As more foundations strive to catalyze and sustain systems change, they are doing more than awarding grants: Public policy engagement is the new force for pursuing missions with unprecedented impact.
In our Summer issue of Giving Forum, we highlight the work of several community foundations throughout Greater Minnesota. Each is engaging in a combination of distinct public engagement strategies that will not only strengthen their work, but lead to more effective leveraging of resources for greater impact and better public decision making and stronger policy.
Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation
“Influencing public decision making, while not our primary role, is a natural outgrowth of the grantmaking, community dialogues and business loan work we do,” explains Tim Penny, president and CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF), based in Rochester. “To the degree that our work touches on public policy issues or could benefit from a public policy decision, we use a variety of tools to draw attention to those issues and how public policy could impact the success we seek.”
In an initiative conducted last year in Rochester, SMIF – with Rochester’s Diversity Council, the school district, Chamber of Commerce, business and nonprofit leaders and other stakeholders – conducted a year-long project on the increasing diversity that immigrants are bringing to the area’s workforce. The Rochester Post-Bulletin was a major media partner, reporting on meetings and writing opinion pieces on aspects of the dialogue. “This partnership helped us inform the public on an issue that has public policy implications,” Penny says.
Much of the foundation’s public policy engagement is embedded in building coalitions and networks. As part of the Southern Minnesota Competitiveness Project, the foundation engaged with leaders across 38 counties to identify the best economic opportunities for the region and examine how to align their resources for greater economic benefit.
(Read more about the work of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation in the lead article.)
Based on the belief that local people are the key to a community’s bright future, Little Falls-based Initiative Foundation strives to provide training, technical assistance, resource referral and grants to help citizen-based teams develop and carry out strategic plans.
Kathy Gaalswyk, foundation president, outlines strategies that work well to increase civic engagement:
“First, we’ve found that efforts to increase civic engagement work well when a group has short- and long-term action items. Completing a project or activity immediately helps the group coalesce and build energy for the longer-term work.
“Second, we’ve learned to look for those community “spark plug” folks who provide leadership within local teams, track follow-up items and engage other partners. A foundation like ours can provide important training, assistance and funding, but we will leave at some point. These “spark plug” individuals are critical to the longevity of grassroots work.
“Third, providing modest grant funds is important. Often it doesn’t take very much funding, but funding can be a barrier to getting a project done.
“And finally, quality information is essential. Two people can’t have a civil, productive discussion about an issue unless they share common facts. Because we believe that information inspires action, our foundation publishes IQ (Initiative Quarterly) Magazine, a free alternative journalism publication, to educate community leaders about emerging issues. Sometimes we break new ground. As for-profit news media continue to cut journalists, it’s falling on nonprofits to fill the void in providing trustworthy, objective information.
(Read more about the work of the Initiative Foundation in the Voices article.)
Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation
Strengthening nonprofits is critical to Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation’s (FMAF) goal to enrich the community by improving the lives of those who live in the region.
“At a time when donations are down and service needs are increasing, it’s important to raise awareness in our community of who is providing quality-of-life services,” says Cher Hersrud, FMAF’s advancement officer. “I think of nonprofits as the silent sector. We’re so busy doing the work, we don’t market ourselves; that’s secondary to providing the services.”
To help spread the word, last October, the foundation coordinated a nonprofit awareness week titled “Hope+Heart+Help: Know Your Nonprofits.” The week began with a news conference and media releases highlighting statistics about the sector. A nonprofit fair was held at West Acres Shopping Center, the area’s main retail hub.
“One domestic violence program said its booth at the mall gave it the best exposure ever, resulting in three new speaking engagements and a handful of new volunteers,” Hersrud reports.
The foundation’s work to strengthen the nonprofit community is paying off, Hersrud says. “We’re working together to build good, trusting relationships between the community foundation and nonprofits, so as the sector continues to change, we can be responsive and work together on several levels.”
(Read more about the work of the Fargo-Moorhead Area Foundation in the Giving Stories article.)
Central Minnesota Community Foundation
“The first step in public policy work is conversation and dialogue,” Steve Joul, Central Minnesota Community Foundation (CMCF) president, emphasizes. “This leads to action and good decision making. If conversations and dialogue break down, this can bring about confrontation and bigger challenges that prevent policies from being enacted.”
