Minnesota Foundations Receive National Communications Awards

Two Minnesota-based foundations - The Minneapolis Foundation and the Initiative Foundation - have been honored for their communications efforts as recipients of the 2004 Wilmer Shields Rich Awards for Excellence in Communications. A third member of the Minnesota Council on Foundations, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, based in Miami, also received a Wilmer Shields Award.

Sponsored by the national Council on Foundations and The Communications Network, the awards showcase how foundations and corporate giving programs use communications strategies and techniques to advance the goals of their grantmaking, in order to promote more effective communications and increased public accountability in the grantmaking field.

The Minneapolis Foundation received four awards in the large community/public foundation category, including gold awards for public information campaigns and Web sites. The foundation also received a silver award for annual/biennial reports and a bronze award for magazines/periodicals.

The Initiative Foundation, Little Falls, received a gold award in the magazine/periodicals category (small community/public foundations) for its IQ Magazine. The Knight Foundation was the recipient of a silver award in the annual/biennial reports category (large independent, family and operating foundations).

The 2004 Wilmer Shields Rich Awards will be presented at the Council on Foundations' 55th Annual Conference in Toronto on April 26-28, 2004. For a complete list of award recipients, visit the Council's Web site.

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