Note: The Foundation does not have a formal Letter of Inquiry (LOI) process, nor do we generally accept unsolicited proposals for funding. However, we do want to hear about your ideas for how to support student-centered learning in education and entrepreneurship and small business development on the North Side.

Practicing Entrepreneurial Philanthropy

Since 2016, the Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota invests in the creative and strategic genius of the North Minneapolis community in the spaces of economic development and education. North Minneapolis is a community with a rich set of histories, a wealth of knowledge, a deep commitment to the health of its community, and an eagerness to build suitable and positive change.

Funding Priorities

In 2016, the Foundation made a strategic decision to refocus its efforts on a specific geographic area: North Minneapolis.

The “North Side” is an area rich with opportunity and assets but has experienced years of disinvestment. It is also the neighborhood where Jay and Rose Phillips met and the family lived for many years. This historical sentiment coupled with community opportunities make our decision to focus on North Minneapolis a perfect evolution of the Foundation’s focus and interests, and creates a strong direction for the Foundation for years to come.

We also wanted to explore how larger investments in a smaller set of issues could produce stronger and more measureable impact. We wanted our overall work, including our grantmaking, to be more entrepreneurial and less transactional.  

Using a Human Centered Design process, the Foundation devoted time throughout 2016 to listen to the diverse concerns, hopes and ideas of North Minneapolis residents. This process helped the Foundation identify its two primary North Minneapolis funding priorities:

• Creating and expanding relevant and engaging learning opportunities for K-12 students. The Foundation is particularly interested in ways to amplify the role of student voice and agency in educational design and decision-making. Learn more about education funding.
• Helping to grow a thriving economy in North Minneapolis by supporting entrepreneurs, small businesses and expanding local ownership opportunities. Learn more about small business funding.

For now and into the foreseeable future, the bulk of our grantmaking will be focused on these two priorities. Our intent is to make fewer, larger grants, while moving solutions to scale, and employing more human capital through greater engagement in the community.

How We Make Funding Decisions

The experiences and wisdom of Northsiders helped to shape these funding priorities and we continue to look to these stakeholders to help us make funding decisions. In 2016, the Foundation began to engage people who reside in, work in, or are otherwise deeply connected to North Minneapolis as grant reviewers and strategic advisors. Going forward, the Foundation will continue to engage a cross-section of Northsiders as members of grant review panels, participants in strategy design processes, and grassroots research consultants.

We believe individuals and communities most impacted by injustice are the best equipped to generate and lead solutions to that injustice. We are committed to living out this core belief in every aspect of the Foundation’s work in North Minneapolis.

Funding Education

What do the students of North Minneapolis need to thrive in school? Let’s ask them, and then follow their advice.

This, in a nutshell, is our approach to funding education in North Minneapolis. It is built on a firm belief that students have deep and largely untapped wisdom about how school could better help them thrive. It is also grounded in the conviction that by amplifying student voice in the design of education we can enhance motivation, engagement and ultimately post-secondary success.

What We’re Interested In:

Our intent is to discover and fund even more ambitious examples of exceptional, student-centered education, along with the systems changes needed for more engaging and relevant learning opportunities to proliferate throughout North Minneapolis. And, we remain committed to ensuring that students are positioned as co-designers of all of these efforts.

One way we will honor that intention is to work with a panel of Northside Education Advisors – many of whom are current or former students – to help us set strategy and review future proposals. The Foundation is currently working with these Advisors to develop a new education funding opportunity to be announced before the start of the 2017-18 academic year.

Funding Entrepreneurship

Helping build a vibrant small business and entrepreneurship ecosystem in North Minneapolis.

“Business ownership is a route to wealth creation, a particularly important and valued route in a capitalist economy. As such, it is important to understand the role that it plays in wealth creation for people of color and to identify and pursue strategies for addressing the challenges facing entrepreneurs of color.”

Some Ideas We’re Interested In:

Entrepreneurship Training, Technical Assistance and Coaching

Entrepreneurs and emerging business leaders often need certain levels of training and technical assistance to develop and implement their business model. This includes access to business coaches who serve as mentors and guides, incubator space to develop their business concept, and life coaching to address personal matters that could hinder success.

