Rosenstone noted that we have a significant and growing workforce shortage:

• There is a skills gap: Unemployment remains high, while many businesses struggle to find workers who have the technical skills they need.
• Workforce shortages will increase in the future, as Minnesota’s population ages.
• Currently, our education system does not successfully meet workforce needs.

One critical key to addressing this workforce shortage is tackling Minnesota’s racial achievement gap.

• Minnesota is becoming more diverse. In the Twin Cities, the population of color has tripled in the past twenty years. One in five residents is now a person of color. The same is true for one in four of our children – our state’s future workforce, parents, and leaders.
• The gap between the percentage of non-Hispanic white students and students of color who are proficient in reading by the end of 3^rd grade is about 25 points.
• The gap between the percentage of non-Hispanic white students and students of color who are proficient in math by the end of 11^th grade score is about 30 points.
• And the gap between the percentage of non-Hispanic white students and students of color who graduate from high school on time score is about 30 points. Just over half of students of color graduate on time.

Participants discussed ways we use these hard facts to galvanize the government, nonprofit, and grantmaking communities – and ultimately all Minnesotans – to take meaningful action to close these gaps. The work will be difficult. But Karen Kelley-Ariwoola, vice president of community philanthropy for The Minneapolis Foundation and a past board chair for MCF, called the room to action. In addressing these achievement gaps, we must all be:

• Strategic: Invest in high return upstream strategies.
• Intentional: Ask, will this close the gap?
• Inclusive: Listen to our community stakeholders.
• Outspoken
• Relentless

-Anne Bauers, MCF research manager

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

The forums brought together more than 400 city, county and school district leaders, including elected and appointed officials, to generate ideas about ways they could collaborate across jurisdictions for better public service delivery.

At the forums, some of Minnesota’s most innovative local leaders came together to share their experiences with redesign and to explore new opportunities to work together across jurisdictions. They shared stories of what’s working in their communities, and they shared their hopes for the future.

Three critical lessons, summarized here, came out of the forums. The report provides much more detail on each.

1. Redesign is facing some barriers to change. Changing the way services are managed or delivered is never easy, and it hasn’t been for our local leaders working to redesign services in their communities.

There’s the identity issue, there’s turf, and there’s ego, and there’s the fear of change. We’ve got to get people to understand that we’ve got to change to stay alive.
— JO CARLSON, MAYOR, CITY OF WHITE BEAR LAKE

2. Leaders agree that five essential elements are needed to redesign local governments. Barriers are not permanent obstacles, and many local leaders have moved past them.

There’s definitely a willingness among local units of government to work together. At the legislature, they need to know that there are people in local government that want to work together, and I think that message needs to go out to our stakeholders at the local level, too.
— KEVIN DONOVAN, MAHTOMEDI SCHOOL BOARD

3. Minnesota’s local governments are ready to innovate. In fact, they’re already doing it.

Right now we’re working with other school districts in Itasca County and the region in Deerwood, Nashwauk-Keewatin, Floodwood, Hill City, Greenway, and Northland Community School. We’re linking via technology and together we’re sharing teachers and courses. Our students are getting electives and opportunities that a lot of large school districts in the Metro don’t offer because we’ve worked together and used technology to do more with what we have.
— JOE SILKO, SUPERINTENDENT, GRAND RAPIDS

Learn more, follow the media coverage of the report and find additional resources on local government redesign on The Bush Foundation’s Redesigning Local Government web page.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

McKnight also previewed some of its big programs and activities to come in 2012, including:

• Working with a number of school districts to build seamless pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade programs that get children ready for school and keep them engaged. McKnight has partnered with the Urban Education Institute of the University of Chicago for this initiative, to bring research-based tools and expertise to these efforts.
• Going “beyond the rail” to increase equity and shared economic impact of new transit investments.
• Celebrating 30 years of the McKnight Artist Fellowships program, which makes awards to individual artists in 12 disciplines.
• Support to communities around the globe in East Africa, South America, the Mekong River area and more.

The full letter, with more details of what McKnight accomplished in 2011 and what it plans for the year ahead, is on the foundation’s website.

We reviewed recent trends in education giving and the grantmaker outlook for 2012. Then Bill King, MCF president, chatted with Mike Newman, vice president and director of community relations, Travelers Foundation, and Susan Heegard, vice president and educational team leader, Bush Foundation. These leading grantmakers described several important trends in education grantmaking for 2012:

• Grantmakers will continue to focus on collaboration as a way to share learning opportunities with partners, leverage resources, and prevent duplication. Heegard explained, “If there are other folks working in this area, we want to make sure that we’re adding value and figuring out carefully where our niche is.” Newman added, “We as a philanthropic sector, along with the nonprofit sector, are learning how to better connect with one another.”
• One benefit of collaboration is enabling grantmakers and nonprofits to be learning organizations. “Learning – and sharing that learning with others – is really critical, whether you have success or not,” said Heegard.
• Data will continue to drive grantmaker decision making. Heegard noted, “You want to use data to guide the front-end decision: How should you invest? And then you want to use data to track your progress: how are you doing?”
• Even as collaboration becomes increasingly important, Newman noted that grantmakers will continue to fund diverse priorities and programs. Heegard added that this makes sense — to fund across the full spectrum of education needs.

The grantmakers also offered their own advice to nonprofits seeking grants in 2012:

• Know your own work well. Newman commented, “Be clear about who you are and say it with clarity.”
• Know your colleagues and potential partners. “Have a good knowledge of who else is doing similar or related work. Distinguish your efforts, or figure out a way to come together with others in partnership,” Heegard said.
• Understand the grantmaker, including areas of focus. “Check out our website. Talk to colleagues. Find out who else we fund. That gets you a helpful overview,” Newman advised.

