Northern Lights - Issue 22 - July 2023
LEELANAU TOWNSHIP COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: Where Every Voice Matters
by AMY LANE
A driftwood sign, hand-painted by Julie Glidden, adorns the exterior of the LTCF, beautifully communicating their areas of focus.
In the throes of the pandemic, when businesses in Leelanau Township were struggling, Northport business owner Shawn Santo got a welcome – and unexpected – assist.
Joan Moore, executive director of the Leelanau Township Community Foundation, came into Santo’s Porcupine gift shop and told her of a new fund offering grants to help small businesses weather the pandemic. It was the Regional Resiliency Program – an initiative launched by Venture North Funding & Development and supported by the foundation, which joined with Venture North to get the word out to businesses throughout the township.
To Santo, Moore’s outreach made an impression.
“Out of the blue…here is someone that cares enough about small businesses that’s going door to door to see if she can help people,” said Santo, also owner of the Enjoy Michigan shop and managing partner of the Yard & Lake retail, food and beverage establishment. “It was moving.”
It’s the type of concern for community, that’s in the foundation’s DNA.
Leadership that Unifies
The third-oldest community foundation in Michigan, spanning an area of 2,000-plus residents on the northern tip of the Leelanau Peninsula, works toward the betterment of the township -- through grants toward community needs and student scholarships, and, convening groups and stakeholders on community issues and identifying priority areas for community development.
It’s community-building that plays out in many ways, creating an atmosphere in which “great things happen,” said Tim Ervin, a consultant with Venture North who’s also had long-reaching involvement with the foundation. “That community-building is essential to the formation of new ideas and inspirations as well as the formation of new businesses. The community foundation is a vital piece of infrastructure.”
The foundation has five current priority areas: Attainable housing, child care, technology access, poverty reduction and the environment. Work starts by engaging the community and getting feedback from leaders, business owners, residents and others.
For example, the foundation has been gathering input on what community members see as housing needs. It’s a direction that began in discussions with a foundation leadership team representing a broad cross-section of township interests, and developed into a housing initiative that’s included bringing together community stakeholders and a June online survey exploring housing options. The survey information will form a report to be delivered to the community and governmental entities.
“We try to gather the data, we try to hear the voice of the community and are looking for what our community wants and needs,” Moore said. An end goal: To facilitate a framework for a community-wide vision, and align entities toward that vision.
“It’s not up to us where the community goes, it’s up to us to facilitate discussion and information-gathering,” Moore said. “I think sometimes a neutral nonprofit organization is really set up to do that.”
Taking the Long View: Housing
The foundation’s priorities guide its goals and grantmaking. And with housing a critical issue, grants have included a three-year, $30,000 grant agreement with nonprofit Housing North to help fund a dedicated position for a person to work on Leelanau County housing, through a Leelanau Housing Ready program. The foundation in 2022 dispersed its second $10,000 allotment under the grant to Traverse City-based Housing North, an organization that works to build awareness, influence policy, and grow capacity and resources for housing solutions in northwest Michigan.
The foundation also last year granted $50,000 to Traverse City’s HomeStretch Nonprofit Housing Corp., toward funding of affordable housing units HomeStretch is developing in Suttons Bay. The Vineyard View development, which will encompass eight townhouse-style apartments, broke ground in December.
With both the Leelanau Housing Ready program and Vineyard View, potential benefits extend beyond township lines. But, Moore said, “sometimes one has to go a little outside their borders to accomplish something that would also benefit the township.”
Patricia Soutas-Little, chair of the Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation, said the township foundation, or LTCF, takes “the long view, of what’s good for the community.” Issues such as housing, she said, “cut across township borders, county borders.”
Overcoming Costs to Care for Kids
She also gives kudos to the LTCF on another issue that’s a top priority for both county and township: Child care.
When Northport native Amalie Kristiansen looked to open her own child care center, through a unique Leelanau County initiative to increase the number of early child care businesses, she faced a major hurdle at her location: Operating costs of the building, which is owned by the village of Northport and leased to Northport Public School, which in turn is subleasing it to Kristiansen for $1 a year.
To cover operating costs, Kristiansen would have needed to charge rates beyond which families could afford, said Soutas-Little, who is also chair of the Leelanau Early Childhood Development Commission and co-chair of the Infant & Toddler Child Care Startup initiative, which has helped child care businesses launch through funding, resources and personal coaching.
Patricia Soutas-Little, chair of the Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation
The LTCF stepped in, making a grant to Northport Public School of up to $17,200 a year for three years, to help cover the center’s maintenance and operating costs. It helped make Little Acorn Childcare a reality, Soutas-Little said. “There would not have been a program, if it had not been for the foundation.”
Moore said the foundation was a longtime supporter of the former Leelanau Children’s Center when it occupied the building, and “providing child care for our residents has been a top priority for many years. Much of our grantmaking has been for that purpose over time.”
Little Acorn was a collaboration of many, including Soutas-Little and the child care initiative, the village and school, the foundation, and Venture North, which helped with business planning through individual coaching and a specialized group “boot camp” it developed for child care startups.
And as Little Acorn progressed last fall, foundation board president Kathy Garthe led a group of volunteers who dedicated more than 150 hours to prepare the center for opening, including removing dead trees, logs and brush, raking leaves, building a retaining wall for a future play area, repairing fences and walls, cleaning the building roof and siding, and painting.
Little Acorn “is sorely needed,” Moore said. “I surely hope that it is a great success.”
The grant toward Little Acorn Childcare was among $167,463 in grants to local nonprofits that the foundation made in 2022. The money supported 21 projects in priority areas as well as education, youth recreation, health and wellness, and arts and culture – touching needs as varied as renewable energy, youth enrichment, literacy and growth, food pantry support and programs at the Northport Performing Arts Center.
The township foundation…takes “the long view, of what’s good for the community.” Issues such as housing…“cut across township borders, county borders.” — Patricia Soutas-Little, Leelanau Peninsula Economic Foundation
UnCaging the Community in the Name of Art
There were also foundation sponsorships, including Leelanau UnCaged – an end-of-September music, dance, art, and food festival in the streets of Northport. The daylong free event, attracting thousands and including multiple stages in the village hosting live performances, arose with as an idea with foundation leadership team member Andy Thomas, co-founder of Northport-based Thomas & Milliken Millwork Inc., along with team member JoAnne Cook, chief tribal appellate court judge with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in Peshawbestown, said Ann Marie Mitchell, facilitator of the leadership team and Realtor with Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realtors.
“The importance of the arts was part of the leadership team’s focus, but Andy and JoAnne came up with Leelanau UnCaged, and carried it forward. And it is supported by the foundation; they are a sponsor every year,” Mitchell said.
“This has become quite a community event, because it’s occurring at a time of year when not many people come to town. It’s also a celebration for people who have been working there all summer.”
She said the community identified fostering the arts as a priority and it became part of economic strategy focus, “so the combination was, how could we bring the arts in to benefit the business owners.”
Leadership from All Four Corners
It’s a visible project of the leadership team, a committee established a little over a decade ago that identifies and discusses issues or needs they see in the community, giving input and feedback to the foundation. Made up of more than 20 members including representatives from county, township and village government and education, recreation, library, chamber of commerce, business and residents, the nonpartisan group “is essentially people who are really civically minded, and want to continue to see the community move forward and revitalize in all the areas that have been identified,” Mitchell said.
She credited Ervin for early-on raising the idea of the leadership team, when he was providing guidance and assistance to the foundation in a previous professional capacity.
“In other townships, when I’ve tried to explain what’s going on with the leadership team, the comment has been: ‘I wish we had something like that.’ Because all you have otherwise, is the boards of the various municipalities, their various commissions, a chamber of commerce or business association, library or school…there’s nothing linking them together. And that’s where I think the leadership team concept is beautiful,” Mitchell said.
She said the foundation’s approach – going to the community to determine what’s important to them and then moving forward to address it, with community direction – is vital.
It’s About Them
“It is critical that you understand what your community is asking, telling you what’s important to them. Then you have a blueprint, you know where to focus,” Mitchell said. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be focus. We’d all have our pet projects.”
Soutas-Little said the foundation is flexible in meeting community needs and is “a very thoughtful and compassionate group. And I think that they truly are a model for others who are looking at having some form of a foundation for their own community.
“They’re highly respected, and they play a leadership role. If the foundation gets involved in an initiative, I think it signals to others that this is a project that’s worthy of attention, and encourages others to invest in it as well.”
During the pandemic, the foundation’s aid to local small businesses wasn’t just leadership; it was unprecedented.
