Connected by Home
Campaign Impact Report
A Message from Lee Blons, President & CEO
We envision a community where all people have a home.
In service to our bold vision, Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative launched our first-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign in 2019, a campaign we called “Connected by Home.” Connected by Home manifests our belief that everyone benefits when all people have a home. Community wellbeing is improved when children have a home for schoolwork, when parents know their paycheck can go to more than just the rent, and when a disability won’t keep a neighbor from finding stable and supportive housing.
In the last three years, you helped make so many things possible! Together, we’re channeling our gifts and our energies to make change and secure the public funding that connects more of our neighbors to the stability of home.
I hope you share my pride in what we’ve done together. Here are just a few highlights from this campaign:
- After years of relentless advocacy and overcoming significant hurdles, we finally opened Cranberry Ridge to families in Plymouth.
- We aimed to disrupt systems of inequities our neighbors face on their journey to home and broke new ground by creating homes for men coming out of incarceration at Great River Landing in Minneapolis.
- We launched a truly transformational solution to Minnesota’s housing crisis when we announced Bring it Home, Minnesota, which will change the landscape of home in every Minnesota community.
- Congregations organized to focus on building deeply affordable homes in suburban communities such as Hopkins, Shakopee, Richfield, and Maplewood so families and individuals can choose to stay in the cities they love.
With your partnership and support, I’m proud to say that Beacon has become the leading developer of deeply affordable and supportive housing in the Twin Cities metro. For us, it’s not about winning a contest – it’s about doing all in our power to meet the most pressing needs in our communities.
In the following report, you will discover how Connected by Home met these and other critical needs in our community. For individuals, families, and communities who need us the most, you helped make all the difference.
Thank you for investing in our shared vision that all people have a home!
With gratitude,
Lee Blons
President & CEO
Our results
Gifts to Beacon are bringing new family supportive housing to Hopkins.
Jessica talks about the difference having a stable home has made for her and her sons, and why she’s showing up to make new homes at Vista 44 a reality.
550+ homes under development
We exceeded our goal of doubling the pace of production during the campaign.
87% stability
87% of residents coming out of homelessness have found stability in their home built by Beacon.
1,000 neighbors assisted
Beacon provided safe, quality, and stable places to live for the individuals and families who called a Beacon building home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Without housing, you have nothing. The greatest reward for me with housing coming out of prison was I was able to sit down with my family and get some self-respect and some connections.”
Todd, mentor at Great River Landing
2 buildings opened their doors
We welcomed new neighbors at Great River Landing in Minneapolis and Cranberry Ridge in Plymouth.
New family supportive housing
Beacon launched a new initiative to support 130 families experiencing homelessness and engaged in the child welfare system in Shakopee, Hopkins, and Minneapolis.
Sheltered families
Beacon provided emergency shelter for 50 families in crisis.
People have the power
Congregational organizing is moving Beacon’s bold policy initiatives forward by empowering people to use their voices for positive change. Together, we’ve launched a transformational policy solution, Bring it Home, Minnesota, to help address Minnesota’s housing crisis and equipped everyday people to lead the way.
Read about our members’ work to create and sustain homes, shelter families in crisis, and change policies so all people have a home.
Community of support
More powerful together
Dear Beacon Supporters,
When Beacon launched the Connected by Home campaign three years ago, we took a leap of faith together. Could we really inspire generosity from our community to double Beacon’s impact? Could we live more fully into the shared vision that, regardless of circumstance, all of our neighbors have a home? I’m delighted to celebrate that, thanks to you, we HAVE doubled Beacon’s impact together, and we ARE moving boldly toward a better world where all people have a home.
As chair of the campaign, I would like to personally thank you for the gifts you have given that helped Beacon build more homes, offer full-circle support, and shape bold policy solutions. Both Beacon’s mission and this community inspire me to generously share my energy and resources to advance our shared goals. It will continue to take all of us to make change possible. We are more powerful together.
As we close the campaign, I hope you recognize that as a donor, you are a key partner in creating stable and secure housing for our neighbors who need it most. I hope you will consider saying yes to future invitations to join us in this work!
Sincerely,
Georgia Thompson
Connected by Home campaign chair and member of the Beacon board of directors
Stories from the Beacon collaborative
Together, we’ve changed lives and strengthened communities through the power of home. Neighbors are safe and comfortable in new buildings we’ve created together – and new homes are on the horizon across the Twin Cities metro. We’re doing this together through the power of congregation-based community organizing. Discover what being part of the collaborative means to some of our faith leaders.
30+ cities
Congregations in over 30 cities showed up for advocacy, shelter, supportive housing, and new homes.
35 allied organizations
Bring it Home, Minnesota has inspired 35 allied organizations to join in advocating for this transformational solution to Minnesota’s housing crisis.
40+ legislators
Beacon secured endorsements from more than 40 state legislators for Bring it Home, Minnesota.
Interfaith Collaborative
The congregations listed on the map have proudly affirmed the mission and values of Beacon during the timeframe of Connected by Home and worked together toward the vision that all people have a home.
Advent Lutheran Church, Maple Grove
Basilica of Saint Mary, Minneapolis
Bet Shalom Congregation, Minnetonka
Bethlehem Lutheran Church Twin Cities
Calvary Lutheran Church, Golden Valley
Central Presbyterian Church, St. Paul
Christ Presbyterian Church, Edina
Christ the King Lutheran Church, Bloomington
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By the numbers
Connected by Home campaign success
Since July 2019, every gift made to Beacon was counted as part of the Connected by Home campaign. Every dollar you contributed helped Beacon double our impact: creating more homes, offering full-circle support, and advocating for bold policy. The work of our collaborative is bolstered by community support. Thank you!
