Pokagon Foundation Helps Harbor County Develop
The impact of the Pokagon Fund on a handful of tiny southwest Berrien County towns may test the notion that philanthropic help can boost optimism and a community’s sense of its own worth, and as a result, the community will thrive.
The southern half of Berrien County is unlike the northern half. When the Benton Harbor-St. Joseph area was a thriving manufacturing-and-merchandising center, the southern half of the county was a thinly populated farming area with a scattering of manufacturers, and the banks and retail businesses that supported them. In the early 1980s, all the larger manufacturers moved out.
Summer tourism jobs replaced manufacturing jobs — at significantly less pay and usually with no benefits. Tourism grew into second-home ownership. New Buffalo Mayor Gary Ramberg confirmed more than 70 percent of property tax bills are mailed out-of-state.
Most full-time residents have seen little economic improvement since 1980. New Buffalo Area Schools still reports the second-highest percentage of pupils in the county qualifying for free and reduced-price school lunches due to low family incomes.
The new Pokagon Fund is filling gaps local governments, schools and not-for-profit organizations cannot fill. In the process, it is expanding the definition of “local community” and taking the edges off local rivalries.
The foundation wasn’t required by state or federal law as a condition of opening the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Township.
“The Pokagon Band’s philosophy is that we share ourselves, our culture, our language, the root of who we are,” said Tribal Chairman John Miller. “One of the ways we can do that, we discovered in New Buffalo, particularly in establishing the Pokagon
Fund, that goes beyond the traditional revenue sharing between the city, the township, the band. We intended for revenue sharing to develop a relationship of cooperation between the tribal nation and the local units of government.
“The real why is the Pokagon Band’s greater sense of responsibility — that our tribal nation needs to work with the local communities to help them develop, as well. And that takes funding. The Pokagon Fund is the mechanism that could help meet that objective.”
The Four Winds Casino opened in August 2007, and the Pokagon Fund began funding grant proposals three months later, using 2 percent of the electronic-gaming revenue from the casino. Ten percent of all funding goes to communities in and around
Pokagon Band land trusts in Dowagiac and Hartford, in Michigan, and in North Liberty, Ind.
The remaining 90 percent supports municipalities and not-for-profits providing programs in the townships of New Buffalo, Chikaming and Three Oaks. Since
November 2007, the fund has granted over $3.4 million in funding in health, human services, art, education, recreation, and environmental preservation.
The Pokagon Fund has worked closely with local not-for-profits. It has developed baseball and softball parks, and funded libraries, school programs, and food pantries, and provided heating assistance.
Each month, Executive Director Mary Dunbar publishes a list of funded requests on the Pokagon Fund’s Web site. This past summer’s projects have included $2,400 to
New Buffalo Township for voter registration booths; $4,078 to the River Valley School District to pay guest speakers and for field trips for students — with the intent of fostering job placement after high school; $20,000 to Chikaming Township for a permanent recycling station; $4,500 to St. Mary of the Lake School in New Buffalo for new textbooks and a new social-studies curriculum, and more than $300,000 to the city of New Buffalo to improve public parks.
The Pokagon Fund recently awarded New Buffalo $52,000 to have Landscape Architect Planners, a Lansing company, assist the city, New Buffalo Township and neighboring communities in developing a nonmotorized transportation plan.
“One of the things we are doing is sometimes giving unsolicited grant awards,” Dunbar said. “In summer, when gas prices were so high, we gave $5,000 each to three agencies, and we asked them to give out gas gift cards, because people were having a hard time getting to work. The people who live here year round, it’s a low-income population. If there are things we can do to defray people’s expenses and make ends meet, that’s always a good thing.”
The seven-member Pokagon Fund board is composed of two members appointed by the tribe, one appointed by the city of New Buffalo and one appointed by New Buffalo Township. They choose three at-large members from community applicants.
The board is planning a 2009 project to teach budgeting, board development, grant writing and related skills to area not-for-profits.
“We think funding is important, but we want them to be the best stewards of the
money they can be,” Dunbar said. “While the majority already are, we think if we make them stronger not-for-profits, they’ll be better stewards of the money. They’ll deliver services better and everybody wins that way.”
About the Author
Lynn Stevens, Business Review Western Michigan
Windmill Project in Huron County, Pigeon, Michigan
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