The 100 Men of Dane County go through quite a process to announce and honor a big grant winner four times a year – every quarter. Their goal, according to their mission statement, is to make the world a better place for the children of Dane County. On Aug. 20, the organization announced that its third-quarter grant winner – which includes a check for $90,000 – was Mentoring Positives, Inc., the eastside non-profit that has been building trusting relationships, positives attitudes, and life skills in youth through mentoring and social entrepreneurship for 16 years.
“This was really big for us. We are excited about it,” Will Green, executive director of Mentoring Positives, tells Madison365. “It’s cool to know that we have this kind of support in our community. It’s hard for small, Black organizations like mine to garner funds of that amount. So this is very big for us. We’ve been doing this for 16 years now and more and more people are starting to take notice.”
The 100 Men of Dane County provides grants to organizations that help youth in Dane County overcome adversity and reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.
“The 100 Men are a group of businessmen that I’ve known for a little bit through the work they’ve been doing in the community,” Green says. “They’ve been doing these quarterly grants throughout the year to help youth throughout Dane County.”
100 Men of Dane County Board President Charlie Wills says that he has known Green for 15 years. “Will and Becky have been doing amazing work in the community and I think its truly a message of persistence,” Wills, a former UW Badger basketball player, tells Madison365. “They were in the mix – this is their fourth time submitting a grant and they’ve gotten to second place two times before winning.”
Based in the Darbo-Worthington Neighborhood, Mentoring Positives supports African-American youth through a variety of programming that creates a family atmosphere and engages youth in community building.
“We have been able to do a lot through [the] COVID [pandemic] with our kids at Mentoring Positives and keep them busy. I had them working every week in the FEED kitchen producing those pizzas and selling them,” Green says. “I think since COVID started until now we’ve made close to $15,000 in sales in pizza and salsa.”
The 100 Men of Dane County grant of $90,000 will enable Mentoring Positives to expand and align their youth programs and grow the Off the Block program to make more delicious pizza and salsa, employ more kids and provide them with sustainable funding.
“The money will really help us to just enhance Off The Block,” Green says. “Through this COVID right now, there are a lot of community centers closed and school is about to be virtual, so we’re going to continue to make pizzas throughout this and to grow that.
“The money will also be used to find us a nice, reliable van so we can transport kids,” he continues. “That’s something we’ve had a hard time with in the past. Our staff would have to drive the kids in our cars. It will be so nice to have that vehicle that we can take our kids to our events and functions.”
Four times a year, the 100 Men of Dane County, who now have 94 members, go through the process of reviewing grants that they have received from throughout Dane County.
“We do all of our voting through a Democratic process. As the board we have a series of metrics to evaluate and this last time we had 38 grants that were competing,” Wills says. “We all individually review them and vote on them.”
From there, the top three organizations are chosen. “Those three produce a video of no more than two minutes that tell their story beyond what they wrote in their grant,” Wills says. “I think that during this era we need to really hear from the people we serve and get the real feel for these organizations and the impact they are making.”
Since January of 2018, the 100 Men of Dane County has awarded $788,748 to non-profits and charities focused on children throughout Dane County.
“We appreciate this great boost from 100 Men. I really have an interest in working with our residents in Darbo to enhance their lives. We will definitely be doing some more outreach to the neighborhood and to try to engage more and more people with these funds,” Green says.