Access to Capital

Access to capital is key for economic development – small business loans and investments that support emerging entrepreneurs. Without capital investments, small locally-owned businesses have a difficult time entering the marketplace and being successful. We’re interested in models of capital investment that provide access to real capital for local economic development.

Cooperatives

Cooperatives provide an alternative to sole proprietor business ownership that can bring multiple interests and owners together to share risk and financial benefit. We’re interested in models of cooperative ownership anchored in North Minneapolis.

Access to Affordable Commercial Property

Large swaths of North Minneapolis land and commercial property are owned by investors and individuals who do not live or work in North Minneapolis. This lack of local ownership limits local economic vitality and moves significant resources outside of the community and provides undue barriers to those looking to start or grow a business. We’re interested in creative models that can move more land and real estate into the hands of local residents for the benefit of the local community.

A Local Healthy Food Economy

It is well documented that North Minneapolis has limited access to healthy, affordable food, with only one grocery story for over 60,000 residents. We’re interested in creative efforts owned by the community with the potential to build a healthy food economy that generates increased economic vitality and financial resilience on the Northside.

Note: If you have thoroughly reviewed the Foundation’s priorities and grantmaking activity on the website and you believe your organization is a good match for our mission, you can email our staff (lnffstaff at lairdnorton dot org) with a brief description of your work. Please be aware that we rarely make grants to organizations that we first learn about through these types of email inquiries, and have limited staff capacity to respond to every message. Our team will be in touch if there is an interest in learning more about your work, or if there are other resources we can connect you with for your work.

Laird Norton Family Foundation

The Laird Norton Family Foundation (LNFF) is a private family foundation in Seattle, Washington, with a mission to honor and reflect the family’s shared values through giving and engage the family in philanthropy as a platform for strengthening family connections. 

Programs

Arts in Education

The goal of the Arts in Education program is to increase arts education and to improve pre-K through grade 12 student learning through the arts. Funding will be directed toward programs that seek to enhance students’ educational outcomes rather than to simply increase participation in, or appreciation for, the arts.

The Arts in Education program will consider funding programs that:

• Encourage the adoption and/or growth of arts integration within a public school or school district. We will prioritize programs that integrate the arts as a tool within greater, diverse curriculum content areas over arts enrichment or direct arts instruction programs.
• Advocate systemic change within schools, districts, or at the state level to encourage arts in education, and
• Utilize the arts as a tool to reduce the educational achievement gap.

Climate Change

Climate change poses a significant global threat, one which we are addressing by striving to ensure an equitable, resilient, habitable, and enjoyable world for current and future generations. While our work is focused on climate change, we believe in the value of ecosystems services and in the stability and resiliency of healthy natural systems. We also believe it is essential that the cost of externalities be incorporated into lifestyle, policy, and business considerations.

 We are focused on investing in regenerative biological systems that influence the carbon cycle (“biocarbon”) and reducing dependency on fossil fuels. We have chosen to focus our grantmaking on efforts to hasten the demise of coal and other fossil fuels and on work that increases the abilities of the forests, agricultural lands, and estuaries of the Pacific Northwest to sequester carbon.

Human Services

The goal of the Human Services program is to support, empower, uplift, and create opportunities for long-term success and a brighter future for unaccompanied youth and young adults (age 12-24) who are in crisis, have experienced trauma, or are aging out of the foster care system. We want to support these youth and young adults in their journey from surviving to thriving.

We will consider funding organizations or programs that provide support for youth/young adults suffering from trauma, mental illness, or addiction, with priority given to homeless youth and those impacted by the foster care system. While the full spectrum of services for youth in crisis is essential, we expect to do the bulk of our grantmaking in two areas:

• Prevention and early intervention work to keep young people from sleeping in unsafe situations — or at a minimum make that a very brief and one-time occurrence, and
• Support for long-term stability support services.

Watershed Stewardship

Watersheds have social, ecological, and economic significance. The goal of the Watershed Stewardship program is to create enabling conditions for long-term social and ecological health and resilience in places of importance to the Laird Norton Family. Currently, we prioritize work in Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as a few key watersheds in the Western United States, consistent with the Laird Norton family's priorities.

NOTE: Our inquiry portal is closed while we redesign our grant processes and implement a new grants management system. While we will not be accepting new inquiries, all active grants will continue to be processed.

