Winona County through loans, grants and programming to date.

He highlighted recent local activity: 43 loans, 399 grants to support community projects and more than $1.3 million leveraged into Winona County in the last three years through community and entrepreneur grants, training and technical assistance. The foundation also runs free continuing-education training for early-childhood providers and distributes books for children.

Aaron requested the county increase its annual affiliation support from $6,000 to $6,300 (a 5% increase) for fiscal 2026 and offered to provide a detailed list of recent Winona County awards and partner contacts by email.

Commissioners thanked the presenter and asked staff to receive the materials for follow-up. No formal appropriation vote occurred at the presentation; the board will consider outside-agency funding requests during budget preparation.

Ending: SMIF will provide the requested list of local awards and follow-up materials; commissioners will consider the request during the outside-agency budget process.