DAKOTA FOUNDATION AWARDS $95,000 TO COLORADO-BASED LITERACY FOUNDATION
The Dakota Foundation has announced Colorado-based Brink Literacy Project as the winner of the 2020 Ian Helms Award for Social Entrepreneurship
The award carries an $80,000 two-year grant to support the expansion of Brink’s Frames Prison Program, an innovative educational course working to increase literacy, decrease recidivism, and shift public perception around prison reform. This award also includes an additional $15,000 program-related investment (or “PRI,” in this case a low-interest loan) to kickstart the creation of a comic anthology from the program’s incarcerated students.
Kelsey Nolan, Executive Director of the Dakota Foundation said:
“We received a number of extremely strong applications from a range of incredible organizations for this year's award.
“Brink Literacy Project really stood out with their creative model and inspiring aim of increasing the literacy rates of inmates, decreasing recidivism, and shifting public perception of the prison system.
“A key purpose of this award is to unleash innovative approaches to income generation, and Brink's proposal really resonated with the board in that regard.
“We're excited to help Brink support individuals facing adversity to reach their potential, and further push for reform, all through the humanizing beauty of written word.
“As a small private family foundation, we like PRIs because they a) allow us to multiply our distribution dollars to make a bigger impact, b) help bring business discipline to nonprofits by adding urgency and skin-in-the-game, and c) encourage social returns be tied to diversified revenue models, thus increasing the sustainability of the nonprofit organizations we fund.”
Dani Hedlund, CEO and Founder of Brink Literacy Project said:
“We are honored to receive this prestigious award from the Dakota Foundation. This funding will kickstart the expansion of our work in the women’s prison system, allowing us to take real steps toward cutting down recidivism in our home state. By offering consistent holistic education classes for those living on the brink, we hope to empower women across the state to take positive steps toward happy, self-sufficient lives on the outside.”
“We’re especially thrilled to partner with the Dakota Foundation in this expansion. As a foundation centered around self- sufficiency—both for their communities but also for the nonprofits they fund—Dakota’s innovative approach to creating impact and sustainably through the PRIs makes them a vital partner in Colorado’s philanthropic community.”
ABOUT BRINK LITERACY PROJECT
Brink Literacy Project is devoted to utilizing the power of storytelling to positively affect the lives of people on the brink. Through its education, community, and publishing divisions, this nonprofit works worldwide since 2007 to foster a love of literature, increase literacy rates, and use storytelling to empower underserved communities.
ABOUT THE FRAMES PRISON PROGRAM
With more than 80% of incarcerated people reoffending upon release, prisons have become an ineffective, extremely expensive system that more often than not turns first time offenders into life-time offenders.
To break this cycle, Brink created the Frames Prison Program. Taking a holistic approach to education, Brink runs programs in maximum-security women’s prisons focused on tackling the common deficit that leads to incarceration—lack of education and personal direction—while also offering healing from personal trauma. Using comics as a way to court low-literacy and reluctant readers, the course centers around each student writing about an important turning point in their lives. Exploring these turning points helps students take a hard look at their lives, assess important past decisions, and set positive goals for the future—all while increasing literacy and education rates.
ABOUT THE IAN HELMS AWARD
The Ian Helms Award for Social Entrepreneurship aims to assist local philanthropic organizations with creative and inspiring projects to increase self-sustainability while also providing a strong social return. Recognizing that small nonprofits are often constrained by a lack of capital and support, the primary objective of the Ian Helms Award is to help already-active small organizations to establish or grow a source of regular revenue that will both help secure the sustainability of the organization while also providing employment, education, or support to those in need.
The Dakota Foundation was founded by Bart Holaday, a 1965 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. The Ian K. Helms Award is named in memory of Captain Ian K. Helms, a 2008 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. Captain Helms was a Distinguished Graduate of the Academy and was Wing Commander (the highest-ranking cadet). He received a graduate degree from Oxford University while studying on an Alberta and Sidney Holaday Scholarship (established by the Dakota Foundation) at Exeter College. Captain Helms flew a B-1 bomber in combat, supporting U.S. military efforts in the Middle East. He tragically succumbed to cancer in 2016. In honor of Helms’ legacy of leadership, patriotism and devotion to service, the Dakota Foundation created the award in his name.
This year’s award received unprecedented applications, with two other incredible organizations—Trendlines, WOW—making it to the final round for their strong and deserving impact models.
Previous award recipients include Simply Good Cakery by Extended Hands of Hope, Community Violence Intervention Center, and Things Forgotten But Not Gone by Discover Goodwill.