Blandin Foundation

Blandin Foundation is all about Minnesotans imagining, leading, and growing healthy, inclusive – vibrant – communities. Our programs train community leaders, support communities as they include and create opportunities for all people, and support work at home in the Itasca Area.

Local Grants

Because of its historic commitment to the communities of the Grand Rapids and Itasca County area, Blandin Foundation offers special opportunities to grant-seekers in its home communities – Itasca County, plus Blackduck, Hill City, Northome, and Remer – for grants of more than $1,000.

• The majority (at least 60 percent) of all Blandin Foundation grant-making is reserved for the direct benefit of its home communities.
• One of the Foundation’s three areas of focus is “Vibrant Itasca County.” In addition to grants for Expanded Rural Opportunity and Skilled Community Leaders focus areas, local grant-seekers may apply for cultural and social services activities that directly benefit home communities.
• Home community grantees receive additional support for capacity building from the Blandin Foundation.

$10,001 - $50,000 Grants

These grants provide a more nimble response to project-based initiatives by simplifying the application and reporting process. Larger grants in this category may be recommended for trustee review.

Proposed projects must fit within the same guidelines as Blandin Foundation trustee-reviewed grants. 

$1,001 - $10,000 Grants

These grants provide a more nimble response to project-based initiatives by simplifying the application and reporting process.

Proposed projects must fit within the same guidelines as Blandin Foundation major grants.

Grant Outcome

Blandin Foundation’s most substantial and broadest form of grantmaking occurs in North-Central Minnesota in Itasca County and parts of the Leech Lake Reservation, including the border communities of Blackduck, Northome, Hill City, and Remer. Grants are made in this region to advance the following outcomes:

• Leaders are using advanced skills to better address disparities.
• Leaders are leveraging new resources, inspiring change, and advancing sustainability.

Blandin Foundation also grants funds to rural Minnesota communities to advance the following outcome:

• Rural communities are accessing the power and resources needed to innovate, to change systems to work better for everyone, and to drive development toward a more equitable and sustainable Minnesota. 

Priority projects will:

• Serve small communities under 20,000.
• Embrace change to create an equitable and sustainable future.
• Be inclusive and collaborative, engaging those who benefit from the intended change.
• Address injustice.
• Inform and connect community leaders on issues relevant to rural Minnesotans. 

Guidelines

Grants from National Trust Preservation Funds (NTPF) are intended to encourage preservation at the local level by supporting on-going preservation work and by providing seed money for preservation projects. These grants help stimulate public discussion, enable local groups to gain the technical expertise needed for preservation projects, introduce the public to preservation concepts and techniques, and encourage financial participation by the private sector.

A small grant at the right time can go a long way and is often the catalyst that inspires a community to take action on a preservation project. Grants generally start at $2,500 and range up to $5,000. The selection process is very competitive.

Eligible Activities

National Trust Preservation Fund grants are awarded for planning activities and education efforts focused on preservation. Grant funds can be used to launch new initiatives or to provide additional support to on-going efforts.

Planning: Supporting existing staff (nonprofit applicants only) or obtaining professional expertise in areas such as architecture, archaeology, engineering, preservation planning, land-use planning, and law. Eligible planning activities include, but are not limited to:

• Hiring a preservation architect or landscape architect, or funding existing staff with expertise in these areas, to produce a historic structure report or historic landscape master plan.
• Hiring a preservation planner, or funding existing staff with expertise in this area, to produce design guidelines for a historic district.
• Hiring a real estate development consultant, or funding existing staff with expertise in this area, to produce an economic feasibility study for the reuse of a threatened structure.
• Sponsoring a community forum to develop a shared vision for the future of a historic neighborhood.
• Organizational capacity building activities such as hiring fundraising consultants, conducting board training, etc.

Education and Outreach: Support for preservation education activities aimed at the public. The National Trust is particularly interested in programs aimed at reaching new audiences. Funding will be provided to projects that employ innovative techniques and formats aimed at introducing new audiences to the preservation movement, whether that be through education programming or conference sessions.