Foundations can play an important role in facilitating critical dialogue. “We can bring people to the table, highlight issues, help people understand the important issues facing the community,” Joul continues. “It’s important to be a place where bridging happens, where people who don’t always see things the same way can talk and find their commonality.”
The Mississippi River runs through the heart of St. Cloud, where CMCF is located. Long-term plans and zoning for parks, housing development, civic center renovation and recreation along the river have major policy implications not only for the city of St. Cloud, but for the surrounding communities as well.
“Our foundation provided grants to hold community meetings to promote collaborative planning with St. Cloud, Sartell and Sauk Rapids,” Joul reports. “The city of St. Cloud is now taking the lead to develop policies guiding how the river is used in the long-term.”
Joul also points to the foundation’s involvement in the “Create Community” initiative as an example of its public policy engagement. “We invest a great deal in working on the issue of race,” he says. “‘Create Community’ is not our initiative; it’s a community initiative with many players. We’re just an active participant, serving as fiscal agent and key funder. Race continues to be a delicate issue that people are sometimes afraid to talk about, so it’s important that we, as a community foundation, play a role as bridge builder, encouraging people to come together for dialogue.
(Read more about the work of the Central Minnesota Community Foundation in the Giving Stories article.)
Southwest Initiative Foundation
Advocacy and public policy require leadership – to support specific policy initiatives and to implement policy changes. Developing community leaders and building relationships with policymakers are essential parts of Hutchinson-based Southwest Initiative Foundation’s (SWIF) work in its 18-county service area in the southwestern region of Minnesota.
SWIF piloted the Connected Communities Partnership (CCP) program in New London and Montevideo. In each community, SWIF brought citizens and heads of organizations together for a year-long, intensive skill-building and planning program to discuss and prioritize what they wanted for their community, and then to develop and implement action plans.
The New London team succeeded in influencing public action locally when it advocated for design changes in the replacement for the aging Mill Pond Dam. The group also advocated for downtown beautification efforts. “These weren’t SWIF projects,” notes Karen Grasmon, the foundation’s communication officer, “but our program did bring people together to identify these as important priorities for their community and then have some collective leveraging to really make the changes happen.”
SWIF believes the lessons learned from the CCP pilot will be most impactful if integrated throughout all of the foundation’s programming, so CCP won’t continue as a stand-alone program. “Instead we see an opportunity to take the best practices – especially those focusing on leadership development – and use them to extend our reach and impact throughout all areas of our work and, in particular, our early childhood and community foundation initiatives,” Grasmon says.
(Read more about the work of the Southwest Initiative Foundation in the Giving Stories article.)
Positioning itself as the most effective vehicle to impact what’s important to the city of Edina (a suburb west of Minneapolis), the Edina Community Foundation developed a framework to simultaneously engage its residents, promote philanthropy and foster public-private collaboration.
“If an Edina resident wants to lead an effort to immunize the trees in a neighborhood park against elm disease, or a nonprofit group wants to raise funds to support a community youth program, we’ll establish a designated fund for them to hold any money raised,” explains foundation Executive Director Dick Crockett. “When it comes time to pay for the immunizations or youth program, we make a grant to the group. It’s a variation on a donor-advised fund.”
At last count, the foundation has established more than 60 funds to support Edina-specific initiatives. This kind of leadership in the community involves collaboration with 80 organizations, and more than 100 individuals have been empowered to lead these initiatives, which fall into one of four foundation focus areas: Beautifying Our City, Bringing People Together, Enhancing Our Safety, and Helping Our Neighbors.
For example, the foundation joined forces with the Edina Education Fund, Chamber of Commerce, League of Women Voters and six Parent-Teacher Associations to initiate Kids Voting Edina, educating Edina youth on the voting process and giving them the opportunity to cast unofficial votes at official polling places.
“For our foundation, choosing to impact the community by magnifying citizens’ ability to partner and raise funds for purposes important to them was a public policy decision,” notes Crockett. “We couldn’t have this kind of impact if we tried to do all this work ourselves.”
(Read more about the work of the Edina Community Foundation in the Giving Stories article.)
-Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate
Posted by Chris Noonan 
