 Lakeland Public Television presents Currents with host Ray Gildow, sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, offering tax preparation for individuals and businesses across from the City Hall in Niswa and on the web at niswatax.com. Hello again everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents, where tonight I get to introduce a friend, a person I've known for a long time, who has gone through a lot of life changes since we first met. She has an interesting story to tell, and she's also working at the end of her career in this position that she's in. Her name is Kathy Galswick. She is the president of the Central Minnesota Initiative Foundation. Kathy, I'm not sure how long we've known each other, but it's been a long time before you got into this position anyway. Welcome to Lakeland Currents. It's nice to have you here. Thank you. It's great to be here. So who is Kathy Galswick? Here's a loaded question. Well, you know, I tell people I grew up in Southern California and aspired to be an attorney in Los Angeles, and instead I ended up on a farm between Pillager and Motley. And the answer is true love. That's what brought me to Minnesota. So I've spent all of my adult life in this area, feel extremely blessed to have had a wonderful place to raise a family and just a really exciting career. First ten years at Region Five in Staples, and then now 30 years here at the Initiative Foundation. So when you moved here from California, you started right away in Region Five. I did. I did. Now, were you the executive director right away, or did you work your way up? No, I started as a secretary there. And then within five years was executive director of the Region Five Development Commission. And tell us a little bit about the Central Minnesota Initiative Foundation. I know it's one of six Minnesota foundations, but tell us a little bit about that. Well when I was at Region Five, I was invited to be part of a planning process that the McKnight Foundation triggered in Greater Minnesota. And this was in the mid-80s when the economy was in really rough shape. We had double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates. There was a lot of stress and despair across our rural communities, especially those dependent on agriculture or mining and natural resource-based economies. The McKnight Foundation was the largest private foundation in Minnesota at that time, and they knew they wanted to do something to help, but they weren't going to be able to effectively do that from downtown Minneapolis. So to their credit, they came out and started talking to local people. And they got ideas and input about what they could do to help. And after about two years, created the six Minnesota Initiative Foundations. And you were the president or the executive director right away? So in my capacity at Region Five as executive director, I coordinated some of that planning for our area and provided some of that input. And then was actually on the incorporating board of the Initiative Foundation, and then stepped down from that board and applied to be the first president of the organization. And my point was going to be, I think when you started, there was you and maybe a secretary. Or were there a couple people? Yeah, when I started, I was by myself. By yourself. Opened up first a temporary office in the City Hall at Little Falls. Our office is located in Little Falls because it's the geographic center of our 14-county region. And I remember going to the post office and getting the mailbox and ordering the phone line and starting the books on a piece of green ledger paper. And then began adding staff one or maybe two a year over time. And now we have 28 people. That's incredible growth. And I know you will share that growth with your teammates. But a lot of it has to do with your leadership because I remember when you started and I remember when you were out knocking on doors for $5 or $50 or whatever, you could get through contributions. And so over that period of time, the 30 years, because this is the 30th anniversary of the state organization, have they all grown like that? Yes. Is that similar to all of them? Right. So the whole state of Minnesota is covered by one of the six Initiative Foundations, except for the 7-county metro area. Each one is an independent foundation with its own board and staff and offices and programs. But we share that common history. We all came out of that conversation with local people back in the mid-80s about what do we need to do to change the face of greater Minnesota and turn things around. And so all of us have been doing grant making since we began. Business lending, which is a very unique thing for a foundation to do, but that was related to diversifying the local economy, operating programs and providing donor services like a community foundation does. But you know, Ray, everything we do is based on the premise that local people are the key resource. Just like McKnight came out and asked people because local people know what the problems are, they're going to have the best ideas about how to solve the problems, they're going to be the ones that need to do the work to bring about that positive change. And so the whole model that created the Initiative Foundations is based on that premise that local people are the key resource and it's about empowering them to help improve their communities. So there are 14 counties in your Initiative Foundation circle. And I know you have, because I'm in the Staples Motley Community Foundation, which is a part of your organization, how many cities have foundations that work through the umbrella organization in your 14-county area? Because the Initiative Foundations are structured like a community foundation, we have the capacity to house funds on behalf of communities like the Staples Motley area or Morrison County or Pine City or Elk River, or for families or businesses that want to have an advised fund or a local giving vehicle. We have over 80 different field of interest donor advised and community foundation funds that we house. I think we have six or seven community foundations like Staples Motley. So in those cases, those are communities that decided they wanted a local foundation, a local giving presence, knew that it didn't make sense for them to set that up independently and go through all the IRS work and all of that kind of thing. And so they affiliate with an umbrella organization like the Initiative Foundation to provide support and