While home sales are down from their record levels of a few years ago,  participation in the Edina Realty Foundation has remained steady. In fact, more than 75 percent of the company’s agents continue to donate a portion of their sales commissions.

Is there an Edina Realty office in your neighborhood? If so, you’ll want to read the winter issue of Giving Forum to learn more about what Edina Realty Foundation is doing to make the 60 neighborhoods where they are located better places to live and work.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

Students in the certified nursing assistant training program at the International Institute of Minnesota, a grantee of The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota, practice their hands-on skills.

Read the winter issue of Giving Forum – online and in your mail now – to learn more about what Minnesota grantmakers and their nonprofit partners are doing in the tough fight against poverty in our state.

Grantmakers play a variety of roles from meeting basic human needs, to creating systemic change around poverty’s root causes, to engaging the community in identifying and solving problems, to taking policy stands on matters affecting low-income residents. Whatever role foundations have chosen to play, they are working to create a brighter future for all Minnesotans.

Read this issue’s feature article to learn more about how The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota is partnering to train individuals for jobs that pay a living wage and how Greater Twin Cities United Way is improving access to health care for those who need it most. And read about how the Northwest Area Foundation funded an initiative to drive payday lenders from Montana and how The Minneapolis Foundation is working to level the playing field for all residents of the city.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

When planning the launch of Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, we knew creating a video about our grantmaking work was an important component. As we unveiled a new name for our network of 1,600 funds, foundations and organizations, we wanted to reassure nonprofits that the grantmaking for three of our anchor foundations,  The Saint Paul Foundation, F. R. Bigelow Foundation and Mardag Foundation, remained the same.

Video is also a great way to make our grantmaking processes more transparent. We hope that an insider peek into our practices will help nonprofits be more informed when working with us, which would then result in more powerful collaborations. Our program team wants to work closely with nonprofits. We welcome conversations with organizations to learn about their work and understand if their programs and objectives fit with our funding priorities and commitments.

Ultimately, this new grantmaking video, along with other communication efforts like our Nonprofits to Know^TM  video series and MNSights magazine, is intended to help strengthen philanthropy in Minnesota. We hope the outcome of the new video is that more great programs find our foundations and that our community is the better for it. Have a look and let us know what you think!

Seventy percent of grantmakers anticipate that their funding priorities will remain constant in 2012, which is almost a 10-point increase over what they predicted for 2011.

MCF’s 2012 Outlook Report is based on an October/November 2011 survey of 100 foundations and corporate giving programs that represent 76 percent (or about $1 billion) of all Minnesota annual grantmaking.

Subject-Area Funding
For the first time in its annual Outlook survey, MCF asked grantmakers to estimate changes in giving to the specific subject areas they support. While most respondents plan no changes to 2012 subject-area giving, one third of education funders forecast giving more to education in 2012.

Arts, culture, and humanities is the only subject area to which more grantmakers said they expect to decrease rather than increase funding. Although the respondents represent a small part of the Outlook survey sample, this finding appears to be consistent with a trend toward less arts funding as reported in MCF’s latest Giving in Minnesota report.

Learn More
To learn more about what the report findings mean for Minnesota’s nonprofit and philanthropic communities, check out the full report online and register today for one or all four of the subject-specific webinars hosted by MCF.

Webinar topics and dates are:

• Education, January 18;
• Human Services, January 24;
• Health, February 1; and
• Arts, February 7.

At each webinar, in addition to a broad overview of 2012’s giving outlook, a panel of funders will dive more deeply into subject-specific funding and answer questions like the following:

• What are the current trends in funding for education, human services, health or arts?
• Will funding for the area be up or down in 2012?
• What should nonprofits be aware of as they prepare to seek funds in 2012?

We promise you’ll come away from them more knowledgeable and informed about 2012’s funding landscape in Minnesota!

Minnesota will receive $45 million – $20 million of which is targeted to high-poverty areas in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Itasca County and on the White Earth Reservation. The rest is designated for oversight and accountability, including a new ratings system to help parents find quality child care providers.

In recent (and not so recent) years, Minnesota seems to have had more bad than good education news. And this grant is GREAT news! I say that because it will put money toward what we know works.

When kids enter school ready to learn, learn to read in 1st and 2nd grade, and read to learn by 3rd, they have a much better shot at success in school and life.

And we know how to get kids ready to learn. According to The Minneapolis Foundation, an MCF member, the Minneapolis Public Schools have seen a 13 percent increase in the number of children entering kindergarten ready to learn after just 3 years of funding. There are lots of other examples out there too.

Art Rolnick summarized it quite nicely in his post yesterday on mpr.org:

While many of us think of Minnesota as the education state, roughly half of our children do not start school healthy and ready to learn. And research shows that when kids start school far behind they don’t catch up. Many of those kids drop out of high school and are much more likely to struggle in our society. Indeed, criminologists claim that they can predict the need for prisons in the future by the number of children who are not proficient in reading by the third grade.

That last sentence astounds me!

So Minnesota, let’s match the federal money. Let’s really start investing in every resident of our state and fund early education sufficiently, so every child has access to preschool and all-day kindergarten. And every child truly has the opportunity to become a productive citizen.

Would anyone out there really rather fund prisons?

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

Photo: cc woodleywonderworks

GCW  founded Guild, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to helping individuals with mental illness lead quality lives, that will continue to operate and currently serves over 1600 individuals. GWC was also a major contributor in establishing the Bureau of Catholic Charities, a forerunner Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis; the umbrella group of social services provided by the Archdioceses of St. Paul and Minneapolis; and Our Lady of Peace Home for adults with incurable Cancer.

