Mid South Delta Initiative
Since 1997, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation has invested more than $65 million in the Mid South Delta Initiative (MSDI). Grants to nonprofit organizations expanded small businesses and the production and sale of affordable housing, and increased career and workforce opportunities and individual savings programs to strengthen the assets of youngsters and families with limited incomes.
 |
||
|---|---|---|
| The work a nonprofit does is just as important as its ability to be sustainable, particularly with regard to how the nonprofit handles legal issues. The Delta Citizens Alliance (DCA) hosted a half-day training workshop for nonprofit organizations to teach them how to wade legalities. | The Southern Good Faith Fund Public Policy program released Mortgage Foreclosures: A Review of Trends in Arkansas and Strategies Used by States and Communities to Respond. The report highlights the fact that Arkansas has not been immune to the foreclosure crisis that is sweeping the nation. | |
 |
||
All this development is linked to a shared vision of an emerging Culture of Possibilities where people across the region and the nation lift up what is right in the Delta. To support this shift, MSDI will continue to invest in leadership efforts for individuals, communities, and intergenerational “work groups.” People all over the region are bringing their creativity and persistence to shape new roadmaps for the Delta, design flexible community improvement funds and bring a new voice for policies that increase fairness, investment, and opportunities in the region.
MSDI's efforts support the region’s commitment to family, faith, and community and intentionally engage people of all ages and races in the community and regional change efforts. In order to accelerate social and economic change that signals a Culture of Possibilities, MSDI also focuses on making regional connections. MSDI has involved residents of the 55 counties and parishes of the region as well as other nonprofits and agencies that work in the region in a highly collaborative 18-month design process. Delta residents have participated in design work groups—one each on youth, grassroots, and leadership—in the Delta areas of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
MSDI also supports a regional group to develop a new fund for community improvements, the Flexible Fund. This group will research, design, and recommend structures, policies, and approaches for ways in which mini-grants could trigger community change and have a positive impact across the region.
The Kellogg Foundation will also develop a regional policy group that will explore new approaches to local, state, and national policy that creates more opportunities for low-income people in the Delta communities.
