The State of Minnesota’s Native American Nonprofit Economy

March 12, 2013

nativereportEarlier this month, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits and Native Americans in Philanthropy released their Native American Nonprofit Economy Report. I had the chance to attend a community forum about the report, where we heard from those who put it together along with responses from several Native nonprofit and tribal leaders.

Among the many insights they shared about the state of Native American nonprofits in Minnesota, here are a few that stuck out to me:

  • Native-led nonprofits are an innovative group — 83 percent of them feel they’re better off now than they were five years ago and attribute that to a serious organizational focus on obtaining results.
  • The majority of Native American nonprofits are located in the Twin Cities metro area. This is a boon for the many Native people living in this urban area, but it also means Native nonprofits in rural areas are overlooked. Nonprofit resources are also badly needed within reservation communities.
  • Native nonprofits do not receive substantial funding from casino revenue. This is a common misconception, but the reality is that tribal funding of nonprofits is a distant fifth place as a source of revenue, behind government (federal, state and county) support, private foundation grants, earned revenue and private donations.

And some key recommendations for funders:

  • Consider long-term funding support for programs, operations and public policy advocacy, instead of one-year grants that can leave nonprofits constantly unsure if they will be able to sustain any momentum from their efforts.
  • Build close relationships in the Native community, and develop joint evaluation metrics using logic models based on community assets rather than deficits.
  • Make it a point to support youth and leadership development.

You can download the full report from the Native Americans in Philanthropy website. I recommend giving it a read and learning more about this important part of Minnesota’s nonprofit community.

-Chris Oien, MCF web communications associate

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An Introduction to White’s Black Psychology

March 6, 2013
Dr. Joseph White

Dr. Joseph White

Last week I attended a Black History Month Celebration: Renewing Hope in the Promise of Minnesota’s Youth, hosted by MCF member Youthprise and the Cultural Wellness Center. There I was introduced to the work of Dr. Joseph White, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine.

As a Caucasian female who grew up in mainstream circumstances — in a traditional two-parent family in suburban 1970s Wisconsin — I appreciated hearing Dr. White’s experiences of growing up Black, male and in a single-parent household in a 1940s Minneapolis.

Despite being very much a minority in the Minneapolis public schools, White experienced first-hand the benefits of quality out-of-school-time programming through his involvement in Pillsbury Community House programs (now Pillsbury United Communities).

Drawing on that and other experiences as a young Black man during a time of limited opportunity, he focused much of his work on exploring and uncovering practices and strategies that lead to the promotion of better opportunities for minority youth. He is a passionate advocate for creating access to high-quality learning opportunities – within and beyond the classroom for all young people.

White spent most of his career as a teacher, supervising psychologist, mentor and director of ethnic studies and cross-cultural programs. He is a pioneer in the field of Black psychology, has authored several papers and seven books, and wrote a seminal article, “Toward a Black Psychology,” which appeared in Ebony Magazine in 1970.

He says that African Americans have always had psychological strengths, and that they are among the traits that have helped them survive slavery and segregation. His job, he says, was simply to package what was already there. Today, he says the challenge for all of us is to share these values with Black youth to enable them to thrive.

So, here’s a brief introduction to the Seven Strengths of African Americans, a.k.a. White’s Black Psychology.

Improvisation: The ability to be resourceful, imaginative, creative and innovative in meeting life’s challenges, and the personal realization that answers come from within.

Resilience: The capacity to rebound from setbacks and become stronger in the broken places. (White shared the poem Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou.)

Connectedness: To family, extended family, peers, community, etc. The necessity of looking out for each other and how that teaches one to build successful mutual relationships.

Spirituality: A spiritual and life-affirming force which runs through the Black experience and is responsible for strength in the face of adversity and hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Emotional vitality: A zest for life, high energy, exuberance and a style that fully embraces life.

Gallows humor: The ability to cry when experiencing tragedy paired with the ability to see humor in the midst of human dilemma. (As an example, White recommends Langston Hughes’ popular writings as fictional character Jesse B. Semple.)

Healthy suspicion: Not paranoia, but a healthy suspicion of “you know who” — a group who has made and broken promises since 1619.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

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Why Diversity? Reasons and Resources

February 22, 2013
AAPIPsquared

AAPIP is one of a number of organizations MCF regularly communicates with around the goal of advancing diversity in philanthropy.

One way to diversify your staff, board and the communities you support with grants is to get more familiar with MCF’s strategic partners or joint affinity groups. These organizations — AAPIP, MNBIP, EPIP and others — are featured in the current issue of Giving Forum. And, if these acronyms mean nothing to you, I urge you to keep reading.

