Some leading Minnesota foundations jumped into the state budget fray on Wednesday evening when they and the Citizens League held a public meeting to reveal their report “Minnesota’s Bottom Line: Better Results for Dollars Spent.”
Developed with the able assistance of consultants from Public Strategies Group, the report is a launching pad for new ideas that can enable us to emerge from our state fiscal challenges better prepared to succeed in the future. The foundations’ clearly stated goal is “to find practical ways to improve public services and that cost less.”
This initiative is led by The Minneapolis Foundation, the Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation, the Bush Foundation, and the Northwest Area Foundation. All are MCF members.
Today Star Tribune editorial writer Lori Sturdevant praised the foundations for their leadership:
The foundations — Bush, Minneapolis, Northwest Area, Minnesota Community and St. Paul — deserve applause for leaving their comfort zones and wading into the state’s politically charged budget debate. But they aren’t endorsing any particular bill or strategy for balancing the state budget this year — not yet, anyway. Rather, they are hoping to give exposure to money-saving, mission-sustaining ideas that they consider promising. Their hope is that others will take the ideas and run with them, not so much in this legislative session as the next several.
Read the report for yourself on the Citizens League website. Are you wondering how others will react to the ideas? Check in next week. We’ll be following the story as it unfolds and share more then.
- Wendy Wehr, MCF V.P. of Communications and Information Services
I was pleased to see this effort receive both local and national media coverage. In addition to the Star Tribune op-ed piece, MinnPost writer Scott Russell weighed in. He gave the foundations credit for starting a conversation, as opposed to providing recommendations:
“The library stacks are full of reports with great ideas that never went anywhere. This latest set of ideas could go out with a bang, a whimper and maybe a success or two. But give the foundations credit for thinking big and throwing out controversial ideas.”
http://www.minnpost.com/scottrussell/2009/03/30/7708/foundation_group_throws_out_big_ideas_to_shake_up_state_budget_talks
Nationally, the Foundation Center highlighted the Minnesota’s Bottom Line report in the Philanthropy News Digest (http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=248500004) and the Council on Foundations featured the Strib editorial in its e-newsletter (http://www.cof.org/includes/broadcastGeneralContent.cfm?ItemNumber=15799)
Tough times call for transformative ideas. I look forward to hearing more from policy makers, non-profit leaders, foundations, and others on the ideas in the Minnesota’s Bottom Line report.