Sanford Health and MBFC donations push East Grand Forks childcare regrant fund to start-up threshold

The East Grand Forks City Economic Development Authority on April 23 reported two donations that moved a local rural childcare regrant fund to its formation threshold and helped cover customer-relationship-management costs.

Chair announced the rural childcare innovation regrant fund received a $2,500 donation from Sanford Health, which brought the regrant pool to $5,000 — the amount staff said is required to formally form the regrants board. “We hit that threshold of $5,000, so we can officially start to form that regrants board,” the Chair said.

According to staff, the regrants board will include members from the EDA (staff noted a couple of EDA board members were expected), three city staff members and four external community members; the board will manage a competitive process to distribute grants to local childcare providers.

Separately, the Minnesota Business Finance Corporation provided $1,500 toward HubSpot CRM software licensing and implementation, reducing the city’s up-front cost for the customer-relationship-management tool.

Board members asked for volunteers to serve on the regrants board and indicated staff would solicit and confirm members as required by the program rules. No awards were made at the meeting; staff will convene the regrants board once membership is finalized and follow the competitive process set out for awarding the funds.

The Chair also recapped a childcare-provider appreciation event that drew about 35 attendees and included community recognition by a local high-school class; the board described the event as well-received.