The Minneapolis Foundation Continues Support for Nonprofit Systems Change

The Minneapolis Foundation and its funding partners awarded almost $3 million in Community Grants in June and July 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.

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

Grant recipients included:

• 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.
     
• 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 percent of the poverty level, then expanding 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.
     
• 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.
     
• 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 for serving people with developmental disabilities. Mount Olivet Rolling Acres serves people with developmental disabilities in 19 locations throughout the Twin Cities suburbs, and provides crisis services and residential housing for children at risk of abuse and neglect.
     
• 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, leadership development and 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.

For a complete list of The Minneapolis Foundation's latest Community Grant awards, visit the foundation's Web site.

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; and 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 and requests for proposals are available online at the foundation's Web site. 

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