Honoring the Past, Building the Future: SMIF Celebrates 40 Years

SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA—From family daycare needs to main street business development to community-painted murals brightening our towns’ parks and buildings, Southeast Minnesota’s Driftless area has benefited from nearly four decades of financial investment by the Owatonna-based Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF).

“SMIF has built deep roots by investing in entrepreneurs, supporting young children and families, and strengthening the communities that define this region,” said Benya Kraus upon her arrival last year as SMIF’s new president and CEO. “I am excited to listen, to learn, and to help plant the seeds for an even stronger future—one rooted in belonging, innovation, and possibility for all who choose this beautiful region as their home.”

On April 23, SMIF officially celebrates 40 years of supporting this area’s cities, counties, schools, businesses, nonprofit organizations and others by advancing projects that improve the way our communities address challenges and opportunities for growth.

And now, as it launches into a fifth decade of service to the area, SMIF is reflecting on the many accomplishments and successes it has made possible through its various grant and business-support initiatives—many of which have taken place right here in our own backyard.

Fostering economic and community vitality through collaboration and partnership

SMIF’s programs are varied, emphasizing community vitality, entrepreneurship and early childhood development. This includes business financing that advances economic development, and grants that support youth and families, literacy, small towns and rural improvements, nonprofits—even groups interested in spiffing up their community through its Paint the Town program.

Millions of dollars have been invested in regional projects over time—way more projects than we have space to acknowledge. In recent months alone, more than a dozen Southeast Minnesota projects have received funding from SMIF. (See the list below for recently funded projects.) 

Addressing childcare needs is a top priority for Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation. Earlier this year SMIF’s Early Childhood team joined First Children’s Finance (FCF) in Lanesboro to initiate the Fillmore County Rural Child Care Innovation Program (RCCIP). As the lack of childcare continues to impact our communities, conversations like these are essential. (SMIF photo)

Working with childcare providers and other Early Childhood professionals has helped address a growing need that helps families, businesses and communities at many levels. According to SMIF, childcare providers are not only the essential economic development engine for addressing the growing workforce shortages across southern Minnesota, but they also “help shape the character, psychological safety and brain development of our next generation of talent,” says Kraus.

“Studies show that a child’s brain is 90% developed by the age of five,” she continues. “Our childcare providers, other Early Childhood professionals and caregivers are therefore critical influences in a child’s mental and social development. In a world with increasing vitriol and violence, it is such a gift to have people who nurture kind and caring children who can become kind and caring adults, and who help build a more kind and caring world. But they cannot do it alone.”

SMIF also advocates for community development through local Community Foundations — it serves as the fiscal host for 35 of these volunteer-led foundations, each deeply connected to the unique needs of their respective towns. 

In our corner of Southeast Minnesota, Preston, Harmony, Houston, Rushford, St. Charles, Lanesboro, Southland (Adams) and Spring Valley all have Community Foundations. They fund projects like upgrades to food shelves, pool passes for youth and weekend backpack programs for children. These are tangible, local impacts made possible by local donor generosity.

Rooted in the past…

“SMIF and five other Initiative Foundations around the state were founded 40 years ago at the height of the farm crisis out of the belief that we were stronger when we pooled together our gifts, time, and hope for a future we may not live to see,” Kraus says. 

As the farm crisis unfolded, many of those families were forced to sell off land that generations of their ancestors stewarded.

“The farm crisis of the ‘80s had the potential to pit neighbor against neighbor, the urban metro benefiting from the gains of globalization while rural communities were shut out of financial markets. Yet, amidst the devastation,” she continues, “a group of Minnesotans came together across urban and rural communities to form the Minnesota Initiative Foundations.”

An investment by the Minneapolis-based McKnight Foundation led to an endowment fund supporting each of the six regions of Greater Minnesota as a way to keep as much wealth retained in rural areas as possible. These regional funds were governed by local residents and in those 40 years since, generations of community donors and volunteers have invested funds that are eventually distributed to “future generations of entrepreneurs, child care providers and community leaders with big ideas to grow their small towns.” 

“That spirit animates the foundation still today,” she points out. “In a time when many economic and social forces strain our ability to keep our businesses, main streets, and neighborliness local — SMIF is well positioned to bring our tools of lending, grant making, and convening to make sure that opportunity and belonging is available for everyone who seeks to call southern Minnesota home.”

And so it’s only appropriate that Honoring the Past, Building the Future should be this year’s theme.

Benya Kraus is president and CEO of Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation. (SMIF photo)

Growing toward the future

Kraus is nearing the end of her first year with the foundation—and what a year it’s been. Hardly was she in the door before staff had her touring the region. 

