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Partners for Prosperity Launches Second Phase Focused on Three Key Strategies – Will be Supported by $3.6 Million

Pocatello, Idaho, June 19, 2007 – Now in its fourth year, community-based Partners for Prosperity today begins its second phase as an organization whose purpose it is to help reduce poverty within the 16 counties and the Fort Hall Reservation that it serves. Established in March 2004 through a partnership with the Northwest Area Foundation, the Foundation provides financial and technical assistance during the life of the 10-year partnership.

“The next five years are built around three strategies that will benefit our region for future generations,” said Jessica Sotelo, executive director of P4P. “Our work plan describes how we will create, grow and preserve prosperity – work that requires the energies, perspectives and resources of diverse individuals and organizations. We need the thinking and experiences and support from the towns, rural communities and tribes if we are going to attack poverty at the core, and create opportunities for prosperity that will lift this entire area,” said Sotelo.

“We are very glad to assist Eastern Idaho’s P4P communities as they strengthen and refine their efforts,” said Karl Stauber, president and CEO of the Foundation. “Building public and private partnerships to reduce poverty long term can be long and frustrating work,” said Stauber. “We applaud P4P’s persistence and vision to identify the broken systems that promote poverty, and to discover the local assets that will help build on-ramps for opportunity for all community members, and especially those in deepest poverty.”

The partnership’s first phase (2004-2007) was marked by key accomplishments: Transitioning from a planning entity to an implementation organization; marshalling existing resources, building relationships, forming partnerships; an Earned-Income Tax Credit program increased incomes for 1,000 qualifying households; supported an Early Learning Initiative that served hundreds of children; co-sponsored a training program in energy careers with Idaho State University and the Idaho National Laboratory; supported a planned regional Mercado for Latino business owners; and supported a financial education program for children on the Fort Hall Reservation.

Based upon a review of first-phase outcomes and acceptance of a phase-two work plan, the Foundation today released $1.8 million of the phase two allocation for the partnership.

The Partnership was launched with an initial Foundation grant of $1.9 million. The Foundation has committed a total of $11 million to P4P over the 10-year life of the partnership.

With offices in Blackfoot, Idaho, P4P includes the counties of Bannock, Bear Lake, Bingham, Bonneville, Butte, Caribou, Clark, Custer, Franklin, Fremont, Jefferson, Lemhi, Madison, Oneida, Power and Teton, and well as the Shoshone and Bannock Tribes.

The Northwest Area Foundation is dedicated to helping communities reduce poverty for the long term. The Foundation works on strategic efforts with a small number of rural, urban, and American Indian reservation communities, and the organizations supporting these efforts, in its eight-state region: Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. These states were served by the Great Northern Railway, founded by James J. Hill. In 1934, Hill’s son, Louis W. Hill established the Foundation in Minnesota.

Since 1999, the Foundation has invested approximately $193 million in community-based poverty-reduction programs. It expects to invest an estimated additional $75 million within the next two years, at which time it will have completed its first 10 years of operation under a community-based program model. The Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant requests.