- a $4.5 million health and wellness center (the county’s largest building project in decades)
- a $116,000 project to create a fixed-route public transportation system linking areas of the community where private vehicle ownership is lowest
- a $1.5 million, 20-unit low income housing development
- An ongoing legal effort, funded by Southern, to reclaim intellectual property rights to the “King Biscuit” name for the annual blues festival, a major community asset and a draw for up to 100,000 tourists per year
- $1.8 million in financing and grants to support the KIPP charter school. The 95 percent African American middle school has been astonishingly successful—the first cohort of students has gone from a mean 20th to 82nd percentile on standardized tests in three years.
- Support for new leaders in government, business, and nonprofit groups, including $15,000 for training elected officials of the newly merged city government of Helena-West Helena
- 167 adult students in the two years of the Career Pathways program. Thus far, Phillips County students have a 100% graduation rate and an 85% job placement rate.