$11.2 million donated
Our community donated $11.2 million during the campaign. Each gift transforms into solutions to meet Minnesota’s housing crisis.
$83.4 million unlocked
$11.2 million in private support helped Beacon secure $83.4 million in capital funding during the years of the campaign for new developments and renovations.
1,400+ connections
Beacon engaged more than 1,400 people through direct action, training and events – expanding the circle of people committed to home.
3,800+ donors
Our community of support grew by leaps and bounds. Nearly 1,200 of our supporters made their first gift to Beacon during the campaign!
Donors have a shared belief in home
The Visitation Sisters are committed to their North Minneapolis community. They know Beacon is, too. When a financial campaign to build a new monastery exceeded their expectations, the Sisters decided to donate funds to support Beacon’s Emerson Village development and help bring deeply affordable, supportive homes to families in North Minneapolis.
Sister Karen Mohan shares, “Visitation’s mission statement speaks of ‘being present in this multi-cultural neighborhood where our friends and neighbors are drawn into a circle of faith so that all may have a clearer vision of the face of God.’ Beacon’s statement ‘We believe in home,’ says everything about being present and about neighborhood.”
Beacon is grateful to the many donors who put our shared values into action during the Connected by Home campaign by supporting safe, affordable, and dignified housing.
“My husband, Jan, and I first learned about Beacon through membership at Westminster Presbyterian Church. We were attracted to the careful development happening at Nicollet Square and since then, we’ve been impressed with Beacon’s detailed consideration for comfort, trust, and respect that youth long for as they search for a home.”
Carol Frisch, Beacon donor
Total contributions during the campaign
| Donor | Amount Donated |
|---|---|
| Individual | $8,063,347 |
| Congregational | $924,705 |
| Foundation & Corporate | $2,288,462 |
| Total | $11,276,514 |
Board of directors and advancement committee
Board as of June 30, 2022:
- Charlie Flynn, Chair, Owner/Founder, Francis King Ltd
- Linda Sandvig, Vice Chair, Retired Lobbyist, Community Volunteer
- Nancy Burns, Secretary, Retired, Biotechnology, Oncology
- Tom Rock, Treasurer, Retired
- Mark Bayley, Community Volunteer
- Steve Berglund, VP Commercial Banking, Associated Bank
- Daymond Dean, Community Volunteer
- Rev. Michael Gonzales, Pulpit Staff, Wayman African Methodist Episcopal Church
- Laura Helmer, Community Volunteer
- Sadia Tarannum, Senior Product Owner, Surescripts
- Georgia Thompson, Community Volunteer
- TJ Ticey, Chief Administrative Officer, Tri-Construction
- James Gertmenian, Ex Officio Director, Retired Senior Minister, Plymouth Congregational Church
Advancement Committee members as of June 30, 2022
- Georgia Thompson, chair
- Dan Bailey
- Mark Bayley
- Steve Berglund
- Daymond Dean
- Cherie Stofer
- Jackie Sullivan
Next five years
Changing the Landscape of Home
For more than 20 years, Beacon has been led by a simple but profound vision: all people have a home. This vision has led us to take on the challenges others are hesitant to tackle and to use our voices for the sake of justice and a better world. And now, this vision is leading us forward. Boldly. Together.
Together, we are changing the landscape of home.
On July 1, 2022, Beacon launched a strategic plan to guide our work for the next five years. This strategic plan, shaped by input from across our community, affirms Beacon’s core commitments while stretching us in new ways.
Beacon has always been relentless when it comes to our commitment to ensuring that all of our neighbors have a place to call home. At the center of our new plan is a resolve to meet the needs of people with the lowest incomes and those most impacted by homelessness and housing instability, especially Black, Indigenous and communities of color.
We are dedicated to changing the landscape of home. How will it happen?
Together, we will:
- Take risks. Tackle cutting-edge supportive developments to meet needs others aren’t addressing and confronting unjust structural barriers that keep people from home.
- Transform the conversation around home. Ignite the public will for transformational investments in home through the Bring it Home, Minnesota campaign and Beacon’s relentless advocacy in the public sphere.
- Deliver results. Continue our leadership in creating and sustaining the homes people need to thrive by launching 700 new homes, with at least 200 fully completed by 2027.
- Invest in residents. Dedicate ourselves to becoming a model provider of supportive housing that secures quality, stable homes for residents of our buildings. Ensure that 90% of residents coming out of homelessness into a Beacon home achieve at least a year of stable housing through the benefit of wrap-around services.
- Unlock opportunities. Provide options for high-quality, affordable homes in the communities people love, from the city center to the suburbs and beyond.
- Ensure the right voices are at the table. Transform our culture by inviting the voices of people who have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity to help shape our goals and actions, and centering race equity in the work we do.
- Grow the power to make change happen. Galvanize community support by fostering a more powerful and inclusive collaborative of congregations, sharing our expertise, inspiring generosity from community members who value homes for all, and partnering with other organizations for the common good.
As a collaborative of congregations, we provide for others out of the abundance we experience individually and as a society. We are bold, going where many are unwilling to go. We don’t just build buildings – we also support those with the lowest incomes through services and partnerships that help them thrive. We organize for solutions that meet the destabilizing impact of homelessness with opportunity, equity, and compassion.
Together, we are changing the landscape of home in our communities. We hope you’ll join us, as together, we make real the vision that all people have a home.
Join us!
Making a gift to Beacon helps us advocate for transformational public investments in home, provide quality supportive housing for residents in Beacon’s buildings, and build new deeply affordable and supportive homes across the Twin Cities metro.
Together, we’re sheltering families in crisis and sustaining homes where people can find safety and security. And we’re advocating to make sure no one gets left behind or locked out.
Will you make a gift today to support this work?
