PREPARING FOR COLLEGE

2012 GATEWAY TO OPPORTUNITY GALA

Join the Minneapolis Urban League as we present the
2012 Gateway to Opportunity Gala - Picking Up the Torch
with keynote speaker Ambassador Andrew Young.

Save the Date!
Thursday. May 31. 2012
$100 per person ($80 for Urban League members)

Call 612.302.3105 for advertising information.

THE GATEWAY TO OPPORTUNITY STRATEGIC PLAN

Our Mission

The Minneapolis Urban League links African descendants and other people of color to opportunities that result in economic success and prosperity, and effectively advocates for policies that eradicate racial disparities.
 
The Challenge
For 25% of the African descendants in Minnesota, the prospect of living a healthy life, becoming ready for college and a career, joining the workforce at a level to support a family, and accumulating assets is an impossible dream. Poverty, racism, and lack of access to the key components of a healthy, prosperous life are destroying generations. Every survey produces the same alarming evidence. African descendants in Minnesota are not ready to take advantage of the vast economic opportunities this state has to offer.

2010 was a year of “firsts” for the Minneapolis Urban League. We opened the Gateway to Opportunity in May after nearly a year of strategic planning to move our organization from a social service model to an economic model. The Gateway to Opportunity offers a viable pathway through a series of life intersections to achieve economic stability and prosperity. They are: Health and Wellness, College Readiness/Career Exploration, Workforce Solutions, and Wealth Accumulation. At each of these intersections, we will give our constituents the tools to be successful.

Also in 2010, Minneapolis Urban League’s new strategic direction was recognized with grants and contracts that are opening the Gateway to Opportunity even wider. We became part of a new workforce program called Renewable Energy Network Empowering Workers (RENEW). RENEW connects participants to training that will result in placement in jobs in emerging green industries. In addition, we were awarded $300,000 in software from Microsoft to update our infrastructure and offer the latest operating systems for use by our students and constituents.

Minneapolis Urban League received an extraordinary grant from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to create a pipeline for people of color and women to enter the field of Highway Heavy construction. We created a CEO Roundtable to enlist construction companies in an intentional partnership to hire Minneapolis Urban League candidates on their job sites. At the same time, we have engaged the trade unions in a training partnership to qualify our candidates for apprenticed opportunities. As a result of these partnerships, we’ve placed over forty new workers during the 2011 construction season.

In 2011, as a result of some tough decisions and aggressive fundraising efforts, we have restored stability in our operating budget, and as we look forward to the 2012 operational year, we are confident that our position will be even stronger. In fact, we look forward to new developments in 2012 that will expand our services in areas of healthy youth development, career path training, housing, and mental health services. We are grateful to the Board of Directors, our staff, our donors, and funders for their support.

Scott Gray
President/CEO

HELP WANTED! REBUILDING THE EDUCATION PIPELINE FOR GENERATION "UN"

Saturday, 21 April 2012
Scott Gray, MUL President/CEO

"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared;" these are the words of the late Whitney Young, Jr. who served as President of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1971.

But what happens when someone sees opportunity, desires to prepare for it, but access to the required preparatory tools is only partially available, is insufficiently resourced, thus making it daunting and discouraging to attempt to attain the competencies and skillsets required to fully harness these opportunities.

Sadly, far too many of the students who find their way to the Urban League Academy Schools are being treated as Generation “Un”; unable to thrive in traditional educational settings, thus ending up in sparsely funded alternative learning centers in absence of the remediation, psychological, mental and family support services needed to respond to the risk factors that dominate their lives; unable to finish high school as their foundational basic skills were never developed throughout the years, ultimately becoming discouraged and quitting school-derailed by the weight of hopelessness; now unable to qualify for a job on a career pathway because of the lack of both a high school diploma and an industry credential; unable to envision, enroll or persist in a postsecondary institution because the system has not taught them to focus on asset-building and personal strength recognition; unable to find a way to pay for higher learning because they do not fully understand how to navigate the system; finally unable to discover opportunities that over a lifetime support a satisfactory quality of life, one that supports the economic vibrancy and economic growth of the community

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