The world of philanthropy is changing as new tools and technology emerge. GiveMN.org is on the cutting edge.

This new, easy-to-use online destination will enable individual donors in Minnesota to find and fund charitable organizations in Minnesota or beyond, create an online portfolio to view and manage donations to charities, and promote favorite causes.

An added benefit of giving through GiveMN.org is that it will be one of the most cost-effective ways for charities to fundraise. Research has shown that for every 1 percent of charitable giving moved online in Minnesota, the nonprofit sector will save more than $10 million in fundraising expenses.

GiveMN.org aims to transform online giving and create positive change for Minnesotans. “The best e-philanthropy ventures have shown the power of using technology to make direct, personal connections between donors and the causes they support, and GiveMN.org aspires to help make those connections between Minnesota donors and Minnesota nonprofits,” says Carleen Rhodes, president, Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation.

GiveMN.org is a 501(c)3 supporting organization of the Minnesota Community Foundation. Current partners include Blandin Foundation, F.R. Bigelow Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation, Greater Twin Cities United Way, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and HealthPartners. These Minnesota organizations and others are encouraging their nonprofit grantees and affiliates to get on board with GiveMN.org now, in order to have as many organizations as possible involved before the site’s public launch in November.

Feedback from early GiveMN.org users reflects excitement about the system’s easy-to-use technology and features that will allow nonprofits to highlight individual programs, fundraise for events, and tell their stories about the history and mission of their organizations.
To add to their online profile, nonprofits will go to www.razoo.com, the online giving platform on which GiveMN.org is being built. Nonprofits search for their organization name, then create an account to start editing their profile. All profiles in Razoo.com will automatically transfer to GiveMN.org (and vice versa). There is no cost for Minnesota nonprofits to participate.

To help nonprofits statewide learn to use GiveMN.org, free webinars will be held beginning in October. Nonprofits can register at www.GiveMN.org/nonprofits.

Forging a social justice movement requires collaboration, integration, coalition building, advocacy, engagement and more. To tackle the giant task, four organizations have formed the Social Justice Funders Collaborative (SJFC).

Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, PFund Foundation, Headwaters Foundation for Justice and Community Shares of Minnesota each have more than 20 years of experience in grantmaking, advocacy, research and capacity-building representing specific communities. As the SJFC, these organizations are looking to move their endeavors to the next level of impact.

“The collaborative wants to strengthen the movement for social change and justice. We want to tackle challenges as a group, sharing our experiences, expertise, problem-solving, leadership and knowledge in ways that strengthen institutional capacity, build political will and lead to greater improvements in the lives of families in our communities,” reads the SJFC Purpose Statement.

The Purpose Statement also outlines key values of the collaborative, including:

• Social Change: We support efforts that have a significant impact on societal attitudes and equality.

• Justice: We work to create an equitable world that honors the value, worth and dignity of all people.

The collaborative seeks new ways to infuse these social justice values into its work such as: grantmaking to build social change leadership; capacity-building with grantees and members; creating technology to enhance networks and resources for donors, grantees and funders; creating a learning community to share knowledge; and developing a shared instrument to measure outcomes and increase accountability in the public and private sectors in advancing social change.

The executive directors of the SJFC have met regularly over the past six months. With the Purpose Statement in hand, they now are moving their innovative work forward in two concrete ways:

1. Developing a shared Logic Model and Theory of Change among the four grantmakers that would support a shared evaluation of social change; and

2. Developing capacity-building and training programs for evaluation.

“We’re moving from idea stage to implementation,” says Lee Roper-Batker, president and CEO, Women’s Foundation of Minnesota. “To do this, we’re raising $50,000 to hire a consultant who would facilitate meetings, build shared models and curricula, and make it all happen.”

She continues, “Our work comes at a critical time in our nation’s economy. As funders, we call for greater efficiencies and collaboration of our grantees. Well, we’re ‘walking our talk!’ In fact, one key efficiency from the collaborative is that grantee-partners and grantseekers will be able to use one Logic Model and Theory of Change when applying for funding, making their case and evaluating their work. This also will foster a larger learning community to develop and test Theories of Change to best move social change and justice forward.”

Last winter, when the state’s budget crisis loomed large and dominated the headlines, political leaders challenged Minnesotans to bring forward ideas to address the widening gap between revenues and expenditures.

