Today’s program was entitled “Philanthropy and Beyond: Bringing Together Key Players for Holistic Community Change” which gave those in attendance a look at how the NWA Council Development Strategy is progressing. The strategic partnerships I’ve blogged about recently are so important to bringing lasting positive change to a community or region.

I’d like to recognize Seth Duell, Endeavor’s Program Assistant, who coordinated the event on our behalf. Thank you, Seth!

Generally speaking, well-being means the state of being happy, healthy or prosperous. I don’t know about you, but that definition sounds good to me and certainly sounds good for our region.

The objective for the Well-being Taskforce is to support the work of community and social service providers to improve the social and economic well-being of the region’s varied populations. One of the very first topics discussed by the taskforce early last year was the need to develop a healthy lifestyle and physical activity initiative for our residents.

If you take a look at the Gallup-Healthways Index Survey (www.well-beingindex.com), Northwest Arkansas, or more specifically our congressional district, ranks in the bottom quintile of areas exhibiting healthy behaviors. All the more reason to focus on a healthy lifestyle and physical activity initiative! The healthy behavior index measures lifestyle habits that have established relationships to health outcomes. The index includes four items such as eating healthy, weekly consumption of fruits and vegetables, weekly exercise frequency and smoking.

Endeavor Foundation is helping to lead the initiative by developing an awareness and education campaign about the importance of nutritious foods and physical activity. We’re very excited to roll the campaign out this summer! We have also just completed interviews of approximately 70 residents in our region to provide guidance for a program to reduce barriers to healthy living, specifically regarding nutritional and exercise choices. We look forward to hearing the themes from the interviews.

The Well-being Taskforce has other strategies to consider including whether there is a need for more out-of-school activities and opportunities for students throughout the region and whether a health data assessment is needed for our region to assist service providers, funders and others access to health data.

Lots to do! But, if well-being means happy, healthy or prosperous-we can continue that work!

Celia has brought together an incredible taskforce, a group of individuals and corporations that can focus solely on the development of the next generation of leadership in Northwest Arkansas by promoting citizen engagement, volunteerism and leadership training. It’s of critical importance to our region’s future vitality and prosperity to have a community of individuals dedicated and supportive to the social sector and the great work of our nonprofits. With all of the brain power in our region, can you imagine what kind of expert leadership will be sitting on our Northwest Arkansas nonprofit boards of directors and volunteering their expertise and time? It’s so exciting to think about!

The first initiative created by the Leadership Taskforce is a leadership training program to be delivered by the ALPFA Institute at the University of Arkansas. Mid to upper level professionals will be nominated or appointed by corporations and employers to participate in this leadership certificate program. Since the ALPFA Institute is already positioned as a leader in training programs, it made sense to collaborate and partner with ALPFA. We are anxious for the program to see its first 50 participants this fall.

Another initiative being planned by the Leadership Taskforce is a Volunteer Fair to take place in the next couple of months. The fair will provide an opportunity for organizations to promote their good works and help them recruit motivated and willing volunteers. The taskforce is recruiting individuals through the corporations for which they work to attend the fair and meet with the nonprofits.

I feel so fortunate to assist in leading these Community Vitality components and to work alongside such great community volunteers like the Leadership Taskforce, and its chair, Celia Swanson. What a great way for me to become a better leader!

I hope everyone has a wonderful spring green weekend!

If you have read the blogs, you know I’ve shared the plan’s four priority goal areas of 1) infrastructure, 2) regional economic development, 3) educational excellence, and 4) community vitality. This time I’ll dig a little deeper into the component being led by Endeavor: Community Vitality.

The goal for the Community Vitality Workgroup is to ensure our region remains a vibrant and attractive community for decades to come by working on:

1. The built community,
2. Leadership,
3. Diversity and inclusion, and
4. Well-being.

The taskforce for “built community” or enhancing the quality of the region’s infrastructure and the region’s downtown and population centers, met for the first time on March 16th. Karen Minkel with the City of Fayetteveille and chair of the taskforce convened members of the region’s Downtown and Main Street organizations including: Downtown Bentonville, Inc., Main Street Rogers, Main Street Siloam Springs, and representatives from the Cities of Springdale and Fayetteville. Mike Malone, Executive Director of the Northwest Arkansas Council, shared with the group that “healthy downtowns are very, very important and instrumental in helping with economic development”.

