The name Horizon Fund comes from a poem I actually discovered in my mother’s hospice room the night before she died at the age of 100. It represents a relevant vision for me.”
-- Dick Hanson
The Horizon Fund was established by Dick and Diane Hanson in 2014, with a matching grant provided by 3M. The Hansons’ purpose was not only to establish their own family legacy, but to provide an example for others of one approach to making an impact in the Woodbury community in perpetuity.
The Horizon Fund for Innovation and Entrepreneurship provides leverage to make nonprofits, and especially collaborative partnerships across the public, private and nonprofit sectors more effective in the work within the community. Goals include improved leadership development, a strengthened spirit of innovation and social entrepreneurship, and impact measurement – which provides better accountability.
In the first three years of operation, the Horizon Fund has provided support for the following projects:
- Creation of the Business Education Partnership in Woodbury, in partnership with the Woodbury Area Chamber of Commerce and Independent School District 833.
- The Business Education Partnership engages the local business community in the schools to prepare student for “real world” experiences of getting a job and planning a career.
- Presenting awards and scholarships to promising Woodbury community leaders, both adults and youth, to attend conferences and seminars on inspiring topics.
- Providing support and resources to the Woodbury Community Foundation’s Youth Leadership Development Program.
- The Horizon Fund and the Foundation recruit and engage local youth in a well-developed curriculum of Social Entrepreneurship, which stresses developing young leaders in civic affairs and giving back to your community. By engaging EcoTone Partners, we have been able to measure the impact - the Social Return on Investment - of the Youth Leadership Development Program.
Horizon
Where land meets sky is the horizon
A threshold between heaven and earth;
A place of transition and great beauty
Where God offers a glimpse of things
Larger than ourselves.
A masterpiece painted with color and light
That only the Maker's hand could create.
Like the ocean's shoreline, the horizon is both
Bridge and boundary between two different worlds.
Our faith dances on the fine line between
Earth and sky, land and water, life and death.
Let us not fear the horizons we find
In the dim mists of our own understanding.
Let us walk slowly together,
Hand in hand
Until one of us must go alone,
And the other must stay.
-- Goodier 12/27/04