Urban Ventures
Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation is well known as an organization located in Minneapolis’ Phillips neighborhood that has focused on helping the community’s residents and businesses develop their assets and capacities in ways that help build a livable and sustainable neighborhood since 1993.
Urban Ventures developed an athletic club called Urban Stars that has grown to include 450 inner-city youth and 35 coaches to provide at-risk kids an alternative to gangs and street life. This club has been the laboratory for making a key discovery about urban youth: personal gains made on the weekend, in church, or on a sports team, unravel during the week in the homes and schools of distressed neighborhoods.
To counteract this reality, Urban Ventures added family support services with the Center for Fathering, the People’s Exchange, and added educational services with a computer-based Learning Lab Technology Center. Urban Ventures has also worked to re-create the lost foundation of economic stability, purchasing land and brokering deals to attract or retain businesses and create living-wage jobs for local families. Among these are Kitchen of Opportunities, Tri-Lite Stone, and Good Workers Employment. All of these efforts are focused in Urban Ventures’ Opportunity Zone, a 10-block area along Lake Street, just east of I-35W, in the Phillips neighborhood.
Urban Ventures’ newest effort is partnering with Cristo Rey Jesuit High School – Twin Cities to establish The Colin Powell Youth Leadership Center that will nurture and support the neighborhoods’ students, families, and the community as a whole.