A few years ago, a coalition of nonprofit organizations, businesses and governments came together with an ambitious goal to improve the quality of life in five rural counties of northwest lower Michigan.
Like many rural areas, this expansive region that includes Traverse City, Elk Rapids and Frankfort faces a variety of issues, including access to affordable housing, land development pressures and concerns about the well-being of youth.
Members of the coalition – called the Community Development Coalition of Northwest Michigan – believe that by collaborating on these and other concerns they can create “a more sustainable regional community.”
Along those lines, the hope is to bring a larger share of state and federal monies and resources to the region, foster deeper, productive connections with elected leaders and decision makers, and witness meaningful improvements on economic, environmental and societal concerns.
There are 40
coalition members, including Grand Traverse County, Traverse City Light & Power, Interlochen Public Radio, Cherry Republic, the city of Traverse City, Housing North, Consumers Energy, Michigan State University Extension, United Way of Northwest Michigan, Rotary Charities, and Housing North, among others.
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David Mengebier“We have such intense local control in Michigan … (the coalition) is intended as a way to break down some of these silos and start working together,” says David Mengebier, CEO and president of the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation, which has spearheaded the collaborative effort. “This is a way to get nonprofit organizations, government and businesses to meet each other and build trusting relationships, which are instrumental to getting things done.”
The coalition represents Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Leelanau counties. Some coalition members, however, cover a much larger geographic area.
To measure progress, the coalition created a
Regional Community Scorecard with specific targets for improvement on a host of objectives by 2030. The Regional Scorecard measures and monitors changes in the areas that matter most, emphasizing shared accountability and transparent communication along the way.
There have been updates to the Scorecard almost every year since 2021.
The Scorecard is organized into three broad categories: Economic, Societal, and Environmental. Each category contains a defined vision, including several objectives, long-term targets, and key indicators of progress. Each Scorecard objective was identified with input from coalition members with subject matter expertise.
The economic objectives, for example, include increasing the number of professional, IT, scientific, technical jobs, in the region. Societal goals include improving access to housing and improving youth mental health and well-being. The environmental objectives include protecting farmland and open space and improving the ecological health of the Boardman/Ottaway River Watershed.
The most-recent Scorecard showed positive progress, such as improving youth mental health, and other areas where progress is still lagging, such as community mobility. The latter measures how bikeable and walkable communities are and how accessible open areas are to those with disabilities. These are attributes, Mengebier says, that make communities more attractive to live and work in.
The Scorecard, he adds, has been a great source for the region when coalition members are talking with lawmakers and other community leaders about issues.
As an example, he recalls a recent trip coalition members took to Lansing to talk to lawmakers and others on Advocacy Day. Members came to support funding for the Office of Rural Prosperity, for a proposed school housing project and arts and culture programming.
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Community Development Coalition of Northwest MichiganDavid Mengebier with Zoe Ahlstrom, policy director for the Executive Office of the Governor.That housing project, an innovative effort to create affordable housing for teachers and staff, needed more funding. A separate consortium, with some funding help from the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation, is spearheading the effort to build housing in Blair Township in Grand Traverse County. The project received a $5 million allocation from the state of Michigan last year. The coalition is continuing to explore financing options and other ways to bring the housing project to fruition.
“Housing is huge in our region,” says Dr. Nicholas Ceglarek, who is superintendent of Northwest Education Services, the intermediate school district for the region spanning the counties of Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska and Leelanau. Northwest Education Services is also a member of the Community Development Coalition of Northwest Michigan.
“New teachers or new support staff cannot afford to live in our region. It affects other people too – firefighters and nurses – people that need to be a part of the fabric of our community … the coalition saw this as a priority,” Dr. Ceglarek says.
Legislative leaders and state agency directors told coalition members – including Menegbier and Dr. Ceglarek – that it was rare to “see a community like yours come in and speak with one voice,” even if the issue was not directly related to each organization.
“It really validated the model we have established,” Mengebier says. “We had a really diverse set of community leaders all speaking with one voice about something that was important and about moving the needle on these objectives.”
How the coalition came to be
The impetus for the coalition came from Mengebier and the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation.
Shortly after Mengebier’s arrival at the nonprofit organization, he found himself regularly approached for foundation support “for this or that program, project or proposal.” In some cases, another organization was already working on the request.
“What I concluded was that I was having this experience because all of us – nonprofits, governments and businesses – were operating in silos and not communicating with one another,” he says.
“We have no big companies here with big pockets that can prompt change like in Detroit and Grand Rapids,” he adds, pointing out that Grand Traverse County alone is home to more than 1,000 nonprofit organizations. “We don’t have a Mayor Daley to help us get what we want done.”
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Community Development Coalition of Northwest MichiganCoalition members in Lansing. Their collaborative effort impressed lawmakers.Menegbier’s inspiration to set up the coalition came from his extensive experience with coalition building during his tenure at Consumers Energy, where he served as senior vice president of governmental, regulatory and public affairs. There, he was also responsible for frameworks to measure progress on key issues.
Coalition-building work is a tool that many community foundations use to support communities, extending beyond their well-known charitable efforts.
“Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation’s work with the Community Development Coalition is a great example of the leadership role community foundations can play in their regions to convene community members and cultivate cross-sector partnerships to find solutions to local issues including housing, education, workforce development and beyond,” says Kyle Caldwell, president and CEO of the Council of Michigan Foundations.
Other examples of leadership roles among Michigan community foundations include the Community Foundation of Oceana and its work with
Employer Resource Networks. The Oceana foundation provided leadership to convene partners to create the network and assisted with a funding strategy. The network brings together local employers to address issues like turnover, productivity, training and employee retention.
Lessons for others
Are there lessons here for other rural areas?
Dr. Ceglarek of Northwest Education Services sees possibilities but points out the coalition is still a work in progress. He acknowledges there has been some “push and pull” among members and each organization has its own board to contend with. “What I’ve observed to this point is innovative leaders of organizations willing to take a risk on what we can do better together,” he says. “I think if we have the courage to wade through (some issues), we can find more in common than not. If we lean into collaboration, I think our communities thrive.”
From Mengebier’s perspective, the issues the region is dealing with are “tough and very complex.” “The question I always ask is what are the tools we have as a community foundation to try and move the needle forward?”
One of them is being able to convene a coalition of like-minded organizations.
“I’ve been surprised, pleasantly, about the sustainability of this coalition,” he says. “Everybody that is involved are some of the most effective leaders across this region and they’re all super busy. They keep devoting time and attention to the coalition’s work. This is validation that this is a good reason for our coalition to continue.”