About the Illinois Arts Council Agency

The Illinois Arts Council Agency was created as a state agency by the Illinois General Assembly in 1965 through legislation sponsored by Senators Paul Simon, Thomas McGloon, and Alan Dixon. The agency is governed by up to twenty-one private citizens chosen for their demonstrated commitment to the arts and appointed by the Governor. Council members serve in a voluntary, non-paid capacity and are charged with developing the state’s public arts policy, fostering quality culturally diverse programs, and approving grants expenditures. A small professional staff with in-depth knowledge of the arts develops and administers the agency’s programs, provides technical assistance, and ensures the responsible and impactful distribution of all funds. Resources to support the Illinois Arts Council Agency are provided by the Governor and General Assembly of Illinois and the National Endowment for the Arts.

About GIG Fund

The GIG Fund provides flexible grants for nonprofit organizations to support programs and activities featuring professional artists. GIG Fund grants help cover fees for touring or local artists. Funds may also be used for project costs such as accessibility accommodations and marketing. We work with a panel to help us review applications and distribute grants annually.Sample activities include:

• A rural community hosting a short artist residency at a local school.
• An artist hosting a creative writing program with justice-impacted citizens.
• An artist talkback or meet & greet in an exhibition featuring the work of LGBTQ+ photographers.
• Presenting a concert series focused on the music of BIPOC composers.
• Initiating a new partnership to provide art classes with people with disabilities.

NOTE: The Joyce Foundation accepts grant inquiries online throughout the year. Proposals are considered at meetings of the Foundation’s Board of Directors in April, July, and December. Applicants are strongly encouraged to plan their application and proposal submission process for the April or July meetings, since most grant funds will be distributed at those times.

About

Through its grantmaking and other policy-focused efforts, the Foundation seeks to:

• Racial Equity: Incorporate the voices of, and achieve more equitable outcomes for, Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities in the Great Lakes region.
• Economic Mobility: Improve the ability of individuals in the Great Lakes region to move up the economic ladder within a lifetime or from one generation to the next.
• Next Generation: Incorporate the voices of, and improve outcomes for, the next generation of Great Lakes residents, defined as young people born after 2000.

Education & Economic Mobility Grants

The Education & Economic Mobility Program, through the focus areas below, works to increase the number of historically underserved young people who move up the economic ladder by ensuring equitable access to high-quality education and jobs. We invest in local, state and federal policies that ensure historically underserved young people have effective educators, graduate high school with academic and career momentum, and attain college credentials with economic value. We also support policies that help ensure low-wage workers achieve economic stability, dignity, and mobility. In the short term, we will invest in research, policy development, and advocacy to help the education systems recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effective Educators

Advance federal, state and district policies to ensure historically underserved students in the Great Lakes region have highly effective, diverse teachers and principals. Efforts include research, policy development, advocacy, and technical assistance to reform teacher preparation, diversify the educator pipeline, build strong pathways from high school into teaching, and overhaul school staffing models to support principals and spread the reach of great teachers. Our investments here are focused on Illinois, Indiana, and Minnesota and on national efforts.

College and Career Readiness

Support federal, state and school district policies that ensure historically underserved young people in the Great Lakes region graduate high school ready for college and career success. Efforts include research, policy development, and advocacy to reform dual-credit and remediation policies, expand access to quality work-based learning opportunities, and align K-12, post-secondary and workforce systems.

Post-Secondary Success

Support federal and state policies to close race- and family income-based gaps in college attainment. Efforts include scaling up proven student support models to improve community college outcomes; preserving access for students of color and rural students to affordable, high- quality public college options and to labor markets that require college degrees; seeking racial and family income representativeness at selective public universities; and supporting advocacy, litigation, and policy development to narrow gaps in post-graduate financial outcomes for students of color and low-income students.

Future of Work

Support state and federal policies to help low-wage workers achieve greater economic stability, dignity, and mobility, with a special focus on technology’s role in the workplace and labor market. Specifically, we will support state policy to ensure employees can access public benefits, refundable tax credit policies, and nascent policy development on issues of technology and the labor market.

Healthy Connections

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation’s mission is to build strong community partnerships to advance racial and health equity. The goal of this funding opportunity is to increase social connections within and across communities and generations to reduce social isolation. Increasing community connections is one way the Foundation works to build healthy generations so families, young people, and older adults can achieve their healthiest life.

People experience better health outcomes when they’re connected to their community and feel a sense of belonging. Conversely, significant negative health impacts are related to social isolation — like increased stress, cardiovascular disease, obesity, cognitive decline, and an increased risk of unhealthy behaviors, suchas commercial tobacco use and excess alcohol consumption.

