Our Commitment
to Advancing Economic Mobility

This week the Minneapolis Foundation is launching the latest iteration of our Racial and Economic Justice grant program. We launched the first grant round under this program in 2021 following the introduction of our Strategic Framework.

Our Framework puts the impetus on us, not our nonprofit partners and community members, to move beyond the walls of our office, listen to those impacted by community issues, and engage in community-driven solutions. It continues to guide us today as our nonprofit partners navigate a time of great uncertainty and disruption.

As co-leader of the Foundation’s Impact Team and a former nonprofit professional, my colleagues and I recognize the importance of the nonprofit sector to our state. In addition to the vital services they provide, nonprofits comprise 13 percent of our workforce—employing more than 300,000 people—and generate more than $100 billion in Minnesota’s economy. In recent weeks, many of our nonprofit partners have rightly called on philanthropy to do more as their communities and staff face backlash against their work.

Today, we are writing to tell you about one action we are taking to better serve nonprofits focused on Economic Mobility, one of three core areas of our staff-directed grantmaking and an issue central to our Racial and Economic Justice grantee partners. In a variety of ways, these nonprofits do critical work to create a more inclusive economy by supporting entrepreneurship, increasing access to affordable housing and home ownership, and providing low-cost lending and capital.

Recognizing today’s challenges, the Minneapolis Foundation is launching an updated version of the Racial and Economic Justice grant program that incorporates feedback about the need for more flexible resources to support organizations that advance economic mobility. This grant round, which opens today, will focus on capacity building and operating support as these organizations adjust to changes in the funding landscape.

To our nonprofit partners: More details about these grants are available here. We hope you will find our application to be straightforward and take note of the contact information for questions about this funding opportunity.

To our fundholders and the broader community: We invite you to join us in supporting these nonprofit partners. Specifically, our team hopes to supplement our budget of about $3 million for this grant program with resources from the OneMPLS Fund, a responsive fund that pools community resources to address pressing local issues as they emerge. A gift to the OneMPLS Fund is a simple, effective way to support dozens of organizations that are doing important work in our community. Learn more and contribute.

In these challenging times, the Minneapolis Foundation will continue leaning into our Strategic Framework, which directs us to be collaborative rather than prescriptive as we strive to make a positive impact on our community. Now more than ever, we are committed to using our position to affirm the value of our state’s nonprofit sector, and to trust and support organizations that are doing essential work in a time of great need.