Giving Back

Along with on-going financial contributions to local arts organizations, projects that promote health, healthy living, and alternatives for education and inclusion across society, included on these pages you will find a few of our passion projects here at Dr. Jan Hoistad Partners.

Each year we contribute a combination of time and resources, and sometimes money, to these people, businesses, or organizations, just because we believe in the good work they are doing.

DONATIONS

Project Elf Minneapolis Facebook Page

“Project Elf” is an ongoing group of volunteers that gather and support the larger needs of the non-profit program called Project Secure. It was designed by Mickey Mikeworth, twenty-three years ago. She manages it with the help of numerous volunteers. Each year, they have been instrumental in establishing thriving homes for a multitude of families. Most of these families are coming directly from homeless shelters. Their most immediate needs are housing, however, they face a host of other challenges and that’s where Project Elf seeks to connect them with additional resources throughout the year as they develop the skills to maintain their new lives.

Project Elf would like to create stability in an unstable world of poverty by extending a timeline to your possible generosity. Mickey invites you to become a catalyst for change by creating a long-term relationship with this project and considering how you can play a role in the coming years. The Facebook page includes a list of the items we would like to partner on.

One of the most difficult parts of poverty is that resources and services that were available one year are often not available the next. With a longer timeline of support, Project Elf would be able to apply the gift for consistent financial support to and for these families all year round. Our newsletters allow you to get constant reports and pictures of the families to see the way your gifts are actively changing their lives in real-time.

PAST CHAIR, BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts

Interact Center for Visual and Performing Arts is an arts center for adults with disabilities located in the Creative Enterprise Zone in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Since 1996, Interacts mission to create art that challenges perceptions of disability has opened doors for artists with disabilities and audiences eager to experience their work. Artists might never have seen the arts as a life choice, but now see the arts as essential to their humanity. With over 100 artists working in theater and studio arts, Interact is multi-cultural, inter-generational, and embraces the entire spectrum of disability labels.

From creating original theater, to dance, music, writing, painting, drawing, sculpture, textile arts, and everything in between – Interact artists flourish in an environment of radical inclusion, creating side-by-side with artists with and without disabilities, and artists from mainstream and marginalized communities.

Interact invites recognized professionals into our work as fellow performers, teachers, mentors, and colleagues. And we create opportunities for Interact artists to present work on stages and in galleries throughout Minnesota and beyond.

Explore Interact Here

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MENTORING

Organic Farmers + Food Businesses

Since 2009, Dr. Jan has done business consulting with several local farmers, many of whom are couples in business together, and/or multi-generational family farms. She continues to take on a number of these projects and welcomes being well-fed in exchange for consultation when she can be of help and the need is there.

Learn more about Dr. Jan’s passion for assisting farmers and people in food-related businesses, offering to consult along with partnering on special pro bono projects. One example is our 4-year business development project with Loon Organics, a farmer’s market and CSA operation that has morphed into a food share as we continue to hone the business around family/life needs.

“Jan has been an invaluable resource to grow, define, and sharpen our farm business. She is supportive, intuitive, clear, and creative. She has helped us vastly improve our hiring, employee management, and risk management processes, often with simple, creative strategies that make a big positive impact. She’s also helped us step back and look at the Big Picture, further defining our farm’s mission, values, and visioning for the future, and then grounding that vision in the present. Her blending of the practical improvement of systems with the creative visioning for the future has been an inspiring part of our work with her. With Jan’s help, we’ve been able to move our farm forward without sacrificing our quality of life and partnering goals.”

– Loon Organics