services and work with the local people to build an endowment and make grants to help their community. So it must have been a challenge in the early years to tell people in the Motley or Staples or St. Cloud to put money into this kitty, this endowment or whatever you were going to start. Because I'm sure it would have been hard for people to see the benefit to their community right away. Was that part of your early challenge to do that or wasn't that a big issue? I think that's a great question. And yes, getting people to think regionally that understanding what helps my community is also going to help the community 20 miles away or vice versa and that working together makes sense was something new and different. You know, we certainly had communities working together at the local education level, especially after we went through that wave of school consolidations back in the 80s. But the idea of working across counties to strengthen a whole area has been something that we've learned about together. But when you stop and think about where any one of us lives, where we go to work, where we go to church, where we buy our groceries, where we buy our clothing, we all relate to a region, to an area that is our home. And so I think we've made good progress in helping people think about that differently and realize that building up the region, building up greater Minnesota is something worth investing in. Not trying to have you go through all your employees, but what are some of the kinds of things and that the people you hire do? Great question. So we have employees that handle our grant making. We make grants or gifts of money to not-for-profit entities or local governments or cities or counties that are doing things to help improve community. So I'll give you a few statistics while we're at it since we began. We've made over 31 million dollars in grant awards in our region alone and well over 200 million across the six initiative foundations. We have people that are experts in business lending. And this is, I'll just do a little rabbit trail here and mention that this is a very unique area of work for foundations to be in. But when we when we began and we were talking about how to strengthen the rural area, it was really important to think about how we could diversify the local economy so we were less dependent on agriculture and mining and these natural resource-based things. And the way you do that in small towns is by helping local people start or expand small businesses. And back when we began in the 80s it was a really tough time for entrepreneurs to find capital because the banks were struggling too and they weren't able to make those higher risk deals. So we created Revolving Loan Funds which work in conjunction with the financial institutions to make loans to help companies start or expand that create quality jobs. And again just to give you a couple of statistics here are the loans in our region are well over 50 million dollars now across the six initiative foundations over 252 million dollars. We can point to 46,000 jobs across the state that have been secured, either retained or created because of this gap financing that's been provided and over 12,000 of those in our region alone. So we've got the staff that do the grant making working with community people. We've got the staff that do the business lending to help companies start and expand and provide technical assistance and we work really closely with our economic development organizations and others in the region. We also have staff that operate our programs and those typically include four pieces training technical assistance resource referral and grant support to help a team in a community work on an action plan and make that happen. So again back to that idea that local people are the key resource. We have a community that wants to update or develop a community development action plan. They enter our thriving communities program and get that kind of assistance and process coaching and a little bit of money to help advance their projects. It's the same model we use in our early childhood work, our Healthy Lakes and Rivers work. The work that we did on methamphetamine for three years to increase awareness and prevention of methamphetamine. Those same four pieces are there. So I guess you could say that's our model of change. That's the way we go about helping people help themselves and address local issues and bring about positive change in their community. So if a community has determined they want to do something and they don't feel they have the expertise, they should at least contact you to see if you have the expertise that can help provide some of that technical support for that kind of. Absolutely and often we know the other resources that are available as well. The regional development commissions, the various state and public agencies work very closely with our cities and counties. So back to your question about staffing and the grant making folks, the folks that do the business lending, the folks that run our various programs, the folks that work with the community foundations and other donor advised funds and handle our endowment campaigns. The people that publish our magazine, our IQ Quarterly Magazine, we're very proud of that publication and that is a great piece for telling stories about the foundation and the work that people are doing in communities. And then of course the people that support all of that with our accounting and operational side. I remember very vividly when you started, so many of your contributors were just small individual people. And I think you've evolved now into a lot more of the corporate world. You do a lot of work with small companies that are trying to grow. There's without naming names in the area, I know there's a number of the companies you've worked with here in the past and have helped them maybe redesign how they're doing business and it has helped them grow. But is that true for all of the other groups too, the other five? Have they moved into probably a broader base with manufacturing and the industry besides just small, maybe a hardware store dealers? So with regard to the businesses that we help through loans and technical assistance very much, so I think across the state it would be safe to assume that the largest number of our loans have been made to manufacturing companies because those tend to be the kinds of quality jobs that we can create in greater Minnesota and go to scale. I also know that there are, especially in the smaller community business and retail businesses, several of the initiative foundations are SBA small business lenders and specialized in that type of business financing as well. So there's really a range. In our case most of our loans are to the manufacturers but we also have a nice segment of technology based companies in our portfolio. We have some value-added agriculture, alternative crops and processing related to food that's pretty exciting. And we have a nice array of smaller service and retail companies as well. I've done a fair amount of work with the Ag Extension through the University of Minnesota. We've had these discussions in the past when they've gone into trying to help small communities and cities become healthier, more prosperous. There are areas where there's really enthusiasm to do that and then there are areas where there's not. There's not the leadership maybe. And I know I've had Ben Winchester on here a number of times with you and he's identified leadership as probably the critical piece in any community or any small business if they're going to grow, if they're going to develop. It takes leadership and I know that's been a big focus of your organization since the beginning and you've done training for I can't remember what you call it, the cohorts you've put together. Are you still doing those? Are they still ongoing? We sure are. Our community work currently is the program is branded as the Thriving Communities Initiative. We kind of changed it and refocused it a bit during the Great Recession. But going back to that premise that local people are the key resource and we are simply tools in the toolbox to that. It is very much about finding those community spark plugs and giving them some guidance and some coaching along the way to bring about that change. I think about staples, you know, your home community and the great work that's been done there around the poverty initiative, for example. People that have gone through the Blandon Foundation leadership training programs that often are great members of our coalitions and our citizen work groups because they've already kind of made a commitment. I'm going to give back to community now and we provide a little bit of framework for that follow up work. But you know I'm worried about this matter of leadership for the future. When I take a look at what's happening is just a few of us are getting a little older and retiring or thinking about stepping back from our roles so will the people that are running and managing our companies, our employers the people that are serving in elected and pointed offices the people that are running our non-profits and serving on those boards this matter of identifying the next generation of leaders keeping them local giving them the tools to be successful in the region is critical to the future of the region and to greater Minnesota just in our 14 counties alone conservatively we identified almost 12,000 leaders needed to serve in elected and appointed offices and maybe the executive directors of the non-profits that have staff and that's a very conservative number. So we have to be very mindful of how we can attract and retain that next generation. I think we both maybe saw that story in the Star Tribune two weeks ago talking about the number of offices in the state where no one had even filed to run for election. This is something that keeps me awake today. So how has the landscape changed since you started to where you're at as you're going to retire soon? What's different? How does it look? What's different in greater Minnesota is we have a whole lot of people on fire for making their communities better. We have a more robust non-profit sector. So the needs of kids and families and those emergency and safety programs and services are in pretty good shape. I mean there's always there are always shortages and challenges in that regard but we do have a lot of non-profits that have received support and assistance to build their capacity. We have stronger local economic development offices whether those are at the city level or county or sometimes multi-county but we have increased recognition about the importance of having people in the community that are quarterbacking and providing connections to entrepreneurs that want to start or expand businesses and helping them access the kinds of resources they need. We certainly have more diverse economies in our local communities and I think you know I can't prove this statistically but I believe in my heart that greater Minnesota weathered the Great Recession much better than we weathered the economic crisis of the mid-80s because we have a more diverse economy now and we have a better capacity to identify and address challenges as they come along than we did back then. So something's different there as well. We don't want to get by the day without having you talk about something humorous that happened to you because it's always good to have humor on these shows. So why don't you share with us this little tidbit you were talking about? I call it my worst day of my life story and I've shared this a few times because it really depicts what it was like for people back in the mid-80s when we were trying to figure out how to transition. In our case I had moved to Minnesota and Neil and I married. We were part of his family farm operation between Pillager and Motley. We had three young children, a four year old girl and twin boys that were two. I was transitioning from my position at Region 5 to this new role of the president of the Initiative Foundation and getting that set up and rolling. At the same time we were experiencing the family farm crisis at home in that during the day I was working at the Initiative Foundation talking about how to diversify the economy and address the farm crisis. And at night we were sitting around the table with Neil's family talking about which equipment to sell and when we're going to sell the cattle or the hogs. And we were living it and eventually that family farm operation was shut down and Neil had to transition to a different career which ended up kind of by accident being in law enforcement and he had a wonderful career there. But during this particular season of life he was needing to leave on Sunday nights to go up to Hibbing for skills training and I was single parenting then from Sunday night to Friday evening when he got back home. And so he would leave on Sunday night and I would be on my own. One Monday morning I woke