Their legacy began when St. Paul was less than half a century old. Caroline Beaumont and several other well-off women at St. Luke’s Parish, now the Catholic Community of St. Thomas More, founded the organization to help relieve the poverty of members in the community, especially the cities growing immigrant population. They would go on to set up temporary housing for poor immigrant women, establish a church for Mexican Immigrants now known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, assist in the reintegration of soldiers during World War I and II, and most recently began focusing on mental health issues, especially in children and young adults.

The decision to dissolve the organization was cited as due to its aging membership and declining membership numbers, down to less than 100 active members from over 1,000 in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Many factors influenced the decline in member numbers, including the changing role of women in philanthropy and society, changes in volunteering trends, and the closure and consolidation of parishes.

The first endowment totaling $630,000 was given to the Guild, Inc. to continue their work with the mentally ill. The second endowment was created from the sale of the GCW’s real estate holding, totaling over $200,000, and will be given to organizations throughout St. Paul that promote “wellness in the community,” administered by MCF member Catholic Community Foundation.

For more information, the Guild, Inc.  has a list of articles regarding the GWC’s dissolution.

-Kaitlin Ostlie, MCF administrative assistant

The 612-YEP will support nonprofit and public agencies to offer positive youth engagement activities that are reflective of the goals of the City of Minneapolis’ “Blueprint for Action: Preventing Youth Violence”: (1) To connect every youth with trusted adults; (2) To intervene at the first sign that youth are at risk for violence; (3) To restore youth who have gone down the wrong path; and, (4) To unlearn the culture of violence in our community.

Approximately $40,000 will be available for grants for summer 2012 programs. Funding is intended for youth-led programs/activities during this time, with an expectation that youth will be involved in the design and implementation of the programs/activities and in the development of the grant proposal.

Learn more at The Minneapolis Foundation’s website. Proposals are due at 2:00 pm on January 18, 2012.

I have often said that rural Minnesota communities don’t have a dime to spare, which is why partnerships and leveraging of resources is critical to community growth and vitality. A great example of how this plays out is with local community foundations across our region.

For many years SMIF has helped establish and grow community foundations as a way to extend our resources. Currently we have 17 foundations under our umbrella, meaning we provide investment, administrative and technical assistance to the volunteer boards who oversee these foundations. Collectively over the years, these 17 communities have amassed $1.14 million in assets and have awarded more than $3.1 million in grants and programming.

Community foundations are currently the fastest growing sector in philanthropy, as they go beyond simply making grants–community foundations also identify current and emerging issues, channel resources to address their communities’ needs, and help their regions prepare for the future. In the United States, community foundations grant more than $31 billion in charitable funds in more than 700 communities and regions.

Community foundations are vitally important. Many donors want to keep their philanthropic dollars local, to better their own communities. And that’s exactly the goal of community foundations: keeping assets and resources in the community.

An example of one of our successful community foundations is the Preston Area Community Foundation. They have provided over $115,000 in grants since their inception in 1996. Their grants have included projects such as new tennis courts for the city of Preston, the schoolhouse and rail car restoration for the Preston Historical Society, a new baseball scoreboard for Fillmore Central Schools, and two grants to the National Trout Center.

As you can see, local community foundations are successful in identifying practical projects to enhance their community, and then raising the funds to complete them. Another example is the Elysian Area Community Foundation which recently donated a Jaws of Life rescue tool to the Elysian Fire Department.

In a time of tight budgets and reduced government funds, community foundations are also partnering with school districts and donating needed equipment. For instance, the Maple River Arts, Academics, and Athletics recently donated more than $11,000 in computers and other school supplies to the Maple River school district.

We are excited that the Spring Valley Area Foundation, formed just a year ago, has already raised more than $85,000 and is making small grants. With the help of an energetic board and supportive community, they are well on their way to capturing–and keeping–their community’s many assets.

Managing investment dollars for community foundations is one of the many benefits SMIF offers to area communities. Right now, we are also offering two opportunities for community foundations to capture additional SMIF dollars of up to $10,000. The first is a matching endowment challenge, which provides a $1 match for every $2 the community foundation raises up to a $5,000 match. Second, we provide a matching grant opportunity for community foundations of up to $5,000 for projects in the early childhood or entrepreneurship categories.

If you are interested in learning more about starting a foundation in your community, contact our Development Director Jennifer Nelson at 507-455-3215 or jennifern@smifoundation.org.

Many of MCF’s member community foundations have development staff who work on projects like these. Visit our member roster to find one that does work in your area or on your cause!

Their Transformational Fund will provide one-time major funding of up to $500,000 for nonprofits that help economically disadvantaged people become self-sufficient, and that are ready for organization-wide, long-term sustainable change.

A few of the things they’re looking for:

• Organizations that primarily serve Hennepin County
• Organizations with proven program effectiveness
• Organizational leadership with pioneering vision and the ability to bring that vision into action
• Organizations with business models that include a strong revenue mix and a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their current infrastructure
• Consensus between the board of directors and key staff on the next steps needed for the organization to move to the next level

Visit the Minnesota Community Foundation website to learn more and to complete their online submission form. Interested nonprofits should start planning their applications now! The submission window closes January 31, 2012.

It’s called the WINGS Entrepreneurial Fund, a partnership between WINGS (Women In Northfield Giving Support) and MCF member Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF). Their first loan went out just this month, to freelance journalist Azna Amira and her business Azna Writes A to Z.

“With the help of SMIF and WINGS, I was able to grow my business,” Azna said. “I appreciate the support and funding both organizations provided.”

Diversity in philanthropy takes many forms. In this case, it means supporting the efforts of women and young people, so that the businesses community in the area is more reflective of the citizens it serves.

Cheers to the WINGS Entrepreneurial Fund, and to the dreams of enterprising women and youth that it will help realize!