News

One of our values is to spread optimism. To us, that means thinking bigger and thinking differently about what is possible for people and communities. It does not mean pretending like things aren’t bad or difficult. Turning optimism into action requires being realistic and adjusting efforts to fit changing circumstances.

Published 2020

The Bush Foundation is adjusting to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic alongside the rest of our region, country and world. We’re thinking about how we can be most supportive and useful to our community as we also figure out how to manage ourselves and our work. We don’t yet know what the greatest needs will be or the best ways to support them. We do know that the economic hardship created by the COVID-19 pandemic will be challenging for many. Here’s what we’re doing right now to support our staff, partners and community...

We canceled the 2020 Bush Prize for Community Innovation. Read more.

The Bush Prize for Community Innovation celebrates organizations with a track record of successful community problem solving. Bush Prize winners are extraordinary not only in what they do, but how they do it. They work inclusively, in partnership with others, to make our region better for everyone. 

Vivian Chow recently joined the Bush Foundation as its communications director. In this role, she will advance the Foundation’s mission by providing strategic leadership for communications. 

The Bush Prize is about inspiration. We tell the stories of Bush Prize winners to inspire problem solvers across the region — and we do it to inspire others to apply for the Bush Prize. If you work with an organization with a track record of solving tough problems in your community, we want to hear from you. 

The Community Innovation grant program evolved from one of our three “Goals for a Decade,” announced back in 2008. Now the decade has passed. We now are considering the continued evolution of our organizational strategy. For Community Innovation grants, one thing we are thinking about is whether we can make the program both higher impact and easier to understand if we focus less on the particulars of the problem solving process and more on the potential of the idea being developed and tested.

Published 2020

The Bush Prize recognizes organizations that have a culture of innovation and a track record of creating innovative solutions to challenges in their communities. The first key to a culture of innovation is to think bigger about what’s possible. Bush Prize winners often pursue solutions that haven’t been tried before, because they think about root causes and the levers that are critical to shifting how things operate.

Our tagline is also our strategy: Investing in great ideas and the people who power them. This focus on people has been part of our work from the very beginning. It is not a typical foundation approach. In fact, programs like our Bush Fellowship require special approval from the IRS. (With good reason; the IRS wants to be very careful about how foundation dollars flow to individuals.) While we’ve been known for our Bush Fellowship program for decades, in the past several years we have dramatically expanded the number of additional opportunities we offer to individuals.

Published 2020

Ecosystem grants are designed to provide operating support to the programs and organizations that do the most to support the people creatively solving problems throughout our region. 

Relationships move at the speed of trust. Some of us have heard this phrase before; for those of us who live this phrase in our daily work, it’s a powerful truth. Since 2014, the Bush Foundation has partnered with Headwaters Foundation for Justice, South Dakota Community Foundation and The Consensus Council as intermediaries for our Community Innovation grant program, helping us reach further and have far more impact than we could alone.