Director of Treasury, Communication, and Financial Monitoring.
Fadumo Ibrahim
Fadumo Ibrahim; Expertise in business management; developing, maintaining, and consulting to nonprofit organizations; community organizing, fundraising and grand writing specialist.
Director of Treasury, Communication and Financial Monitoring of HEPTO.
CEO and Founder, Horseet (2017 - present)
Sifa Care, Inc., Home Health Care Minneapolis, MN Director of Operations (2015-present)
EDUCATION
Formal Education
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN BS in Family Social Science; Minor in Communication and Youth Leadership
Hennepin Technical College, Minneapolis, MN CNA Certified
Courses, Training, and Conferences
KAYD Somali Culture and Arts London, UK
Somali Week Festival, London (2017)
World Health Organization London, UK Voices in Global Mental Health (2016)
Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Washington, DC Grantee Convenings (2014, 2015)
Association of Performing Arts Presenters, New York, NY Annual Conference (2015, 2016, 2017)
Bush Foundation bushCON, Minneapolis, MN Annual Conference (2015, 2016)
Minnesota Council for Nonprofits, Saint Paul, MN Grant Writing (2012)
The ongoing civil war in Somalia grew out of resistance to the Siad Barre regime in the early 1990s and resulted in a mass exodus of Somalis from their home country. There are now millions of Somalis living in diaspora communities around the world with concentrations in Minnesota and London. I (Fadumo Ibrahim) was born in Somalia, raised in Kenya, and came to Minnesota as a refugee when I was a teenager in 2005. My move to Minnesota was the first time had ever been outside of East Africa, and I didn’t speak English. I learned English quickly, studied hard, and graduated from Eden Prairie High School in 2009. I went on, graduating from the University of Minnesota in 2013 which allowed me to travel and study abroad in Sydney Australia in 2011. At that time, I thought my interests, skills, and passion aligned with a future career in healthcare, and I intended to pursue an education as a Physician’s Assistant after taking a year off.
Before graduating, I had secured a part-time job as a Community Liaison at The Cedar Cultural Center (The Cedar), which turned into a full-time position right after graduating from the U of M. The Cedar is a nonprofit arts organization located in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis with a mission to promote intercultural understanding through music. The Cedar serves 65,000 people per year through 250 all-ages live music events and music-centered activities featuring artists who perform in all genres and traditions. After only a few months at The Cedar, I truly discovered my passion for music and the arts, witnessed the crucial role music plays in the health and identity of our communities, and found my skill in forging partnerships, developing and executing programs, and working with artists. I truly found my calling, and I started to envision my future as an arts leader in Minnesota.
Throughout my career, I have leveraged my leadership skills to build community through a variety of programs and projects, resulting in positive community outcomes.
Throughout my career, I have leveraged my leadership skills to build community through a variety of programs and projects, resulting in positive community outcomes.
One of the first projects in my career was as a staff member at The Cedar, I was tasked with envisioning and launching a storytelling project with the goal of building a community. I chose to focus on engaging young and elderly Somali women in order to close the generation gap and preserve our culture’s history. The series began with ten participants, but culminated in a gathering of 250 Somali women.
The primary purpose of this project was to build a community; evaluation efforts unveiled unanticipated outcomes. Many of the elders I engaged live alone, and this project allowed them to forge new friendships. After the project was complete, the participants continued to connect. My grandmother was among them, and she directly attributes her experience with the project in helping her to wean off of her depression medication. These unanticipated health outcomes inspired a new path for the organization: I worked with the Executive Director to secure $150,000 from Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of MN for programs that connect community members in order to improve health. We also secured a Medical Research Grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to explore and evaluate how the arts can affect emotional, mental, and physical health of our community members.
The primary purpose of this project was to build a community; evaluation efforts unveiled unanticipated outcomes. Many of the elders I engaged live alone, and this project allowed them to forge new friendships. After the project was complete, the participants continued to connect. My grandmother was among them, and she directly attributes her experience with the project in helping her to wean off of her depression medication. These unanticipated health outcomes inspired a new path for the organization: I worked with the Executive Director to secure $150,000 from Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of MN for programs that connect community members in order to improve health. We also secured a Medical Research Grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to explore and evaluate how the arts can affect emotional, mental, and physical health of our community members.
My Journey has joined the sectors of healthcare and the arts in unanticipated ways. After working at The Cedar for six years, my path turned back to health care: I am now the Director of Operations at Sifa Care, which is a Home Care Agency, where I work closely with the clients and providers. As a result of my experience in both the arts and healthcare, I am interested in continuing to explore how the arts impact health and in building programs that join multiple sectors. While my full-time job is with the Home Care Agency, I continue to pursue my passion for the arts by working with arts organizations in order to incorporate arts into healthcare programming. I see this combination as being a positive solution to some of the challenges our community currently faces: Culture, language, and religious differences have fueled anti-Muslim rhetoric and sensational media coverage and caused divisiveness between Somalis and the larger population. My goal is always addressing these challenges by highlighting the positive aspects of Somali culture, supporting togetherness with family and friends, and providing arts experiences in-demand from the Somali community.
My journey has included exploring models in the arts and healthcare worldwide. In 2017, I secured a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study grant to travel to London to shadow long-standing Somali art and festival in order to learn from their work. In 2018, I visited hospitals in Somalia in order to explore the health systems being rebuilt in my home country.
I have my own for-profit company called HORSEET CONSULTING (Hoor-sed; Moving Forward) Non-profit consulting and innovative artist management. Our Mission: Horseet serves organizations, groups, and individual artists in the non-profit, government, and business sectors whose missions contribute to equity, increased understanding, and human connectedness. I focus on securing funding for and furthering projects and programs that I care about, which includes developing innovative, community-oriented programming, engaging diverse audiences, and supporting artists and artistic projects. I specialize in engaging and serving Somali and other African immigrant communities.
As a HORSEET CEO/PRESIDENT, I have presented my work for industry peers at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in New York and at the Philanthropy New York Convening on the role of arts and culture on addressing Islamophobia.
As a HORSEET CEO/PRESIDENT, I have presented my work for industry peers at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Conference in New York and at the Philanthropy New York Convening on the role of arts and culture on addressing Islamophobia.
Currently, I am the Treasury and communication Director of Healthcare Extension Promotion and Training Organization, Inc. (HEPTO). Hepto is nonprofit organization based in Bloomington Minessota and trains and supports healthcare workers in Africa. My goal is to work with all sectors and build skills in facilitating different kinds of programs to make a bigger impact in any community that I am serving.
