OneMPLS Fund Awards $725,000 in Grants for Fair and Affordable Housing

The Minneapolis Foundation today announced $725,000 in fair and affordable housing grants from a fund focused on pooling resources to address pressing local needs.

The OneMPLS Fund provides a pathway for individuals, families, and businesses to join forces and respond nimbly to urgent and emerging issues in Minneapolis. Since the Foundation launched it in 2018, the fund has distributed $5.5 million to more than 160 nonprofits, with support from community members who have contributed as little as $2 and as much as $1 million.

In 2023, the OneMPLS Fund will focus on fair housing in Minneapolis, distributing grants to local organizations that are not only preserving and creating affordable housing, but disrupting unjust systems and policies that have contributed to housing disparities in the metro area.

“The ongoing housing crisis is keeping affordable rental housing—let alone the dream of homeownership—out of reach for thousands of Minnesotans,” said R.T. Rybak, President and CEO of the Minneapolis Foundation. “The OneMPLS Fund enables everyone in our community to be part of solutions, supporting people who are the most impacted and fueling efforts to address the root causes of housing inequality.”

One of the grants announced today will further Hope Community’s Placekeeping strategy, said Executive Director Shannon Jones. “With this grant, we will continue working alongside families to achieve their goals for homeownership and entrepreneurship.”

Another will support the hiring of an elder services advocate for the residents of a senior housing community run by American Indian Community Development Corporation. “In our Native tradition our Elders are a treasure, providing the younger community members with experience, wisdom and traditional knowledge,” said Michael Goze, the organization’s CEO. “Through this grant, AICDC will be able to provide the needed services to help and support them in many ways.”

• African Career Education and Resources: $125,000 to organize and engage residents and elected officials in policy advocacy and civic engagement related to the planning, production, and preservation of affordable housing in the northwest suburbs. ACER will also work to create narratives about affordable housing and the future of suburban communities that are grounded in an asset-based frame.
• The Alliance Twin Cities: $125,000 for the Equity in Place coalition to engage culturally specific and placed-based housing groups in organizing and policy advocacy to combat gentrification and displacement and create equitable housing access, housing stability, community ownership and community investment.
• American Indian Community Development Corporation: $125,000 to hire an elder services advocate to support the residents of the “Bii Di Gain Dash Anwebi (Come in Rest)” senior housing community in South Minneapolis with medical, personal, community and cultural needs that support their quality of life as they age.
• City of Lakes Community Land Trust: $100,000 to identify small multi-family properties and provide downpayment assistance for Minneapolis renters who have completed Hope Community’s Community Ownership Training program.
• Hope Community: $125,000 for the Community Ownership Training program, which supports South Minneapolis renters as they navigate the homebuying process and become owner-occupant landlords of small multi-family units.
• Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia: $125,000 to organize and support North Minneapolis residents living in single family homes, expand the organization’s tenant education program and workshops, and build staff leadership capacity to ensure local renters have safe and dignified housing.

Photo credit: Bruce Silcox

The Minneapolis Foundation is now mustering community resources to distribute a second round of housing-focused OneMPLS grants by the end of 2023.

“As we meet with nonprofit partners to discuss how the Minneapolis Foundation can best fuel change in this space, we’re identifying additional needs and opportunities that are ripe for investment,” said Patrice Relerford, the Minneapolis Foundation’s Senior Director of Impact and Collective Giving.

To spur this effort, the Edward R. Bazinet Charitable Foundation has generously offered to match contributions to the OneMPLS Fund up to $100,000. Contributions to the OneMPLS Fund are tax-deductible and can be made online here.

Supporters of the OneMPLS Fund are part of a giving community hosted by the Minneapolis Foundation. All contributors are invited to special events and learning opportunities at which they can learn more about local issues like housing and connect with community leaders who are addressing them.

The Minneapolis Foundation launched the OneMPLS Fund in 2018 with an initial investment of $1 million. Its first grant round focused on stable housing for families and youth. In 2020, the OneMPLS Fund pivoted quickly to support communities impacted by the economic fallout of COVID-19, as well as small businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color who were affected by the destruction following George Floyd’s murder. In 2021 and 2022, the fund made capacity-building grants to small- and medium-sized nonprofits to bolster their staffing, operations, technology, and planning as community needs evolved in later phases of the pandemic.

The OneMPLS Fund supports organizations and projects that:

• Increase access to opportunity by targeting inequitable systems, policies, and practices.
• Use integrated approaches that recognize the connections between community issues (for example, intersections between mental health and housing stability).
• Identify and implement innovative, catalytic, or upstream solutions to pressing issues.
• Use multi-generational approaches to increase family and community stability.

Nonprofits interested in learning about future grant opportunities at the Minneapolis Foundation can sign up for email updates here.