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Winter 2007
Giving Stories
Dream Fund Brings Cooperative Funding to Eliminate Racism
The Minnesota Dream Fund is a collaborative that supports efforts to ensure equal opportunity for achievement. The fund was established by Minnesota foundations in early 2005 in response to a Ford Foundation matching grant initiative to help regional groups work toward ending the need for affirmative action by the year 2030.
The first effort of the Minnesota Dream Fund focuses on racism, gender inequities and other systemic barriers to educational achievement by women, people of color and tribal communities. The Minnesota foundation partners committed $525,000 to be matched with $500,000 from the Ford Foundation's national Fulfilling the Dream Fund Challenge. This base fund of $1,025,000 will be distributed to Minnesota organizations over three years.
The Minnesota fund's steering committee includes the Blandin Foundation, Grotto Foundation, Headwaters Foundation for Justice, Otto Bremer Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation, Women's Foundation of Minnesota and the Robins Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. Public Foundation for Education, Public Health and Social Justice.
Because education is fundamental to employment success, the Minnesota Dream Fund partners will support projects that advance educational success for women, people of color and tribal communities to directly address gender inequities and racial injustice that are barriers to economic justice.
The Minnesota Dream Fund is in the middle of a grantmaking cycle and not currently accepting proposals. Contact the Dream Fund at 612.672.3855 or info@minnesotadreamfund.org.
Democracy! Fund Helps Nonprofits in Civic Engagement
The Democracy! Fund was created in the belief that nonprofit organizations play a critical role in developing and implementing public policy and advancing democracy. The fund is committed to a society that is deeply democratic and grounded in social justice, and in which all members have the capacity and opportunity to be active and full participants in civic life and governance.
A collaborative effort of Headwaters Foundation for Justice, the Women's Foundation of Minnesota, The Minneapolis Foundation and the Otto Bremer Foundation, the Democracy! Fund supports and advances legal, nonpartisan political activity and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. The fund is designed to promote community organizing and nonprofit advocacy to build stronger democratic institutions and impact public policy.
The fund supports a wide range of activities and is committed to advancing groups and individuals historically disenfranchised and disproportionately impacted, including low-income people, people of color, LGBT community members and people with disabilities. The Democracy! Fund plans to make grants in the following areas of interest for 2007-2008:
- Electoral reform and voting rights
- Public policy research, training and tools
- Participation of youth in government, the political process and creating change
- Connecting immigrant groups to political power
- Voter registration, turnout and education in underrepresented communities
- Support for grassroots organizations to advance organizational mission
Otto Bremer Foundation: Civic Engagement Guidelines & Information
Several things came together in 2002-2003 for the Otto Bremer Foundation: staff was learning about emerging possibilities to support different forms of civic engagement; state government was reducing direct assistance to counties and cities in order to balance the budget; and nonprofits were, in effect, being asked to do more with less. Inspired by the civic leadership of founder Otto Bremer, the foundation board of trustees adopted a formal plan to support civic engagement.
The civic engagement funding strategy does not represent a change in how the foundation performs advocacy work, because Bremer does little direct advocacy except around issues that directly affect philanthropy and foundation operations. Instead, Bremer emphasizes process and capacity building, believing that nonprofits are in the best position to maximize their resources, ideas and experiences when they are engaged civically in the community and, potentially, with policymakers.
Civic Engagement was launched as a programmatic strategy with guidelines in Spring 2005, and "Civic Engagement Guidelines & Information" was printed by the foundation in 2006. This formal articulation of the program area is a starting point for conversations between Bremer staff and nonprofits about where civic engagement might fit into a nonprofit's work.
The booklet is available at ottobremer.org/download/CEbook.pdf.
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Information from the
Winter 2007 Edition of Giving Forum
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Thank you to the sponsor of this issue of Giving Forum:
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| $1,000 Supporter |
The Minneapolis Foundation
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© Copyright 2007 Minnesota Council on
Foundations
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