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

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

Maria holds a Masters of Nonprofit Management degree from Hamline University, and a B.A. in Public Health, Social Work and Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota.

Most recently, she served as an Account Executive at Nonprofit Solutions in St. Paul, MN, providing management of several nonprofit professional associations and societies.

Welcome, Maria!

And don’t miss the What Gives, Minnesota? feature, reflecting on why Minnesotans rank near the top of national charts on giving their time and money. Reporter Jean Hopfensperger reflects that a reputation for giving goes back to some of the early pioneering Minnesotans, like William McKnight, an early leader of 3M who went on to found The McKnight Foundation, and George Dayton, who founded what would become Target Corporation and the Target Foundation. The McKnight Foundation and Target Foundation, both MCF members, are now two of the largest foundations in the state.

Be sure to look for the section on giving in today’s edition of the Star Tribune! You can also find all of the articles on their website.

-Chris Oien, web communications associate

Jim Hoolihan

In the fall issue of Giving Forum, Jim Hoolihan, outgoing CEO of Blandin Foundation, shares his thoughts on what he believes makes foundations and nonprofits effective.

It’s a revealing read written as he sifted through 19 years of files, memos and other materials from his years of involvement at the foundation.

Look for his thoughts on these topics and more:

• What matters most in an effective organization are the people. When the right people are in place, the rest falls into place.
• Money, by itself, is useless.
• Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Relationships and persistence are needed to make verifiable progress.

Read his Commentary online or in the printed version of Giving Forum which is likely in your mailbox now!

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

The WCA Foundation, founded by 20 women in 1866, is Minnesota’s oldest benevolent nonprofit organization.

Today WCA Foundation is a private independent foundation, run by female volunteers who disburse human services grants of more than $500,000 annually throughout Minnesota. Two-thirds of their grants go to programs that help women achieve and sustain independence.

The group’s first project was soliciting clothing for freed slaves. By the 1920s, residences owned and operated by the organization housed approximately 1,000 of Minneapolis’s 18,000 female boarders. Then in the 1970s, they decided they could be more effective if they used their assets to support existing programs rather than run their own. Their residences were sold and proceeds were invested in three endowment funds from which grants are made today.

In this picture, WCA board members (left and right) hear from MicroGrants founder, Joe Selvaggio, and MicroGrants business owner, Mai’sah Blanton. In May 2011, WCA Foundation awarded $12,000 to MicroGrants.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

Greater Twin Cities United Way Tops Community/Public List
Revising its methodology this year, MCF added public charity grantmakers that make competitive grants to the annual rankings. Included for the first time, Greater Twin Cities United Way ranked fourth overall and first on the list of Community/Public Foundations and Public Charity Grantmakers by grants paid in 2010.

“Including the United Way creates a more inclusive picture of giving in Minnesota,” says Bill King, MCF President. “United Ways and other public charities that give competitive grants, like community foundations, receive individual and corporate contributions and make gifts to nonprofits from the funds.”

The top five Minnesota grantmakers by grants paid in 2010 are: Target Foundation and Corporation ($131.2 million); The McKnight Foundation ($96.7 million); General Mills Foundation and Corporation ($87.7 million); Greater Twin Cities United Way ($65.7 million); and Cargill and The Cargill Foundation ($61.1 million).

Of the 50 top grantmakers by grants paid in 2010, 45 also appeared on the 2009 list. Overall, grant dollars from these 45 decreased 2 percent in 2010 from 2009, but the amount given to Minnesota-based organizations increased by 1 percent. Overall assets for the 45 increased 5 percent.

“Cash giving by Minnesota’s top 50 grantmakers still totals more than $1 billion,” says King. “And the slight increase in dollars staying within our state demonstrates the stability of philanthropic support for Minnesota nonprofits.”

“Looking ahead we’re encouraged by the improvement in top grantmakers’ asset values,” he continues. “This bodes well for grantmaking levels in 2011 and beyond, as grantmakers tend to base grants paid on multi-year averages of past asset levels.”

MCF’s annual rankings are based on the amount of cash grants paid by funders with fiscal years ending June 1, 2010, through May 31, 2011. In order to ensure that grantmakers are compared consistently, in-kind or other noncash contributions are not included.

Corporations Give More than Cash
For corporate giving programs, noncash contributions such as in-kind donations of products, services or volunteer time can be a substantial part of their overall community support. Again this year, MCF invited large corporate grantmakers to self-report information about in-kind donations and other noncash contributions. This information is assembled in the Noncash Charitable Contributions by Minnesota Corporate Grantmakers list.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

Photo cc Teosaurio

Valerie Halverson Pace, center

If you don’t think philanthropy in Minnesota and the Ukraine have much in common, think again.