At this first meeting, one of the representatives shared that these organizations had never formally met to discuss how a collaborative approach could be taken for our region. Wow! That was surprising but also encouraging to know that a regional strategy could unite organizations to think in a new way. And, think they did! The ideas were flowing like our Northwest Arkansas Rivers are this spring! From downtown performance measures tracking the health of our cities to comparisons of downtown organizational structures and powers to ensuring residential/commercial mix, affordable housing and sharing of calendars, this taskforce is rolling after just one meeting!

You better get rolling, too! Read and learn about this place in which we live.

As I mentioned in my last blog, Endeavor was honored to be a part of this work by serving on the Steering Committee charged with developing the plan. But, we’re not stopping just because the plan was developed and published. No, we are continuing to step up our community leadership efforts. Last year, the Northwest Arkansas Council selected Endeavor to lead one of the four components of their plan, Community Vitality.

If you read the plan, you will see that there are four strategies outlined to help Northwest Arkansas compete and continue to grow our economy.  They are organized around the following priority goal areas:

• Infrastructure
• Regional Economic Development
• Education Excellence
• Community Vitality.

The Community Vitality Workgroup’s goal is to ensure that Northwest Arkansas remains a vibrant and attractive community for businesses, residents, families and retirees for decades to come. But, why should we do it? As Northwest Arkansas continues to grow and change, so must its support services, amenities and cultural infrastructure. We must respond to the needs of an increasingly diverse community. We must place an emphasis on maintaining an environment that is attractive to young families and enticing to single, young professionals. While we are fortunate to possess a strong quality of life and comparatively low cost of living, proactive community development is necessary to ensure that livability is enhanced rather than burdened by future growth.

In chairing the Community Vitality component, Endeavor recruited fourteen members to the Community Vitality Workgroup which consists of leaders from the social services sector, higher education, foundations, community groups, and businesses and corporations. After meeting and reviewing our objectives last April, the Workgroup then formed four taskforces with members from the community and identified chairs to lead the respective taskforces for implementation of the objectives.  The following are the four main Community Vitality objectives:

• Enhance the quality of the region’s infrastructure and the region’s downtown and population centers. Chair:  Karen Minkel
• Support the work of community and social services providers to improve the social and economic well-being of the region’s varied populations. Chair:  Anita Scism
• Promote racial, cultural and ethnic diversity in Northwest Arkansas and support quality of life enhancements by developing amenities that appeal to a variety of demographic groups. Co-Chairs:  Luis Restrepo and Kim Davis
• Develop the next generation of leadership in Northwest Arkansas by promoting citizen engagement, volunteerism and leadership training.  Chair: Celia Swanson

Each taskforce as well as the Community Vitality Workgroup have been meeting on a regular basis (every six weeks) for almost a year now.  The work coming from the taskforces is soooo good!  I’ve been impressed with everyone’s ownership and commitment to the strategy, their intellect, and the time they have given on behalf of themselves and/or their employer. All I can say is “Go Northwest Arkansas!” And, of course, thank you to all of our community leaders.

Next blog….more specific taskforce actions. If you want to stay in the loop, you might want to keep reading.

In January of 2011, the Northwest Arkansas Council unveiled the Northwest Arkansas Development Strategy, a blueprint for growing jobs and creating economic opportunities in Northwest Arkansas into the next decade.  See www.greaternorthwestarkansas.com.  The Council’s Steering Committee of nearly 30 regional business and civic leaders helped develop the strategy for taking Northwest Arkansas to the next level.  The Committee set four key goals in their work:

1. Assessing Northwest Arkansas’ economy;
2. Benchmarking our region’s strengths and weaknesses against the State and other high performing regions of the United States;
3. Assessing international economic trends and opportunities, identifying where our region’s strengths intersect; and,
4. Developing a plan that produces growth in key sectors that will lead to job creation.