Five of the state’s largest foundations embraced that call. Bush Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, Minnesota Community Foundation, Northwest Area Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation joined together to fund the search for creative solutions.
Kevin F. Walker, president and CEO, Northwest Area Foundation, explains the motivation:

“The state’s budget crunch is not a one-time problem. It’s a structural deficit that will hold our state back for years to come, unless new ideas emerge about how to do more with less. We felt the foundations had both an opportunity and an obligation to spark some fresh thinking and put new ideas on the table.”

These new ideas were introduced in March in a report titled Minnesota Bottom Line: Better Results for Dollars Spent. The ideas are potential policy changes that are far-reaching and bold, not easily implemented, and not without controversy. While the rancor over the budget has died down for the time being, foundation leaders are hopeful that these solutions will emerge again in the next biennia or beyond to be the beginning, not the end, of thoughtful conversation and earnest exploration of “What if?”

The author of Minnesota Bottom Line is Public Strategies Group (PSG), which the five funders hired to undertake a six-week challenge to unearth practical ways to improve public services at costs the state can afford now and in the future.

PSG examined state budget data and looked for:

• Weak relationships between stated program goals and actual outcomes;

• Opportunities to improve results by changing service organization and delivery;

• Potential to sufficiently reduce spending, and thereby significantly contribute to solving the budget crisis.

Inspired by Einstein’s philosophy, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” PSG describes ways to save billions of dollars over the next two biennia with nine approaches:

• Buying Health, Not Sickness

• Delivering Integrated Human Services: Multi-County Shared Services

• Better Value for Housing Subsidies

• Freeing Counties to Focus on Results

• Medical Assistance: Improve Public Health and Lower Public Costs

• Staying Safe: Shifting Resources From Prisons to Community Interventions

• Special Education: Modest Changes, Better Education, Major Savings

• Tax Expenditures: Minnesota’s Hidden Spending

• Local Service Sharing

As nonprofits strategize about how best to sustain services and achieve their missions, some are looking beyond project-by-project partnering toward formal organizational realignment.

MAP for Nonprofits, a nonprofit management support organization currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, is in the third year of Project ReDesign. This initiative has helped nonprofits explore and implement organizational structure changes such as mergers, program transfers to another organization, joint ventures, parent-subsidiary integration, and dissolution.

Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota is one of the project’s key funders. “Both in business and in our support of nonprofits, we focus on helping our customers and partners identify solutions that enable them to be more successful,” explains Carolyn Roby, vice president, Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota. “When MAP approached us about Project ReDesign, it was a perfect philosophical fit. In this economic downturn, having a trusted nonprofit support organization develop a resource tool to help our nonprofit partners think through complex organizational realignment options was important and timely.”

Project ReDesign assists nonprofits in focusing on missions and stakeholders’ best interests as they follow a 10-step process highlighted by:

• Interviews to assess organizational readiness, capacity, compatibility and potential challenges;

• Work by a joint committee of merging organizations to reach common understanding of mission, name, governing structure, staffing;

• A “Making the Case” document that can be brought to the board of each organization outlining vision, reasoning, timing, compatibilities and culture;

• A due diligence checklist; and

• A communications plan.

MAP’s recently published MergeMinnesota captures the three-year work of Project ReDesign and, along with a national literature review, serves as an ongoing resource and toolkit that describes the realignment process. “I was a strong advocate for the development of a toolkit that nonprofit staff and boards could use both early in their consideration of alliances, partnerships or mergers, and throughout the process if they chose to proceed,” Roby says. “This toolkit is a guide for board or staff members to help them have a conversation with others if they sense realignment might be needed, and for foundation staff working with organizations that are in the midst of a realignment.”

Roby continues: “There isn’t one business or nonprofit that is escaping the need to reflect on how to provide the greatest benefit for their clients in the most effective, efficient way possible. The more intentional and proactive we can be, the greater the chance for sustainability and positive transformations.”

Since Project ReDesign began in 2007, MAP has facilitated 16 mergers. Another eight are underway. In addition, MAP has identified 25 willing partners – organizations that are able to consider merging an organization or program into their nonprofit entities.

In June 2009, MAP announced the creation of a Community Realignment Fund with a lead contribution from the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation. When fully capitalized, the fund will enable 25-40 struggling small nonprofit human service organizations to utilize Project ReDesign to evaluate and implement realignment options aimed at preserving services for vulnerable community members while gaining greater financial stability.

Funders providing ongoing support to Project ReDesign include the F.R. Bigelow, Otto Bremer, Nicholson Family, Jay and Rose Phillips Family, Medtronic, The Saint Paul and Tozer foundations, Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota, Greater Twin Cities United Way and Mutual of America.