These organizations promote giving in and for communities of color, and they can help you diversify your staff and your giving by connecting you with the philanthropic leaders who comprise their membership.

Included in the article, Why Diversity? Reasons and Resources,  is a description of each group, a link to its website, contact information and thoughts from a key member of each group on why diversity in Minnesota’s independent sector is critical.

In addition to the listed groups, what diversity resources do you rely on?

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

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Funding Diversification Needed for Culturally Specific Theaters

February 21, 2013
penumbra

Penumbra is the largest theater representing African American experiences in the Twin Cities

A recent Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) piece examines the unique fundraising challenges faced by culturally specific and ethnic theater groups. These theaters present work by and about particular groups. Two local examples are Mu Performing Arts, representing Asian American experiences, and Penumbra Theater, representing African American experiences.

As art funding starts to rebound, most individual donors continue to support large, culturally western groups serving audiences who are whiter and wealthier than the American average. This trend, along with the reduction of foundation, government and corporate support for theater, has placed many culturally specific theaters in jeopardy. To survive, small arts groups must expand revenue sources, diversify funding and do a better job of networking with individual donors.

As Minnesota’s population diversifies, engaging diverse individual donors continues to be a challenge. According to MPR and Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, the average white theater company gets 60% of its funding from individual donors. That compares to (less than) 26% of funding that Penumbra receives from individuals. Two factors are cited as contributing to the gap: available wealth in the theater’s community and the history of philanthropy within the culture.

Another factor contributing to the decline is the diversification of offerings from mainstream theaters. As large theaters start to embrace multicultural programming, they attract support that may traditionally have gone to small ethnic theaters, which may have trouble competing for grants against large, more established groups. And, even with a shift toward more mainstream multicultural theater, criticism about a lack of representation from women and communities of color on America’s stages continues, as a backlash against the Guthrie’s 2012-2013 season showed.

However, Penumbra has also demonstrated that there is hope for building and diversifying fundraising capacity. After cutting staff and suspending programming indefinitely as a result of a major 2012  budget short fall, Penumbra focused all its energy on raising the $340,000 needed to keep its doors open. According to MPR, by the end of 2012, the theater had raised $359,000 from more than 1,400 individuals, corporations and foundations. To grow future sustainability, Penumbra is now developing a new business plan and examining ways to maximize revenue streams.

Culturally specific theaters are worth supporting. They provide ethnic and minority communities with a place to express their cultures using their voices. In addition, they bring another group’s individual and shared experiences to broader audiences. Funding diversification is key to making these theaters sustainable.

For more on a similar topic, read a post I wrote a year ago for Philanthropy Potluck on the need for arts giving to contribute more to the common good.

-Kaitlin Ostlie, MCF administrative assistant

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Philanthropy: Defined by Youth

February 14, 2013

youthpriseYouthprise believes it must engage its constituents — underserved and under-engaged youth — in its processes in order to achieve strong outcomes relevant to youth and their diverse communities.

In addition, it says that any progress it achieves will not be sustainable unless youth are genuinely engaged in the change efforts.

Youthprise is walking its talk — ensuring the make up of its board and staff reflect the diversity of the communities they target, working with and funding organizations that share its philosophy, sponsoring listening sessions with members of culturally-specific communities and employing youth on staff and in designated board positions.

Read much more about Youthprise and others that are working to diversify philanthropy in the winter issue of Giving Forum, online now!

-Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

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Inventing and Innovating to Tackle Minnesota’s Racial Disparities

February 13, 2013

compassLast week, I was fortunate to attend the Minnesota Compass annual meeting. It was great to celebrate this organization’s work in advancing our understanding of Minnesota now and in the future, and to reflect on what these statistics mean for our state.

The most sobering findings won’t surprise anyone who’s heard about Minnesota’s large racial achievement gaps, but they’re always worth repeating:

  • 84% of white students graduate high school on time in Minnesota, compared to 51% of Hispanic students, 49% of black students and 42% of American Indian students.
  • A 39-percentage-point home ownership gap exists between white households and households of color, compared to just 25 percentage points for the country at large.
  • Only 9% of white Minnesotans live in poverty, compared to 37% of blacks and 40% of American Indians.

Craig Helmstetter of Minnesota Compass pointed out that closing these gaps would produce a huge economic boost for the state — if the poverty rate for people of color is reduced to the level for whites, it would be the equivalent of lifting the whole population of St. Paul out of poverty.