Many factors impact people’s ability and opportunity to connect with each other, including structural racism, discrimination, age, ability and geographic location. The result can be social isolation and loneliness, which affect one in four older adults. In addition, people who identify as Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, and other historically marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by social isolation.

To achieve our goals, we will fund eligible organizations working to eliminate racial and health inequities that impede social connections.

The Foundation welcomes applications that implement, continue or expand proven approaches as well as those that develop and implement new models. Both new and existing efforts are eligible.

Funding Information

The Foundation expects to grant a total of up to $1 million in year one and an additional $1 million in year two. Applicants may apply for grants of up to $100,000 per year and may apply for one- or two-year grants (up to $100,000 each year). Organizations applying for two-year grants may request different amounts each year. Approval for the second year of funding is dependent on demonstrated progress toward goals in the first year. The Foundation typically provides two-year grants, but has no preference related to one- or two-year grants.

The Foundation typically funds up to 25 percent of an organization’s annual budget. In some cases, the Foundation may fund up to 50 percent of an organization’s annual budget.

About Us

The Foundation has historically leveraged human and financial resources to foster a thriving East Side St. Paul, Minnesota where the McNeely business developed. The McNeely Foundation was set up in the 1960s by Harry G. McNeely Sr, and his wife Adelaide Frenzel McNeely. It was originally funded with a gift of stock from their business, The St. Paul Terminal Warehouse Company. 

Grantmaking Focus:

The McNeely Foundation funds organizations that create a more vibrant and sustainable East Side of St Paul. It will consider applications from organizations outside of the targeted geography and age group for innovative work that could be integrated or replicated on the East Side. Our four grantmaking focus areas are Youth Development Through Enrichment, Youth Development Through Employment Training, Environment, and Family & Neighborhood Stability.

Family & Neighborhood Stability

Goal:

• Increase economic vitality and stability of youth and low-income families.

Strategies:

• Financial literacy and asset building opportunities.
• Supportive services to maintain families in stable housing.
• Employment education and training, and job creation.
• Maintain community development and community building organizations that create community leaders, support expansion of individual and community assets, and foster a sense of neighborhood.

NOTE: The Sustaining Environmental Systems 2022 grant application will open on August 29, 2022 . Updated guidelines for the Sustaining Environmental Systems program can be found on our website at that time.

Our Goal

We seek to protect, conserve and restore biodiversity and habitat in Minnesota's watersheds in order to improve water quality in a changing climate.

In addition to our 11,842 lakes, Minnesota’s water flows to diverse drainages including the Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay. Water plays a critical role in Minnesota’s identity and economic framework, as well as supporting habitat that encompasses the diversity of wildlife in our state.

Our Beliefs

If a broad base of people has positive exposure to and experiences with nature, they will be enabled to acquire, share, and/or implement a range of environmental approaches resulting in:

• Effective environmental solutions and stewardship that originate in and are led by and for communities most affected by the environmental impact
• Opportunities for all communities to experience ways of being, learning, and respectfully and mutually leveraging knowledge that provides alternatives to dominant extractive human/land relationships and ultimately results in better outcomes for the environment and all people.
• Reduced and repaired environmental harms to black, indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), and other historically marginalized communities resulting in restoration of relationships, communities, and environments.

Climate and Racial Justice

As we are learning to prioritize racial and climate justice in our work, we seek partners who are doing the same, acknowledging that climate change:

• Interacts with and worsens existing inequalities in society that are shaped by racism, exclusion, and oppression.
• Requires integrated, non-siloed approaches centering the well-being of human and natural communities most adversely impacted.
• Will be best addressed through knowledge, ideas, and leadership from BIPOC communities and others adversely impacted by climate and other environmental harms.

Our Partners

We acknowledge that a range of environmental approaches could be used to accomplish this outcome and work with partners who promote:

• Information, education, and practices that lead to new, deeper, and/or resurfaced understanding, and/or a renewed relationship with nature.
• Opportunities for BIPOC and other historically marginalized communities to practice and/or renew culturally-based stewardship practices that result in improved land, water, and community health.
• Sustainable economic options grounded in environmental approaches that meet basic needs, stimulate growth, and create opportunity.
• Policy solutions that center community voice to reduce environmental harms to BIPOC and other historically marginalized communities.