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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Minneapolis Develops New Index to Measure Creative Vitality of City

March 5, 2013
The Minneapolis Creative Index 2013 is filled with graphics, like this one on nonprofit art organizations.

The Minneapolis Creative Index 2013 visually showcases the strength of the local arts community.

The Arts, Culture and Creative Economy program for the City of Minneapolis has released a new study using the Creative Vitality Index (CVI), commissioned by the city and developed by Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF). CVI is designed to capture the impact of the creative community in Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and to measure annual changes in the economic health of highly creative industries.

This system of measurement will provide a new resource for policymakers, arts professionals, artists and community arts advocates. Grantmakers may utilize the index to provide a more in-depth analysis of Minneapolis’ creative sector, including measuring the city’s creative employment by ZIP code. This will allow grantmakers to focus funding on the specific needs of the creative community in their target geographic areas.

According to the Minneapolis Creative Index 2013 report, the economic impact of the Minneapolis creative community on the economy is large, accounting for 1% of the overall retail economy and posting performing arts revenues almost ten times the national average.

On average, the MSA creative sector injects $700 million into the Minnesota economy each year. By comparison, this is approximately 70% of Minneapolis’ sports sector revenue without the benefit of publicly subsidized stadiums. Arts patrons spend on average an additional $20.40 per person on event-related purchases like parking and food.

The creative sector has also been crucial to Minneapolis’ job growth, employing nearly 20,000 residents, or about 5% of all jobs in the city. Creative employment in the MSA represents 74% of Minnesota’s creative occupations, the sixth highest CVI score in the country.

The report also detailed the effects of the creative sector on Minneapolis’ nonprofit community and the greater creative arts ecosystem. Despite recent losses in overall nonprofit revenue, contributions to nonprofit arts organizations increased 10% over the two year period ending in 2011. Increased revenue from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment also fueled growth in the nonprofit arts community.  The amendment specified that 19.75% of $7.5 billion dollars to be generated statewide over the next 25 years will go to fund arts and cultural activities.

Although the new CVI measurement system has proven to be a valuable tool for measuring the economic benefits of art in Minneapolis, the system has some limitations. It relies is heavily on business transactions and employment, and does not capture non-commerce related impacts like community cohesion and safety, feeling of well being, expressions of identity or rates of attendance. Also not captured in the measurement are nonprofit organizations with annual budgets under $25,000 or demographic traits like race, age or gender. As looking for arts funding has become more competitive, proving the impact of the arts remains a difficult but crucial part of arts advocacy.

Minneapolis plans on releasing core CVI data annually, with a full report to be published bi-annually.

-Kaitlin Ostlie, MCF administrative assistant

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Companies Remain Committed to Employee Giving

February 25, 2013

AmericasCharities-400wEvery year, the nation’s largest employers invite their employees to participate in a fall tradition: the Employee Charitable Giving Campaign. The campaigns funnel $3 billion annually (most of it unrestricted) to nonprofits across the nation.

In recognition of today’s International Corporate Philanthropy Day, America’s Charities released Trends and Strategies to Engage Employees in Greater Giving, a new report.

Among its findings:

  • Companies remain committed and recognize the benefits of a strong employee-giving program.
  • Employers are creating new giving models to involve and engage employees, particularly younger employees.
  • Technology and digital culture are transforming the employee-giving experience.
  • A new model that empowers employees to participate in giving inside and outside the walls of the workplace is emerging.

Good news:

  • More than two-thirds of companies surveyed offer matching payroll contributions, a 58% increase since 2006.
  • More than 80% of survey respondents agree or strongly agree that their company is committed to a strong program and that employee giving is a priority.

Warning signs:

  • Giving has increased at a majority of companies, but employee participation rates are down at nearly half. Average participation in 2006 was 41%; in 2012, it dropped to 33%. Experts say this is a sign that those who are already involved feel very comfortable, but that more must be done to engage additional workers at that level.
  • About 85% of respondents said administering the annual campaign is one of their top challenges. Time-crunched administrators find it difficult to devise engaging new ways to encourage participation. They want solutions that are easy to use, easy to administer and offer a platform to engage employees.
  • More than 92% of employers face challenges connecting younger employees to existing employee-giving programs. About 80% agree that the current model needs to be made more attractive for younger employees. More than 50% of employers surveyed plan to implement more social media tools into their employee-giving programs to attract younger employees and enable all employees to connect with peers and the causes they care about in real-time.
  • About 85% of respondents said that keeping the campaign fresh and vibrant is a challenge. Today, many employers are looking to integrate their efforts — the annual campaign, employee volunteering, pro bono work and more — into a one-stop shop, and new technologies may support this integration. Companies are developing strategies and ideas to address challenges and enhance engagement, and the number of year-round giving programs is growing.

You can find many more insights in the full report (PDF).

This is America’s Charities third report in the last 13 years about the $3 billion dollars employees donate on the job each year to worthy nonprofits. Participating companies employ more than 1.4 million people, represent more than 20 industry groups and are geographically diverse. Collectively, they raise more than $230 million through traditional employee-giving campaigns.

- 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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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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Data More Important Than Ever in the Social Economy

January 15, 2013

datasocialAs 2013 begins, many organizations (including MCF) are releasing their predictions for what the new year may hold for grantmakers and nonprofits. One of the strongest industry forecasts is Lucy Bernholz’s Blueprint 2013: Philanthropy and the Social Economy.

Bernholz begins by broadening how we think about the philanthropic and nonprofit sector to include the entire social economy: “The social economy refers to all the ways that we direct private resources for public good. Where once this was largely the domain of charitable gifts to nonprofit organizations, we now use social businesses, impact investing, campaign contributions, social welfare organizations, peer-to-peer giving, crowdfunding platforms, and informal networks to make the change we want.”

So what are some long-term shifts that will matter to the social economy in 2013 and later years? Bernholz outlines several:

  • Foundations will go big on data. In 2012, more than a dozen meaningful efforts at sharing philanthropic data were launched. The development of linked, comparable, accessible data will only continue. And all of us will find new ways to compare, analyze, and present this data.
  • Mobile giving and networked action will become an even bigger movement in the social economy. It’s now easy for individuals to donate to causes quickly and easily using a mobile device. This will spur smaller, more frequent donations.
  • Being thoughtful about data privacy and transparency will become even more critical for philanthropy. Bernholz notes that “organizations working for the public benefit have a particular responsibility to be inclusive in the data they collect, use, and advocate with while also respecting the privacy and ownership of that data by the people from whom it comes.” As data sharing becomes more prevalent, organizations should ensure that they are respecting individual information ownership and privacy.

Blueprint 2013 also makes a few predictions that will be particularly relevant this year. Here are three of the most interesting:

  • Congress will change the rules on tax deductions
  • State courts will take center stage on issues of nonprofit donor disclosure.
  • Crowdfunding will go mainstream.

Join the Conversation: What long-term trends do you think will impact the social economy?

- Anne Bauers, MCF research manager  

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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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