How can we address these longstanding issues in innovative ways? That was our challenge from keynote speaker Alex Cirillo, now retired and formerly 3M vice president for community affairs and vice president of the 3M Foundation (an MCF member). He asked us to recreate 3M’s model for invention and innovation at our tables, with some of us assuming each of these roles:

  • Specialists: The subject experts with advanced technical knowledge about a specific area.
  • Scouts: Those who help advance solutions by making new connections with existing information.
  • Adapters: The ones who “do stuff,” supporting development of new technologies and applications.
  • Architects: Those who can apply specific knowledge to a wide range of fields and identify breakthroughs.

My table was tasked with using this model to tackle the question of how we erase Minnesota’s racial disparities in unemployment. I’m sure we didn’t solve everything in our 20-minute discussion, but we kicked around some good ideas:

  • Where’s the “eHarmony” for jobs, a site that matches employees and employers on the skills and values they truly care about instead of one standardized resume process?
  • Can employers think more creatively about job requirements? One foundation employee at my table said that, when her organization removed a bachelor’s degree requirement in job applications and looked for other demonstrations of talent, it was able to hire more employees more representative of the community it serves with no decrease in quality.
  • What about more overt discrimination in hiring? We’ve seen studies showing that resumes with white-sounding names get callbacks at far higher rates than those with black-sounding names. We have to face these challenges head-on instead of blaming cultural issues in minority populations.
  • Could employers be educators?  If manufacturers and others spent a couple years building up young trainees in the skills they need to succeed, could we bypass to some extent the education gap as an employment issue?

Minnesota Compass has more highlights and resources from this event on its website. And if you’re interested in exploring themes of diversity in Minnesota more deeply, don’t miss MCF’s new issue of Giving Forum, devoted to how all of us can work for greater diversity, equity and inclusion.

-Chris Oien, MCF web communications associate

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What Can I Do About Diversity?

February 5, 2013

gfbannerLissa Jones, MCF’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion, says this is the question she has been asked most often during 20 years of work on diversity. Her reply:

“No matter who you are or where you work or live, you can make a difference in working for greater diversity, equity and inclusion in our society.”

As Giving Forum‘s editor, I hope the winter issue — devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion — gives each reader ideas about a few changes they can make to truly start moving the needle on this issue in Minnesota.

And, if you’re still not convinced that it really matters to each of us, Giving Forum can help with that too. We asked representatives of the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors: Why is diversity in our work important? We got insightful replies, which we share throughout the issue.

It’s old news that Minnesota has some of the worst racial and ethnic disparities — around education, employment and health — in the country. What will you do to take a step toward greater equity and inclusion in our community? What will your organization do to help our state write some new headlines?

Giving Forum will be in your mailbox soon and is online now. Check it out and let us know what you think and, more importantly, what you’ll do.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

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Minnesota Grantmakers Optimistic About 2013

January 7, 2013

2013outlookbMCF reported today that Minnesota grantmakers forecast slightly higher giving in 2013. According to the 2013 Outlook Report, foundations and corporations believe their grantmaking will increase about 2% from 2012.

According to MCF’s Giving in Minnesota research, Minnesota grantmakers give approximately $1.4 billion each year to charities and scholarship recipients.

Education Giving May Grow

In the Outlook survey, MCF asked grantmakers to estimate changes in giving to specific subject areas they support.

  • Most (82 of 104) respondents plan to support education causes in 2013.
  • And 25 of the 82 plan to boost funding to education.

Support for Racial, Ethnic Populations Evident

MCF also queried grantmakers on their plans to support specific populations in 2013.

  • Most (82 of 104) respondents indicated their giving benefits racial and ethnic minority groups.
  • Other key constituencies on which grantmakers will focus include economically disadvantaged populations and children or youth.

Optimism for Assets

Grantmakers are slightly more optimistic than last year about the outlook for asset values.

  • 56% of foundations expect their assets to grow in 2013, versus 45% who projected increases during 2012.
  • Almost 33% of foundations anticipate assets will remain constant in 2013.

Learn More at Webinar

MCF will host a webinar January 16 to detail the 2013 Outlook Report findings and provide additional context about the overall economic climate.

Bob Tracy, MCF’s director of government relations and public policy, will discuss how state and federal policy priorities will impact the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors.

For webinar details and to register, visit www.mcf.org/events.

Read the Full Report

Read the complete 2013 Outlook Report, including an analysis of anticipated giving by grantmakers of different sizes and types, and descriptions of non-cash support strategies: www.mcf.org/research/outlook.

The 2013 Outlook Report is based on a late 2012 survey of 104 foundations and corporate giving programs that represent 75 percent of all Minnesota annual grantmaking.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate, MCF

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