The recent economic shockwaves have made a primary goal of The Lodestar Foundation’s — to encourage collaboration among nonprofits in order to eliminate duplication and create efficiency — more pressing than ever.
Earlier this year, in an effort to increase nonprofit efficiency, The Lodestar Foundation, in association with the Arizona-Indiana-Michigan Alliance, created The Collaboration Prize, a cash award of $250,000 presented to the most successful collaboration in the nonprofit world.
On Nov. 12 Lodestar named the 30 semi-finalists, selected from a pool of over 644 U.S.-based nominations.
ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia, a community development financial institution headquartered in Ilwaco, with offices in Seattle, Port Angeles and Shelton Wash., and Astoria, Coos Bay and Portland, Ore., was among them.
ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia was selected as one of thirty semi-finalists for the merger of two community development financial institutions.
ShoreBank Enterprise Pacific and Cascadia Revolving Fund merged to leverage the strengths of both organizations.
Because of the unique nature of the nonprofit financial industry, the newly merged organization developed rigorous new measures of impact and efficiency. Loan production, the organizations’ main output, grew from $6.5 million to $16 million in the first year after the merger.
"It is an honor to be a nominee and semi-finalist for this prize," said John Berdes, president of ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia.
Lodestar will announce the winner on March 5, 2009 at a seminar on collaboration among nonprofits sponsored by the Association of Small Foundations, in partnership with Lodestar.
ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia is a certified non-profit community development financial institution serving urban and rural communities of Oregon and Washington. SBEC is an affiliate of Chicago-based ShoreBank Corporation, the nation’s first community development financial institution.
The Lodestar Foundation is a grant-making organization devoted to maximizing the growth and impact of philanthropy by efficiently and effectively leveraging philanthropic resources.
The Arizona-Indiana-Michigan (AIM) Alliance is a collaboration composed of The Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation at Arizona State University, the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, and the Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Grand Valley State University (Michigan).