up, overslept, the alarms had not been reset from the weekend and I had a very important meeting in Minneapolis that day where we were actually negotiating with the state legislature and McKnight about how to capitalize our loan funds. So I'm already running late for the meeting. I run downstairs, 80 gallons of water has overflowed on the floor from the water softener that malfunctioned and I did what any sensible adult would do and turn around and walked out and shut the door. I'm rushing around trying to get the three children ready to go and there's a knock on the door. And it's our neighbor who drives a semi truck. And he is telling me that he has just hit our dog with his truck which was a horrible thing. This is the dog I brought with me from Los Angeles that had her since junior high. She was getting old and feeble but this obviously was not the way we had planned for her to be able to end her life. I had to make some decisions with him right on the spot about that and he helped me out. Trying to keep the kids away from the window so they wouldn't see. Get them dressed, get them loaded up, get them dropped off at their daycare over by Motley. I'm driving to Minneapolis late for my meeting crying because my dog of 14 years has died and I'm feeling stressed about getting down there. Get to Minneapolis, find a decent parking spot, run in, act all professional and together because that's what we do. And the meeting went pretty well, came out and my car was gone. That really good parking spot was not. It had been towed to the impound lot in Minneapolis which is not a nice place to go. So I got a ride from a colleague, had to borrow cash to get my car out of Hock. I had to go back to the lot and get your documents out of the car. They hand you your keys, they hand you the parking ticket. So here I am now driving home. Now I was still finishing my college degree taking classes at Central Lakes College in the evenings. I was supposed to get there for an exam. Now I'm late. So I'm missing my exam. I've used all my cash to pay the fees. I have no food to eat. Driving home, finally go get my children, pick them up, pull up to the mailbox and there's a thousand-dollar overdraft notice in the mailbox. So that's a lot of money to me now but it was a whole lot of money to us back then. Turned out later to be a transfer error but I didn't know that at the time and so that was a big crisis. Pulled in the garage a four-year-old Melanie trying to be helpful hits the button a little too soon. The garage door opener comes down on the top of the car, scrapes the car. Get in the house, get the kids to bed. Neal calls from the pay phone and hibbing because this is pre-cell phones, of course. And I tell him my whole story and he's silent for a few moments and he says, so why'd you park there? So he broke it all with a little humor. Yeah, well at the moment he wasn't making any points but he's a pretty good guy and we're going to celebrate 40 years in December so I think I'll keep him. But I tell that story because it really in a silly and it's 100% factual that all happened on one day. But that's the kind of stuff people were going through back then to try to make transitions and life changes and figure out new careers and do things to settle in to a new way of life. And a lot of people went through that kind of thing and a whole lot worse to be able to make it through and stay in greater Minnesota. Wow. So we're down to the last couple minutes here but what's going to happen with you now? What's your new career going to be? So I'm wrapping up at the Initiative Foundation here at the end of the calendar year. I'm a grandma of seven little munchkins aged two to seven. I'm going to have a little more time with them. I'm a doula which is a birth coach and I do that as a volunteer kind of a ministry and love coming alongside women and girls. Neil and I are going to get more involved in the missions organization we've been working with for almost 20 years called Josiah Venture and so we'll be doing some coordination and some work across 13 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. How have you been to Haiti? Been to Haiti. We have served on a board of an organization in Haiti for a couple of years and also going to be then now focusing in Central and Eastern Europe. And I might hang out my consultant shingle if a little time permits so really excited about the future. Well good luck. That's going to be a big change of pace for you but I'm sure you'll do well. For those who still might be interested in contacting the Central Minnesota Initiative Foundation how do they do that? The website is ifound.org and so that's the easiest way to get in touch with us. You can link to me or any of our staff email addresses. You can sign up to receive our IQ magazine at no charge. You can look at information about our grants and our loan programs. All of those things are right on the website. And do you also then list the kinds of technical services that you provide to the organization? Sure. The programs absolutely. And quickly you just have been at some national conferences. Is what we're doing here unique in Minnesota compared to most states? Minnesota is the only state in the country that has this model that I've described to you of the six initiative foundations. I feel so thankful to have been here to be able to be in this role to watch the amazing things that happen when local people who care get to work to bring about positive change in their community. So what do other states do? Or they just don't have these kind of initiatives? They don't have this kind of system where the whole state is covered. They may have local community foundations and the traditional community foundations are getting more involved in programs but not at the comprehensive level that we've been doing for 30 years. So we've really got something special going on here. Now are you the most senior of all the six? You said that so tactfully. Yes, I am the last original president of the six. Yes I am. I was 12 when I started. Wow. Well you've done a great job. Thank you. It's been a huge blessing. It's some big shoes to fill for the next person coming in. So good luck to you and Neil and your new career. Thank you. And we'll keep tabs on what you're doing. Okay, thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you. You've been watching Lakeland Currents where we're talking about what you're talking about. Thanks for watching. I'm Ray Gildow. So long until next time.