One great tool for understanding grantmakers’ guidelines and which nonprofits they’ve supported in the past is MCF’s Minnesota Grantmakers Online.

Other Grantmakers to Share Advice

Three upcoming webinars will delve deeply into other subject areas, and they will feature conversations with grantmakers from The McKnight Foundation, Medtronic Foundation, Miller-Dwan Foundation, Minnesota Philanthropy Partners and Otto Bremer Foundation.

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

Register today to learn more about Minnesota’s funding landscape in 2012!

-Anne Bauers, MCF research manager

A study released by the University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development in February 2011, found:

• for every $1 invested in a school-based early education program, $11 is returned to society over the children’s lifetimes
• there is an 18 percent annual return on investment in early education programs (a far greater rate of return than any other common public investments)

The coalition will leverage its unique perspective as early childhood funders to advance public policy and community support for affordable, accessible, high quality care and education in Minnesota so that all children have a strong and healthy start and are prepared to contribute to Minnesota’s vitality.

The Start Early Funders Coalition currently represents more than 20 organizations that are a part of Minnesota’s philanthropic community, many of whom are MCF members.

The coalition provides critical leadership, funding, research, program development, public policy and grant making to improve early childhood efforts in Minnesota.

Together, the coalition represents:

• Statewide leadership on early childhood issues
• The voice of Minnesota’s philanthropic community
• A credible and unique perspective as funders
• A commitment to shared learning
• Dedication to capacity building
• A long-term comprehensive vision for children and our state

In the past year, significant progress has been made across the state to enhance Minnesota’s approach to early childhood care and education. However, half of Minnesota’s children remain inadequately prepared for school, and Minnesota’s achievement gap, currently among the widest in the country, must be addressed.

The Start Early Funders Coalition will work to combat these types of issues and others faced in Minnesota by uniting philanthropic and policy efforts with research and shared learning.

The group represents the merger of the School Readiness Funders Coalition and the Early Childhood Funders Network.

For more information, visit their new website.

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

It continued: Minnesota outperformed almost every other state in the union, earning an Opportunity Score of 81.2 out of 100. Sounds good, but based on other information I’ve read recently, I’m not sure it tells a complete story.

The achievement gap, based on race and socioeconomics, persists in Minnesota. Things are above average for some state residents and far below average for others.

Excelling in Education:

• Good News: Minnesota has one of the highest on-time high school graduation rates (87%) in the country.
• Bad News: According to an analysis of 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress results by MinnCAN, African American students remain more than three grade levels behind white students in math and more than two grade levels behind in reading. Low-income students are more than two grade levels behind wealthier peers. Only the District of Columbia has consistently had a larger gap.

Weathering the Economic Downturn:

• Good News: Minnesota’s unemployment rate is significantly lower than the national unemployment rate (7.4% vs. 9.1%, respectfully).
• Bad News: An Economic Policy Institute study recently found that the rate of unemployed African Americans in Minneapolis is three-times that of whites, the highest disparity in the country. State Demographer Tom Gillaspy said the findings are similar to U.S. Census data for all of Minnesota.

So, to my mind, the news just isn’t good enough for all of our state’s residents. Paul Wellstone put it simply, “We all do better when we all do better.”

Watch for the Winter issue of Giving Forum to learn how Minnesota grantmakers are addressing these and related issues.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

• MN’s unemployment rate is 6.9% – 205,000 of our residents are out of work.
• Veterans’ unemployment is higher at 9.4%.
• Poverty in MN is almost 12% – twice the rate of a decade ago.
• More than half of Minneapolis’ children of color live in poverty.

But, instead of being overwhelmed by bad news, how about if each of us did a little bit to help create some good news? By not closing our eyes to the hurt and misfortune of others – by opening our eyes and our checkbooks to make things better.

I like to think of Minnesota as a place of unparalleled generosity instead of a place with an unparalleled racial achievement gap. Turns out we’re both. Let’s do what we can to grow the generosity and shrink the gap.

This is the week to do it. Wednesday, Nov. 16 is “Give to the Max Day,” and Friday, Nov. 18 is “National Philanthropy Day.”

“Give to the Max Day,” now in its third year and sponsored by MCF members like the Minnesota Community Foundation, The Mosaic Company and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, has made it very easy for each one of us to be a philanthropist. Simply, “Click. Contribute. Change your world.”

There are more than 21,000 nonprofit organizations  listed on GiveMN.org this year. Each is working to make something in our state better. Whether your preferred cause is hunger, education, animal welfare or many more, many worthy organizations are out there to support. You can search or browse the GiveMN.org site to see them all. You can also narrow your search to see organizations with matching grants, so your dollar goes further.

What if Minnesota shocked the nation by spending more on this week’s ”Give to the Max Day” than on next week’s “Black Friday”? Now that’s news I’d like to see. I’ll do my part to make things better. What about you?

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

Photo: cc opensourceway

New “Reading By Third Grade” grant opportunities announced today by MCF member Greater Twin Cities United Way (GTCUW) address this important issue.

A few details about what they’re seeking:

• Demonstrable capacity to implement proven and/or promising practices to support early grade literacy.
• Organizations and programs that provide services to children and families living at 200% of poverty or below within GTCUW nine-county area.
• Two or more sustainable funding sources in addition to GTCUW funds that do not include in-kind or contributed services.
• Formal partnership between the program and the public school(s) and/or district served by the program.
• Minimum funding request of $75,000 per year for up to 3 years.

See the full RFP on the GTCUW website.

There are training sessions on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 that will provide applicants an overview of the direction of the GTCUW strategic plan, the RFP content and process, annual reporting required by grantees and the Reading By Third Grade technical assistance and evaluation.

Attendance at one of these sessions is mandatory for those who wish to submit an application. Interested parties can RSVP on Eventbrite.