Community Vitality Center Board Minutes

Friday, January 20, 2006

Board Members Present via phone: Severin Roberts, David Osterberg, Burt Chojnowski, Kevin Prine, Mayor Jim Erb, Ed Raber

In Presence: Maureen Collins-Williams, Manuel Silva, Curt Heidt, Rand Fisher, Sandy Ehrig, Tim Borich, Carol Richardson Smith, Lars Pederson, Mark Hamilton, Dal Grooms, Jennifer Daly, Rick Morain, CVC Staff Mark Edelman, Craig Hertel, Sue Lambertz,

Chair Rick Morain called the meeting to order.

Minutes of October meeting

Osterberg moved to approve minutes of the October meeting. Fisher Seconded. With no Corrections, minutes were approved.

Board Chair Report

Morain Thanked the Philanthropy committee for all their hard work. He reported that Hamilton and Morain met with Steve Schaaf and it was a good meeting. Both left the meeting feeling the Iowa Council of Foundations and CVC were on track with collaborative projects and mutually supportive efforts.

Administrative Report

Webtools project – Hertel has been meeting with the campus technology staff and a focus group of affiliate members to identify and resolve potential design issues. Some of the major issues regarding the webtools project are related to the potential differences in vision, uses of the management platform, capability for online giving, and ability to collaborate with and serve needs of local partners. Currently there are two separate projects, one by the ICOF, and one by CVC in partnership with GDMCF, IADGCF, and ICAN. CVC and ICOF hope that the two efforts can evolve toward more synergy so that resources could be pooled at some time in the future.

CVC continues to work on two survey projects. Data continues to be collected and entered for the recent movers survey in 19 Iowa Nonmetro counties. CVC is collaborating with a national 2007 Farm Bill survey of farm operators. The project is sponsored by Farm Foundation, USDA and extension policy economists at participating land grant universities. ISU contracts with the USDA National Ag Statistics Office in Des Moines to distribute and collect the survey. The responses are entered and analyzed at University of Nebraska. Release is expected next Fall. Approximately 30 states are participating.

A draft of next philanthropy academy program was reviewed. Suggestions for the program were discussed, including the $35 registration fee. The fee does not completely cover the cost of the academy. Rand indicated he would seek potential sponsor contacts and Ehrig offered that IDED might be willing to provide sponsorship funding. The academy has been organized as an educational event, and board discussed the potential opportunity to match the annual ICOF legislative reception with the Academy in future years, perhaps moving it to sometime in February or March and holding the Academy in Des Moines for 2007.

Ehrig provided a draft report from IDED to be provided to the legislature. She reported that tax credits have been impressive, 23 counties, 449 individuals participated in tax credits. Additional discussions for possible inclusion into the report were to include anecdotal notes of 3-5 county examples. Mark will provide a paragraph for report. Ehrig also reported IDED is hiring a staff person to manage the program. She emphasized the report is intended for a state view and not county by county and would be more general for those purposes.

Edelman updated the board on the current congressional earmark and accounting of the CVC funds.

Additional administrative update

CVC co-sponsored the entrepreneurship conference in Mason City with NIACC and it was very well-done, focused on local government and community leaders in the 9 county area. It may provide an ongoing opportunity to collaborate on community project in the NIACC region.

Edelman participated in the MyEntreNet community selections at the UNI Regional Business Center. Carroll, Decatur, Marion and Powesheik were selected. Each community receives $2500 for community participation. Two counties will begin work this spring and two in the fall. Other representatives on the review team included Mainstreet, Pappajohn Center and ISBC.

RUPRI Regional Entrepreneurship Workshop
Representatives from 5-6 states attended at the Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul Minnesota. UNI, NIACC and CVC were at the workshop. Over time, the group would develop into a network to participate and share information.

Rural Development Council Proposal

A proposal to ask CVC to manage IRDC activities as a CVC project was presented and discussed. The Proposal suggests that CVC would hire and provide oversight and management of a staff person who would be responsible for IRDC activities as outlined in the proposal. IRDC is a 501c3 tax exempt nonprofit that has been newly formed. CVC proposes to establish a project budgets so that IRDC staff and activities would not encroach upon CVC activities. This would also mean that in the future, IRDC would be responsible to fund its own operating expenses. The proposed budget, assuming CVC puts $10,000 into the project, IRDC expects to receive $10,000 from IDED, and $10,000 from USDA. This would allow a staff person to be hired part time. A person has been identified who would perform the IRDC duties and would manage and coordinate these activities in Des Moines. Edelman would not be the executive director for IRDC. He plans to hire the staff person on the CVC payroll as a temporary hourly employee who would be responsible for IRDC activities as specified for IRDC efforts and CVC would provide management and oversight of the staff person. As an outcome, IRDC would focus on forums. IRDC quarterly forum meetings and CVC board meetings could be coordinated for overlapping directors. This might involve holding IRDC forums in the morning and CVC Board meetings in the afternoon.
Edelman said the proposal before the Board would be a one year project that would be reviewed and discussed a year from now to determine if it’s been a successful project and if CVC wants to continue the relationship. Hamilton made a motion to implement the proposal document as written, Rand seconded. Additional discussion was a review of the scope of services requested. Smith suggested working out an agreement and bringing it back to both boards for final approval of what it would look like, defining the relationship and then get final approval of the CVC and IRDC’s respective roles. If there isn’t a consensus, then there is a need to fine tune it. Morain called for a poll vote. 10 yes, 4 no 3 abstained. Rand asked to give it back to executive committee for another review.

Governance Amendment Proposal

Edelman reported that Mark Resinger, USDA-RD State Director expressed interest in serving the CVC Board but after a recent ethics workshop for his agency he suggested that he would prefer that the role be defined as a non voting liaison. This would allow an arms length relationship, so that there would be no problems if CVC requested funding from USDA Rural Development. It would remove USDA Rural Development as a board member and make the State Director CVC Board liaison. Heidt made a motion to approve, Daly seconded. Motion approved unanimously. Edelman said the amendment requires two board approvals for changes to the governance contract and it would appear on another board agenda.

Meeting adjourned at noon for lunch. Meeting was called back to order at 1:00pm

Board Members Present via phone: Nancy Van Milligan, Jim Erb, Burt Chenjowski, Dave Osterberg,

In Presence: Curt Heidt, Rand Fisher, Tim Borich, Mark Hamilton, Ellen Huntoon, Dal Grooms, Lars Pederson, Carol Richardson Smith, Maureen Collins,Rick Morain, and Jack Payne,

Huntoon gave a legislative update from Washington. She asked the board to think about what we want to ask for. It is helpful to get input. She told the board they are doing a great job with very little money

Review Entrepreneurship Committee Recommendations

6 grants were submitted. The committee recommended five to be funded at $10,000 each. In addition the two ongoing collaborations were recommended for funding: MyEntreNet and the UI Pappajohn High School Business Plan Competition Project at $10,000. Two Committee meetings were held to discuss and review the applications. Rand moved to accept the report and fund the proposals as recommended by the committee. Ehrig seconded. Discussion – The committee recommended five grants for $10,000 each and to continue the funding for the two ongoing projects. One grant request, My Mainstreet, came in late. The committee had asked for evidence of interest by communities for the My Mainstreet services and the follow-up information arrived late. Liberty Communications sent in a letter after the committee met, and Edelman suggested the committee might have reviewed the proposal differently with the new information, and asked to put $2500 up for discussion for one workshop. It is a for-profit LLC who wants to do design and website work for businesses. Morain said for clarification, Rand’s motion is to approve the entrepreneurship subcommittee recommendations for the seven $10,000 projects and the second was to that motion. After the vote, the board could review any remaining dollars and how to allocate them. Motion carried unanimously.

Ongoing Collaborations include

• MyEntrenet Project UNI-Iowa SBDC
• UI Pappajohn Center High School Business Plan Competition
• ISED-SWICO Micro Enterprise Workshops with CVC funds from previous year
• ISU Pappajohn Center Middle School Youth Marketplace Program with CVC funds from previous year
• Fairfield Brainbelt Entrepreneurs with Farm Foundation grant funds

Review of Philanthropy Recommendations

CVC did not issue a call for proposals for philanthropy. Instead the Committee crafted a set of project proposals based perceived needs. One proposal emerged from school foundation interests and was reviewed by the committee. The other proposals were based on ideas that the CVC Board and committee had discussed during recent months. Rather than reviewing proposals from the outside, other than the school proposal, they crafted 5 proposals to be used for philanthropy:

• Coordination (Hertel) Academy, Working Group, etc ($10,000)
• Success Story/Best Practice Awards 5K highest rated project ($5000)
• Seed Funds for Innovative Philanthropy Projects and/or Endowments in Support of Community Entrepreneurship ($10,000)
• Wealth Transfer Templates, Presentations, & Circuit Rider Technical Assistance ($15,000 with $7000 for development of a tool box of power point presentations and scripts including wealth transfer; and $8000 for collaboration with the ICOF on a circuit rider to provide assistance to rural foundations.) CVC Board committee would like to continue involvement in leading this project.
• Local School and Community Foundation Collaboration Project involves collaboration between CVC and National School Foundation Association in Des Moines. Schools must work with community foundations to be eligible for 20% Endow Iowa Tax Credits.

Nancy asked to have ‘donor’ advisor changed to ‘professional’ advisor, felt it further clarifies it, or to ‘other donors and professional advisors’. Heidt moved to approve the five proposals, Maureen seconded. Motion passed unanimous. Van Milligan stated that she is so pleased with the work the committees have done and it’s a great and positive step and makes the proposals easier to review and approve.

Rural-Urban Policy Studies Portfolio Recommendations

• Iowa Rural Development Council Project ($10,000)
• Completion of Recent Movers Survey of 19 Iowa Nonmetro Counties ($22,000)

Sandy is directing the survey with board input. The board discussed strategies to disseminate the report when it is completed.

Rand asked if there was any money in the budget for immediate opportunities and if the money previously saved for case studies could be used for that. Edelman said that the board would have to describe it for USDA to use funds for other purposes, there is about $5,000 for contingencies.

Rand moved to approve the Final Rural-Urban Policy Studies Portfolio and Hamilton seconded. Passed unanimously.

$2500 for My Mainstreet was declined and moved to operations. Curt moved to approve budget including moving $2500 to center operations and Carol seconded, approved unanimously.

Finalize Budget Recommendations for FY06

Curt moved to use the $2,500 to center budget and approve the budget. Carol seconded. Motion approved unanimously.

Topics & Schedule for Future Board Meetings

Next Year’s Entrepreneurship Challenge Grant Process & Philanthropy Innovation Grant Process
Removing two reviews process would allow more flexibility in accepting proposals. Staff can come back with a proposed grant timeline. It would allow a grantee an additional month (from Sept to Oct).

Rick said philanthropy and entrepreneurship have been two big CVC issues, but there could be other items out there to be considered. Borich said there is a growing number of Hispanic and minority business owners but they are not attending workshops, etc. Perhaps something could be offered that would be directed to minority business owners.

Consensus indicated preference for moving next CVC Board date to be in conjunction with IRDC Quarterly Forum. Rand moved to have the CVC Board date moved to May 9. Motion seconded. Approved without desent.

Motion to adjourn, Seconded. Meeting adjourned.