1999 Annual Report Executive Summary*
Molokai Enterprise Community
During its first year of operation, the Moloka`i Enterprise Community made major strides forward in creating a governance and administrative structure, raising funds to support its operations and projects, and implementing its benchmarks.
Governance: The Moloka`i EC board (Ke Aupuni Lokahi) is composed of 20 volunteers recruited from all age, race, income and geographical groups on the island of Moloka`i. It meets at least once a month in the island's main town of Kaunakakai. Over the course of the past year, the board has adopted by-laws and established policies governing the Enterprise Community program. The board also contracted with a local 501(c)(3) organization, the Moloka`i Community Service Council, to provide administrative, fiscal and program management for the Enterprise Community.
Administration: The EC board determined very early that adequate administrative support is critical to successful implementation of the Moloka`i Enterprise Community plan. Working with its lead administrative entity, the Moloka`i Community Service Council (MCSC), the board helped to raise $279,650 to cover administrative expenses for the first year of operations. An additional 15% of the annual EC award has been dedicated to partially cover operational costs.
Jobs Created: To date, the Moloka`i EC has created a total of 22 full-time jobs (including 3.5 administrative positions) and 4 part-time jobs. Of these 26 jobs, at least 15 are expected to be sustainable.
Funds Leveraged: In the past year, the Moloka`i EC has leveraged a total of $2,897,050 for both program and operational expenses, in addition to its $250,000 EC grant. This translates to a leveraging rate of $11.60 for every $1 of EC funding.
Community Involvement: Community involvement with the EC process has been significant, with a total of 134 project, governance, and/or general meetings held during the past year. 83 meetings were held on individual EC projects; 25 EC board meetings were held; 25 Executive Committee meetings were held; 30 Youth Opportunity grant meetings were held; and 1 community-wide general meeting was conducted. In addition to all of these meetings, a mass-mailed newsletter was sent to all Moloka`i postal patrons in January 2000.
Partnerships: During the past year, the Moloka`i EC attracted a total of 28 new partners for our EC projects. These partners provided or pledged to provide funds, technical support, project leadership, and/or in-kind services. Seventeen of these 28 partners are private entities, while 11 are governmental partners, including federal, state and county agencies.
Progress on EC Strategic Plan: The Moloka`i Enterprise Community's goals are broken down into four major categories: environment, economic opportunity, self-governance, and healthy community. We are making progress on benchmarks in each of these categories.
In the category of environment, we are very close to implementing our top project, protection of our watershed. The cooperation of rainforest landowners has been secured and funding partners have all committed sufficient funds to begin fencing the native forest to protect it from feral goats, pigs, and deer. The fencing should begin within two months, and it will be coupled with a more aggressive hunting program to eliminate animals within the fenced-off forest areas.
In the area of economic opportunity, the aquaculture/fishpond project is proceeding with the assistance of a $500,000 grant from the U.S. EPA and various other funding sources. Restoration of one of Moloka`i's ancient fishponds is 50% complete, and families are learning how to raise fish in net pens located in the fishponds.
One of the top projects in the self-governance category, youth leadership development, is well underway with a group of approximately 50 young adults who formed a leadership group and have been meeting regularly. Another top project in the self-governance category, development of a community land trust, received a boost from the Bank of America which provided scholarships for 3 Moloka`i representatives to attend a land trust training session sponsored by the Institute for Community Economics. A task force is now being created to spearhead the land trust project.
Our first healthy community project, a new dialysis facility, is less than a month away from opening. A blessing ceremony was held for the facility on February 12, and it will begin serving patients as soon as Medicare certification is received.