Why We’re Here

Most regions wish they were like Northwest Arkansas. If you read the papers, or drive around, you'll see prosperity everywhere. Big office buildings. Luxury homes. Lush golf courses. Trendy restaurants. Mega-churches. Upscale shopping malls. Arts, museums, theaters - even a baseball team. And everything is shiny and new.

Northwest Arkansas is home to Walmart, Tyson Foods, and J.B. Hunt, the biggest companies of their type in the world. We’re also blessed with some 1,300 corporate branches of companies like Procter and Gamble, Coca~Cola, General Mills, Apple, and others who supply and service these international companies.

Ranked by Forbes as fifth on their “Best Mid-Sized Cities for Jobs” and as 32nd of 350 metro-areas in “Best Places for Business and Careers”, Northwest Arkansas is broadly perceived as a place to flourish when it comes to work. We rank even better for people who have retired. We’re ranked number 15 in Money Magazine’s “25 Best Places to Retire.”

With a $44.8 Billion economy, our little four-county region makes up a quarter of the whole state’s economy. With numbers like these and considering how things look, you’d think our problems were over. Fact is that things are getting worse for Northwest Arkansas, not better.

Right alongside all our wealth is heartbreaking poverty. And it’s growing. Over the last ten years, poverty in Rogers and Springdale has more than doubled. By 2015, trends show that Northwest Arkansas will have the largest population of poverty in the state.

Too many people go to bed hungry in Northwest Arkansas. Almost 40% of the hungry are children. Nearly half of our hungry folk have to choose between buying food or medicine, or heating their home. Some 30% of people in Washington and Benton Counties can’t get healthy food. Can you believe that 75% of Madison County can’t access nutritional food?

When you lay your head on your pillow, almost 1,200 people here face trying to sleep homeless. Five hundred are children. Higher than average rents and home values are widening the affordability gap. We don’t see a lot of people on our streets, yet, but we will soon. Who’s going to be hit hardest by growing homelessness? Our most vulnerable. Women and children.

Our research tells us that Arkansas is America’s 8th unhealthiest state, and it’s true of Northwest Arkansas, too. Endeavor is determined to do something about it! Our new Healthy Living Initiative, while not yet fully developed, is going to help our neighbors be able to get the nutritious foods they need, help them be more physically active and give them tools to make better and healthier choices. 

If we want to keep our big employers here, we need a healthy work force. Right now, over a quarter of adults in Northwest Arkansas are obese. Obesity drives increases in diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. What’s really scary is growing obesity rates among children. We want our kids to grow into healthy, happy, and productive adults so that Northwest Arkansas’ workforce meets our region’s needs.

We’ve worked too hard too long in Northwest Arkansas to fritter away our advantages. Endeavor’s leadership, our Board of Directors, our partners, and most important - our donors - are stepping up right now to address our issues. We understand our challenges through the statistics, but we know that what we’re talking about here is people, not statistics. Our people.

Our problems are related, but so are the solutions. We know what they are, and we’re determined people. Plain and simple, we need your help. We’re working hard and smart, but there’s only so much we can do on our own. There’s a lot of wealth here in Northwest Arkansas, and a lot of people who believe in giving back to the place and people who helped build it. We’re counting on your involvement so we can work together on the present and make sure that the future we get is the future we want. We can do that by putting generosity to work for Northwest Arkansas.

To find out how you can get involved and help, click here.