A Message
from Our CEO

The Minneapolis Foundation and the fundholders who are part of our generous community distributed nearly $114 million in charitable gifts during the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2024. This marks the fourth consecutive year we’ve made more than $100 million in grants, and we appear to be heading toward a fifth.

These grants are strengthening communities all over Minneapolis, our state, and the world. They are advancing equity in the areas where we focus our staff-directed investments: Education, economic mobility, and the environment. Just as important, they are driving change on a host of issues our fundholders are passionate about: Arts and culture, health and wellness, affordable housing, and more.

We celebrate this while knowing our community’s needs are even greater. Our annual grantmaking has doubled in the past decade, but it still isn’t enough. And it wouldn’t be enough if we doubled it again, because money alone cannot solve the issues we face.

It’s not enough to raise a glass when we’ve made a list of all the grants we give in a year. In 2024, we continued to move from grantmaker to changemaker. Our work has a greater impact on our community and the lives within it when we supplement our grants with other levers of change: Advocacy, research, convenings, impact investing, and partnerships with other public and private institutions.

At the same time, our team of Philanthropic Advisors is doing more to help our fundholders get closer to communities they care about, deepening their engagement with people and organizations that are doing critical work.

Education. We are helping students become better readers. With advocates across Minnesota, we supported changes in state policy to ensure all students have access to lessons grounded in the science of reading. Then we partnered with fundholders to make a special investment in Minneapolis Public Schools, augmenting state and local funding to support literacy specialists in its elementary schools.

Economic Mobility. The work we’ve funded for decades to increase economic mobility will now benefit far more homeowners and business owners of color. That’s because we are part of GroundBreak, a coalition of foundations, government leaders, and lending institutions that is marshaling resources to close racial and wealth gaps in our community. As a leader of this effort, a key part of our role is to create pathways for fundholders and other individual investors to join us in this work.

Environment. We are making significant new investments with the launch of a historic grant program funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Alongside our partners at the Midwest Environmental Justice Network, NDN Collective, and the RE-AMP Network, the Minneapolis Foundation is working to distribute $40 million in grants across six states. In October, we dug into this and other critical efforts for the environment with 250+ community members and fundholders who attended our Minnesota Meeting.

As these efforts illustrate, the Minneapolis Foundation is far more than a collection of individuals who want to help others. Together, we are a truly generous community with growing impact.

Our team at the Minneapolis Foundation, and our partners, are doing all we can to meet the extraordinary needs of these extraordinary times. But our work is not just about meeting the moment. For more than a century, this foundation has been at the center of Minnesota’s civic life. Our mission is to be here for whatever the community needs, for at least another hundred years.

We can’t know what we will face over the next century, or even the next few years. What we do know is that none of us can, or should, shoulder the challenges alone, which means we need to continue to grow our generous community.

We invite you to join us: Open a Donor Advised Fund, contribute to a collective impact fund such as our OneMPLS Fund or the Fund for Safe Communities, come to our convenings, or tell others about the work we are doing.

Join us as we Cultivate Change Together.

R.T. Rybak
Minneapolis Foundation President & CEO

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Learn more about our work in 2024 by exploring our year in review.