Through the input and suggestions of thousands of Northwest Arkansans and the help of Market Street Services, a consulting firm from Atlanta, the Council and Steering Committee were able to accomplish such a strategy.

I had the privilege, on behalf of Endeavor, of serving on the Steering Committee with 30 incredible individuals from our region.  Endeavor was proud to step out and up to Community Leadership in this way.  As I’ve mentioned, Endeavor has a relentless commitment to the betterment of Northwest Arkansas, and based on the Council’s new strategy and Endeavor’s commitment to leadership, we felt we played an important part.  However, this was just Endeavor’s first step.

To be continued……

So backing up a couple of years, our Board and staff did some strategic planning and decided that we didn’t want to be limited to just providing services; we wanted to expand our mission and be a focused, long-term advocate for Northwest Arkansas.  Some refer to that as “community leadership”.  You are probably asking “what is community leadership?”  Or, you might be saying Northwest Arkansas has plenty of leadership, good leadership, and I agree.

Endeavor defines community leadership as a relentless commitment to the betterment of Northwest Arkansas.  And, some of the ways that our leadership will take place is through linking people and organizations together to create new partnerships; facilitating action across different sectors to work on problems; engaging donors and leaders in community problem solving; advocating and/or partnering for policy solutions.

Endeavor wants to make a real difference because we care about Northwest Arkansas and Northwest Arkansans!  So, I hope as we move through the months and years ahead, you will begin to see our leadership in many, many ways.  I’m going to share our first example in my next post so stay tuned.

It’s no secret that Americans are overweight. But the numbers are down right eye popping when you look at one segment of our population: African Americans.

Seventy two percent of Black males and 78 percent of Black females are either overweight or obese, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office of Minority Health.

And the problem is not confined to adults: over 44% of Black children are considered overweight.

As a result, Blacks suffer diabetes at a rate that’s twice that of our White population. Blacks also top the charts for heart disease-related deaths and hypertension.

The causes are many.

There is a strong correlation between low income and obesity.  In 2010, 27.4% of Black households were poor and 38.2% of Black American children were living in poverty, according to the University of Michigan’s National Poverty Center.

Many poor neighborhoods have become “food deserts” as grocery stores offering affordable, healthy food have migrated to the suburbs.  Filling the void are fast food outlets and convenience stores with offerings full of cheap, fatty calories.

Geographic influences play a role. Over half of the country’s 40 million Black population lives in the South, a region that’s considered the unhealthiest, according to America’s Health Rankings.

Also at play are inaccurate self-assessments of actual body size, as alluded to by Dr. Hickman. We nuance the language, partly to promote a positive self-image, so that “fat” becomes “big boned.”  All the while, Black women in the country have a life expectancy that’s almost six years less than White women.

What’s the answer?  As with most problems, it will take a concentrated effort on many fronts.

Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, is tackling the problem with a plan to build stores in underserved neighborhoods that are in need of healthy and affordable food. With 140 million weekly customers, Walmart is in a unique position to help Americans eat healthier.

First Lady Michelle Obama has launched Let’s Move! to combat childhood obesity, which has tripled over the past three decades. Let’s Move! is projecting that one third of all children born in 2000 and later will suffer from diabetes if we don’t solve the problem.

Americans are digging their graves with forks and spoons, and the problems are magnified for Black Americans.  Through our healthy living initiative, Endeavor hopes to reverse this trend in our small corner in Arkansas.

Any discussion on this subject has to start with one of our country’s best-known inventors, George Washington Carver. Let’s set the record straight from the beginning: he DID NOT invent peanut butter; that honor belongs to the ancient Egyptians. He did develop over 300 uses for peanuts and hundreds of uses for sweet potatoes, pecans, and soybeans (many newspapers today use soy ink pioneered by Carver).