On October 20-21, I attended MCF’s conference in St. Paul, The Evolution of Corporate Philanthropy: Building Value and Creating Change, where discussion revolved around truly integrating corporate citizenship and philanthropy within a company’s business strategy.

The previous week in Mykolajiv, Ukraine, the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum, in conjunction with the Center for Social Programs RUSAL, East Europe Foundation, held Ukraine’s first international conference on corporate volunteering.

Both groups heard from Valerie Halverson Pace, west region manager, Corporate Citizenship, at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, and an MCF member. She spoke of the change that she’s seen in the past 15 years at IBM, a company cited here and halfway around the world for doing things right and pushing the boundaries of corporate citizenship.

According to Pace, IBM is working across business units in 170 countries on pressing issues including the environment, economic development, education, health, literacy, language and culture.

IBM is applying their technology and the talent of their employees to solve problems, rather than simply making cash donations. They provide leadership and insist on excellence. And, whether it’s using voice recognition technology to help children learn to read or cloud computing to make disaster relief tools instantly available to recovery workers, they collaborate with qualified partners and fully expect to effect widespread positive change.

IBM’s efforts include: the Smarter Cities Challenge, a competitive grant program awarding $50 million worth of IBM expertise over three years to 100 cities around the globe; Service Jam and more.

Turns out MCF and the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum are both members of WINGS, a global network of 145 grantmaker associations. And Bill King, MCF president and a WINGS board member, is responsible for facilitating the Ukraine-Minnesota philanthropy connection.

It’s a great example of one way that MCF is working to promote and strengthen philanthropy in Minnesota and far beyond the borders of our state.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

1. Make sure that your own organization has a disaster/business continuity plan.
2. Have conversations with your board and staff about disaster response and recovery at least annually and be prepared to think and act flexibly.
3. If you are a community foundation, know how to activate on line and other donation mechanisms (like www.givemn.org) quickly.
4. Have a basic understanding about the roles of local, state and national government agencies in your service area related to disaster. In Minnesota, a great resource is Homeland Security and Emergency Management, a division of the Department of Public Safety.
5. Provide matching funds for fundraising efforts and have a plan for announcing those matches in the media.
6. When raising donations or matching funds, convey that dollars will be used for both short and long term recovery needs.  Long term recovery dollars are the hardest for communities to find (and you may want the flexibility to decide about “patient” capital later).
7. Leverage (don’t duplicate) short term resources that will be available if a disaster occurs including Red Cross, Salvation Army, Lutheran Social Services, Catholic United Finance Foundation.
8. Consider how disaster recovery and community rebuilding aligns with your existing grantmaking priorities (you might be surprised!) and what you can do to shorten forms, expedite approval procedures and simplify reporting requirements while supporting relief work.
9. Support the MNVOAD (Minnesota Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) framework for organizing community based planning and response.
10. Reach out to colleagues (especially those at foundations who have been thrust into disaster grantmaking by chance rather than choice) and don’t forget about these resource organizations for tools and best practices: Council on Foundations, Minnesota Council on Foundations, and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy.

Join the conversation: Has your organization been involved in disaster response? What would you add to this list?

Stephanie Jacobs, MCF director of member services

Photo cc biondisign

Margaret Cargill

Read the fall issue of Giving Forum for an update on what’s happening at Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, where grantmaking has started in the areas of Environment; Relief, Recovery and Development; and Arts and Cultures.

• Environment: Grants made in June focus on land-use solutions in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska and neighboring Great Bear Rainforest in Canada; also Micronesia, to support efforts to preserve coral reefs and land-based resources. The next grants likely will be made in Asia, focused on marine- and land-use in Indonesia and Cambodia. Watch for a local subprogram focus on connecting youth with the outdoors.
  Email: environment@macphil.org
• Relief, Recovery and Development: First “rapid response” grants made in September 2011 to Midwest community foundations, to help residents affected by flooding and tornadoes.
  Email: reliefrecoverydevelopment@macphil.org
• Arts and Cultures – Native Arts, Teacher Education, and Folk Art: Organizations working on Native Arts in the Pacific Northwest are now being invited to apply for grants from the Native Arts program. Those doing similar work on Native Arts in the upper Midwest, including Minnesota, will soon be invited to apply.
  Email: artsandcultures@macphil.org

Other program areas that the organization will address are under development. They will include: Aging services; children and families; animal welfare; and planned health.

Most, if not all, of these areas will include a component of local giving. Terry Meersman, vice president of programs for Margaret A. Cargill Foundation, explains:

“We’re clear about our program areas, and we’re clear there will be local giving. As much as possible, we’d like to be consistent in the areas we’re defining for national and global giving, but until we have things laid out completely, it’s hard to say that there will be an exact parallel structure locally.”

Read the Giving Forum article for much more information.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate