Dec. 6, 2008 -
PRLog -- Northway Community Trust doesn’t have anything to show for them being open on Broadway Avenue the last 5 years other than executive director Wesley Walker giving away $50,000.00 to a firm outside of Minnesota to do a survey on Broadway Avenue businesses…it was never done and the money was paid up front. Read the full story at www.yourblackwallstreet.com - originally published in Your Black Wall Street-The Agency.
Northway’s Newsletter – The Beam reports, “After five years, Northway Community Trust is adjusting the way we work in the community. Our relationship with our primary supporter, Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF), along with the downturn in the economy, has necessitated these changes. We will continue our role as community convener and our work will concentrate on three essential initiatives:
the Northside Achievement Zone, Manchester Bidwell’s Center for Arts and Technology and a “Main Street” commercial corridor project. Staffing has been reduced with only Executive Director Wesley Walker and Northway’s Administrative Assistant.”
Northway Community Trust has always tried to “play it safe” - “adjusting”
in North Minneapolis with agencies like Northway Community Trust – a “brick and mortar” non-profit that has moved away from their original commitments of building capacity and being a community support organization (CSO) dedicated to improving the quality of life in North Minneapolis to giving grants to the Peace Foundation - has suffered from not understanding business, no educated clue on the foreclosure situation (that could have been solved in August 2008 in north Minneapolis with the money spent by local and Fed’s $100 million+), bad decisions, lack of creativity and no consideration for “process.”
Northway’
s original purpose was to foster collaborative efforts across many programs, neighborhood boundaries and systems in order to fundamentally transform the entire north Minneapolis community - build bridges between social service organizations, businesses, government, foundations and additional funders - and connect organizations so they are working together instead of separately by leveraging skills and resources in order to reduce poverty and increase prosperity. Of course with the current state of non-functioning social service agencies, and the lack of “know how”, expectations have not been met. Furthermore, how can an agency have an Executive Director who’s an introvert? The soft spoken, slow actions and severe case of “stratification”
with Mr. Walker made it easy for him to underestimate other Black professionals in the community that could have assisted his agency in building capacity.
Read the full story at www.ibnn.org.
# # #
IBNN is a Minneapolis based news and information blog focusing on politics, business, money, education with devivery for all ethnic media from the IBNN mainstream.