As an aside, peanut butter is an inexpensive and nutritious protein source for low-income families. A peanut butter-based paste called “Plumpy’nut” is being used successfully to fight starvation among children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Carver also pioneered the idea of crop rotation–alternating peanuts and soybeans in place of cotton or tobacco– which was a huge benefit to Arkansas farmers as well as their brethren across the south. Carver is undoubtedly one of America’s greatest minds. His genius was honored by Time magazine in 1941 in an article that called him the “black Leonardo da Vinci.”

* * *

 Andrew Jackson Beard spent the first 15 years of his life as a slave on an Alabama farm. While barely out of his teens, he created and championed his first invention, an improved plow. A patent for a second plow followed in three years. Thanks to his inventions, farmers were able to more efficiently till the soil and increase crop yields. In 1892, he filed a patent for an improved rotary steam engine. Little is known about Beard from the time of his final patent application in 1897 until his death in 1921, but he left us with some incredible inventions.

* * *

Dr. Charles Drew is credited with establishing the first blood bank. He invented the process of separating the liquid red blood cells from the near solid plasma and freezing the two separately, which allowed blood to be preserved and reconstituted later.

He organized the world’s first blood drive, nicknamed “Blood for Britain,” in the early days of WWII. In 1941, the American Red Cross established blood donor stations to collect plasma for U.S. soldiers.

* * *

 Frederick McKinley Jones was orphaned at the age of 9 and dropped out of school after the eighth grade, yet his inventions were awarded 61 patents. Forty of these were for refrigeration equipment, the most important being a portable air-cooling unit for trucks that allowed fresh foods to be transported safely across country.  He died of lung cancer in 1961.  President Bush recognized his contributions with the awarding of the National Medal of Technology in 1991.

* * *

Appointed by President Barack Obama, Dr. Regina M. Benjamin is the 18^th Surgeon General of the U.S.  She oversees 6,500 public health officials charged with protecting the health of the American people. Among her many honors, she was named “Person of the Week” by ABC News; “Woman of the Year” by CBS This Morning; is a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights; and the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American Woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees.

* * *

And while it’s a stretch to call this a contribution to nutrition, George Crum has to be recognized for his role in creating a multi-billion dollar food industry. He is credited with inventing the potato chip in 1853. The story, which is more legend than fact, is that Crum created our country’s favorite junk food while chef at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, NY.  Supposedly a disappointed diner sent back a plate of French fries with a complaint about them being too thick. An angry Chef Crum sliced a new potato into paper-thin slices, fried them, and dispatched them to the table. Of course the diners loved them and an industry was born.

Crum never patented the invention but he did open his own restaurant in Saratoga Lake featuring baskets of potato chips on each table. The restaurant was open and successful for 30 years. While consuming chips should be a guilty pleasure that’s rarely indulged, the inventor was either a light eater of the salty-fried treats or blessed with good genes. He lived a long and fruitful life to age 92, and his invention generates over $6 billion annually in sales.

We have to admire Crum for his creativity and drive, but his culinary contribution is among many of the empty calories found on too many American plates today.  Unhealthy eating habits have led to alarming rates of obesity, and the problem is really magnified for Black Americans. In a future blog, we’ll discuss health problems endemic to this population.

But you may be surprised to know that today’s Delta is full of success stories.  These will be highlighted during the Why Arkansas? Funders Tour, Feb. 15-17.   Endeavor is teaming up with other state and national foundations to sponsor the event.

The tour is a series of site visits and strategic conversations that explore recent success stories in Arkansas and what this small state can teach us about creating policy change across the South and the nation. Arkansas’ successes are more than isolated bright spots in the South, they reflect a broader opportunity for progress and offer important lessons for funders.

The tour will include stops in Helena/West Helena and Gould, meetings at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, and even a trip to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville. It’s an invitation affair open to funders and philanthropic partners of the various foundations, but you can learn more by visiting the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.

Many thanks to the foundations and funders who care enough to successfully confront Arkansas’ biggest problems.