“I took to the road alongside my predecessor, Tim Penny, as we visited nearly all 20 counties in our region over a six-day span,” Kraus says.

“We kicked off in Albert Lea and ended in Winona, weaving between the bluffs in Rushford and Preston, following the Cannon River to the Great Mississippi from Cannon Falls into Wabasha. 

“We toured the nation’s cutting-edge biotech research labs from Rochester to Austin and spotted street art of butterflies and hog sculptures through vibrant downtowns from Montgomery to Mankato to Fairmont. 

“From all of these travels, three things were made absolutely clear to me: reinvigoration, reinvestment and reinvention are essential for strong communities.”

And that defines SMIF’s agenda marching forward:

• Reinvigoration addresses the need for the next generation of leadership to step into key community leadership roles, whether it’s running for elected office, volunteer organizing for local events or serving on Community Foundation and nonprofit boards. It takes time, energy and new perspectives to keep our communities’ traditions, core services and civic institutions vibrant.
• Reinvestment requires a personal vision, but it’s fueled by how your community co-invests with you. In return, that initial investment sparks a domino effect of possibility for the places and projects that bring communities together.
• Reinvention transforms the underlying relational networks, civic habits and local institutions that can spur reinvigoration and reinvestment. As the people living in our communities change, our institutions also need to adapt to the changing needs and interests for involvement.

SMIF President and CEO Benya Kraus and Tim Penny, SMIF’s former president, embarked on a six-week summer (2025) listening and relationship-building tour across its 20-county region. Above, Tim and Benya (third and fourth from left) met with community and business leaders during a stop in Preston. (Submitted photo)

“Our road trip,” Kraus concludes, “focused on the possibilities that next generation leadership can bring to our region, but it’s important to note that for every young entrepreneur reinvigorating, reinvesting or reinventing in their communities, there is an army of long-time community leaders who are fanning their flame, removing barriers and inspiring their leadership.”

The ability to attract new young families and cultures to this region, she says, is also the recipe “for preserving the proud traditions and identities of our rural roots and small towns that make us special.

“We need each other to forge a future ahead for southern Minnesota. And just like in our founding story 40 years ago, cooperation, reinvestment, and seeing our own well-being as tied to that of our neighbor will give us the resilience to get through any crisis thrown our way.”

Learn more about SMIF, its current funding priorities, grant programs and 40th anniversary year on the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation website.

 

Meet Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation President and CEO Benya Kraus: In Harmony with her community

“I was born in Bangkok, Thailand—a metropolis of over 11 million people—and studied in Boston and Chicago.

“Today,” Benya Kraus proudly says, “I call Harmony, Minnesota home.” 

Growing up, Benya traveled to the states and enjoyed summers on the family farm in Waseca County, where her dad’s side of the family has farmed for six generations.

“As the daughter of a first-generation Thai immigrant and a blonde-hair, blue-eyed Minnesota farm boy, I’ve had the gift of seeing southern Minnesota through the eyes of both parents. Since moving back six years ago, I feel connected to a family history tied to this prairie land, yet still miss the taste of lemongrass and scent of jasmine flowers from my childhood home.” 

SMIF President and CEO Benya Kraus. (SMIF photo)

While there are things she misses from larger communities, “I was often more of a consumer of community, rather than a creator. I could go through a whole day and be completely anonymous. And while periods of anonymity can help you explore new parts of yourself, ultimately, I don’t believe humans are meant to live anonymous lives.”

And what she’s found, she says, is that here in rural southern Minnesota, “Our small towns are not just dots on a map; they are ecosystems of relationship. The barista who remembers your order, the neighbor who plows your driveway without asking, the school board member who provides in-home childcare to your new infant—these are not coincidences. They are the fabric of a life that resists anonymity.”

When she talks about why she loves Harmony, “it’s not just that we have four restaurants, a distillery and a grocery store all along our downtown drag—but that I can tell you about the chef who comes out of the kitchen to sing Pink Pony Club with his five-year-old daughter at open mic night, or the couple who moved from New Mexico to open a maker space for the community because they fell in love with a run-down building that they believed they could bring back to life.

“Our community knows their stories, and they show up to wrap their support around them. To us, it’s not just the end product but the process and the people it takes to get there.”

And that’s the sort of thing SMIF invests in, she says. “We believe that economic development is inseparable from human development. That thriving communities are built not just on infrastructure, but on trust. And that the vitality of a place depends on the visibility of its people.”

You can reach Benya at benyak@smifoundation.org

  

This story includes story and interview content originally published by the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation.