FOUNDATION FOR THE MID SOUTH INC
134 East Amite Street, Jackson, MS 39201 www.fndmidsouth.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: The Foundation for the Mid South invests in people and strategies that build philanthropy and promote racial, social and economic equity in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Community Development - Recognizing the need for community development across the region, the Foundation seeks to invest in municipalities, organizations, and people to help them develop solutions to allow their communities to grow and prosper. We do this by pursuing changes in systems and policy, including changes in coordination of services, contextualization of literacy and occupation skill development, combination of on-the-job training, development of career paths, strengthening the workplace to be a learning place, and improving policies. Continued on Schedule O.Community Development, Continued:In 2019, FMS supported a number of efforts to stimulate advanced economic impact. Amongst those were a new lineman training facility in the Mississippi Delta that continues to be featured nationally for its success in training entry level lineman for careers beginning well above the margin for family sustainability with upward mobility. Several linemen have attained journeyman status and one is already making six figures only seven months post completion. One interesting learning point from our work has been related to financial literacy within our training opportunities. We have been asked to increase the amount of financial education for all participants due to the nature of their increase in income and unfamiliarity with these amounts of flexible income. Trainings are now structurally imbedded within each grantees programming are being scheduled to highlight savings and large purchase clarity. The Foundation, serving as the operational support partner, was awarded a fellowship opportunity for six fellows from the West Jackson neighborhood to work with the Center for Community Progress on grass roots blight remediation. The Foundation's proposal was one of only three out of forty across the United States that was selected. FMS community development leadership provided guidance and assistance to Jackson's six fellows as they travel to different communities across the country to participate in peer learning opportunities. The fellowship culminated with a group visiting West Jackson to observe the work our fellows accomplished during in the 9 month period including development of a large scale trash cleanup campaign. To highlight some of our community partnerships The Refill Caf, West Jackson's opportunity youth workforce training program, hosted the group for two events including an evening community activism session. For more information on the program or the fellows from Mississippi, follow this link: https://www.communityprogress.net/our-press-releases-pages-31.php?id=491Major movement was made in the Arkansas Delta region as we launched our first cohort of AmeriCorps VISTA Delta Leaders. While this project is also under the AmeriCorps umbrella of CNCS, this project is dissimilar in that the members are actively working to build new capacity for the organizations where they are hosted. One of the major strengths of our initiative is our desire to see small, rural nonprofits and municipalities have access to the VISTA project idea without the cumbersome management of being a program supervisor. During 2019 the Community Development director embedded in the communities to develop strong relationships with the organizations and their staff members. This work culminated in a strong group of host organizations including several regional community action agencies, a local city government, a chamber/economic development foundation, and a health-related services entity. Additionally, the director will be hosting recruitment events across the Arkansas delta counties to be served to identify potential members and additional partners for the work going forward. One of our greatest learning moments with this project was that we must continue to engage partners to offer matching dollars to assist those who are unable to pay even the small matching requirement of just over $3,000 for a full year of service. Community development personnel attended the ACT Work Ready Community Workforce Summit in Charlotte, North Caroline. Several of our programmatic grantees were invited to speak at the conference based on the funded programming that the Foundation has been an integral part in. One organization was awarded for being the first county nationally to achieve their third level of compliance maintenance. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas continued to focus on a large impact community development proposal. This work, which would ideally be funded in late 2020 will encompass an innovative approach to reintegration amongst those who are within six months of release from incarceration. This program looks at several of the statistically impactful recidivism areas including lack of support/direction upon release into the next positive steps for successful reintegration, specific skills training related to jobs that will hire returning citizens while incarcerated, and intentional connection with youthful offenders prior to their offenses reaching incarceration.

Education - This program area focuses on addressing issues that ensures improved education outcomes leading to participation in higher education and employment. The goals are to increase student learning and improve indicators such as high school graduation rates, college-readiness, and work readiness across the Mid South. Several approaches are utilized to reach this goal: Expanding the skills and capacity of students and support groups, as well as organizations that support student learning in other mediums beyond the classroom.Continued on Schedule O.Education, Continued:In 2019, the Foundation partnered with selected school districts to improve student outcomes addressing key factors that may affect performance including absences. A major contributor to absences particularly for black males is oftentimes suspensions. The aim is to partner with selected districts to improve student's performance, learn more about current policies/practices and their influence on absences, suspensions and performance.The Foundation worked with the Cleveland and Greenwood/Leflore School Districts. The Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) to assess current proactive and corrective procedures for managing student discipline for all school districts. We finalized the analysis of student discipline data for the 2018-2019 school term as well as completed the summary of school discipline reports for each district.The Foundation is engaging and encouraging partners to continue sharing information in order to further strengthen individual and institutional capacities. This is essential to ensuring greater student success. We remain active in developing new partnerships and strengthening existing relationships with our partners to support efforts aimed at advancing student success throughout these mid-south communities. By having more in-depth conversations and reach, we continue to expect greater engagement and action from community leaders, community organizations, as well as local and statewide public officials to positively improve outcomes. There must be ongoing recognition and acknowledgement that positive outcomes for students in these areas will significantly improve the Delta's growth and competitiveness.

Wealth Building - Agenda is to enable families to build financial security. We believe that building wealth requires increased access to effective financial programs and information. When families are given the tools and knowledge to get their finances on track, they can begin to grow their savings, maximize their income and acquire assets. Continued on Schedule O.Wealth Building, Continued:The Foundation for the Mid South provided financial training to 29 participants in New Way Mississippi Reentry Program. These individuals had the opportunity to learn skills that will help them obtain employment and transition back into society. The Foundation supported this process and provided essential financial information on the importance of saving, budgeting and credit management. They were challenged to set goals and work toward a brighter financial future.Financial training was provided to participants of our workforce development program. The Foundation partnered with the community colleges, a university and nonprofits to provide the financial training. The participants were students enrolled in the lineman, manufacturing skills basic, MiBest, Opportunity Youth and health programs. The sessions included a wide array of topics: decision-making, financial wellness, financial education, goal setting, money management, budgeting & savings. The length of the trainings varied from one-time two-hours to six- week trainings, which were held for 2 hours per week. Training was provided for day and evening classes. There were over 400 served for the year. In addition to the direct financial training, the Foundation provided approximately 1,200 Financial First Aid Toolkits to grantees and other non-profits. Also, a mini wealth building online course has been developed and will be used to enhance future training. The mini course will be completed in 2020. The training will be done by in-house staff and consultants.The Foundation's Financial First Aid Toolkits includes information how to grow and protect your wealth. Over 2,000 toolkits were provided to organizations to assist with financial training.Asset Building - The Foundation worked in partnership with Hope Policy Institute to build an effective Coalition in support of earned income tax credit (EITC) in Mississippi. The goal was to present legislation for a refundable state (EITC) during the 2019 session. Our work focused on finalizing the coalition members, developing talking points and researching legislation from other states. A state EITC can potentially benefit 400,000 households and would put an average of $288 back in the hands of Mississippi working families. Presently, 29 states plus the District of Columbia have a state EITC, including our neighboring state of Louisiana.

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