The Minneapolis Foundation
Continues Support for "Systems Change" Efforts
with Nearly $3 Million in Grants to Minnesota Nonprofits

Minneapolis, MN-The Minneapolis Foundation and its funding partners awarded almost $3 million in Community Grants in June and July 2004. Grants were awarded to more than 30 nonprofit organizations for "systems change" activities - efforts to improve systems and promote policies that will increase opportunities for disadvantaged Minnesota residents and communities throughout the state.

The grants fall within the Foundation's funding goal areas: Affordable Housing; Economic Opportunities; Educational Achievement; and the Health and Well-being of Children, Youth, and Families.

Funded activities range from community organizing, to advocacy, to public awareness and education, to multi-agency collaborations. In addition, six grants were awarded for capital expenses to metro area organizations working within the four funding goal areas.

Five sample grants follow:

Mount Olivet Rolling Acres received a $150,000 grant for a two-year demonstration project to integrate residential living, work and school programs, medical care, and county case management for people with developmental disabilities. Coordinating the delivery and management of these services represents a new model to serving people with developmental disabilities. Mount Olivet Rolling Acres serves people with developmental disabilities in 19 locations throughout the Twin Cities suburbs, as well as provides crisis services and residential housing for children at risk of abuse and neglect.

Land Stewardship Project (LSP), a 1,600-member organization promoting sustainable agriculture, received $75,000 for its policy work. LSP will organize rural and urban citizens, educate policymakers and the public about economically viable and environmentally friendly practices, and host at least one educational "field day" in rural Minnesota. With nearly a third of Minnesota's counties dependent on farming as a central base of their economy, LSP will continue working towards a "triple bottom line" of economic vitality, environmental stewardship, and community well-being.

Children's Defense Fund-Minnesota (CDFM) will receive $50,000 over the next two years for a public policy effort to create universal health coverage for all Minnesota children. CDFM is promoting a two-step process first covering children at or below 300% of the poverty level, then expanded to all children. The CDFM will 1) develop specific policy measures that would define how such a program would operate and be financed; 2) conduct research regarding children's health and health coverage; 3) educate policymakers, advocates and the public about universal child health coverage; and 4) develop a broad base of support for such a policy.

Transit for Livable Communities (TLC) will receive $120,000 over two years to build a broad-based coalition in support of a dedicated State funding source for transit in Minnesota. TLC will continue to employ media outreach, advocacy training and leadership development, education of public officials, among other strategies to build broad support for a legislative commitment to transit. Established in 2001, TLC has already demonstrated an ability to coalesce disparate interest groups - such as business, seniors, and immigrant groups - around a common transit agenda.

Achieve!Minneapolis will receive $300,000, enabling the Minneapolis Public Schools to continue to implement the Arts for Academic Achievement program through 2007. The three-year grant will help 50 elementary, middle, and high schools in Minneapolis retain an arts curriculum, integrate the arts into academic programming (which test scores have demonstrated can have a positive impact, especially on lower-income students and English Language Learners), and incorporate arts training into professional development for teachers.

View a complete list of Community Grant awards.

Community Grants are awarded through a competitive process from the unrestricted funds of The Minneapolis Foundation and from the following funding partners: Emma B. Howe Memorial Foundation; B.C. Gamble and P.W. Skogmo Fund; Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi, LLP Foundation for Education, Public Health, and Social Justice; North Star Fund; Piper Family Fund; Wells Family Fund.
Community Grants are one of three main grantmaking programs of The Minneapolis Foundation. The others include: Connections, through which individuals who have established charitable funds with the Foundation can identify nonprofit organizations whose work matches their charitable interests, and Requests for Proposals, time-sensitive funding opportunities around a particular issue, population, or approach. Grant guidelines, funding criteria, requests for proposals, and a complete list of recent grant awards are available on-line. Visit the Grantseekers section of our website for more information.