Tending to Business
The foundation was the first community foundation to participate in Venture North’s Regional Resiliency Program, or RRP, and it became the largest such contributor, putting $77,500 toward the RRP and the survival of small businesses in its local borders. The foundation’s three rounds of funding, joined by $10,000 from Venture North, enabled grants of up to $5,000 to 24 businesses.
As a charitable nonprofit, the foundation can’t contribute directly to for-profit entities like businesses. But Venture North’s Ervin broached the opportunity of helping businesses via Venture North, a nonprofit and federally certified Community Development Financial Institution that offers financing to support small business growth and jobs, promoting economic and community development.
The RRP offered a unique opportunity for the foundation to help in a time of need and emergency, and as a Venture North partner, the foundation could have an impact it couldn’t achieve on its own.
“That was the only way we were able to get funds out there to local businesses during COVID, and we were very happy to have that opportunity,” Moore said. Foundation board members comprised the local team that reviewed grant applications and recommended awards.
For business owner Santo, a small RRP grant helped cover rent at a time when her businesses were shut down and when “so many small businesses in Northport were doing everything they can to keep heads above water,” she said.
And the grant was fortuitous beyond immediate financial help; it introduced Santo, a successful Detroit businesswoman, to the foundation and to Venture North, plugging her in to Venture North news and information.
That connection led to Venture North assistance in Santos’ newest venture: Yard & Lake, a multifaceted redevelopment of what was once a 1920s gas station downtown Northport. Part lifestyle store, toy shop, food and beverage establishment and event venue, with two accompanying residential rental units, Yard & Lake is the latest in a string of business accomplishments that unfolded after vacation first brought Santo and husband Kevin Borsay to the village.
Joan Moore, Leelanau Township Community Foundation executive director, and Laura Galbraith, Venture North president.
The Power of Ice Cream and Ideas
Strolling the street one day with ice cream cones, they came upon a vacant building that was once an 1880s barbershop, with an “available” sign in the window. “My husband got a big smile on his face, and I said, I know what you’re thinking,” Santo said. They called to inquire, and “24 hours later we were signing a lease,” Santo said, for what became their Enjoy Michigan shop of Michigan-made goods and souvenirs.
An Enjoy Michigan shop in Traverse City followed in 2016, then came the Porcupine gift shop in Northport in 2017, in a 1930s log-raftered cabin. And while Santo was working at Porcupine one day, she was approached about purchasing another building down the street, almost 100 years old.
With a passion for adaptive reuse – bringing new uses and vitality to properties or historic buildings – Santo and Borsay couldn’t resist. “In your mind, you can’t stop from going, what would the potential of this building be,” Santo said. “And can we be good stewards, to situate it so it can be healthy for its next chapter in life. Can we re-vision the property, and situate it for the next 100 years. For us, our brains were turning.”
Developed into multiple components, Yard & Lake’s latest step is food and beverage service. Venture North helped Santo reach that stage and open in time for summer, providing a small grant for bar consulting services and a loan for kitchen and bar equipment.
Venture North business development manager Steve Brower said the project had several aspects that made it attractive, including job creation, substantial investment by owners with business experience – including Santo’s background as founder and owner of Pure Detroit retail stores and other Detroit businesses – and economic boost for the community.
“This is an improvement of property for Northport, and filling a need that was there for these businesses,” Brower said. “It was a good opportunity for us to get involved.”
Food and beverage service includes an outdoor area with authentic German beer garden tables and an Airstream-style service bar, custom-built from an Airstream trailer acquired from a Detroit casino and transported to Northport. Inside Yard & Lake, there’s additional seating, renovated kitchen, and a cocktail bar, with both the bar countertop and interior tabletops supplied by Workshop, a Detroit business founded by Borsay that designs and manufactures reclaimed wood furniture.
A Place Where Everyone Listens
Santo said Northport is a community that’s “very connected,” and Yard & Lake can be part of that. “We do see ourselves as what they call a `place three,’ a place outside of your work and home environment where people gather, where the community gathers,” she said.
And the community is strengthened, Santo said, by the work of Venture North and the township foundation.
“They really are on the ground listening and holding their hand out, reaching out to connect and support the community.”
Amy Lane is a veteran Michigan business reporter whose background includes work with Crain Communications Inc., Crain’s Detroit Business and serving as Capitol correspondent for nearly 25 years. Now a freelance reporter and journalist, Lane’s work has appeared in many publications including Traverse City Business News.
