Who We've Funded

Minneapolis, MN — To create a Community Investment Fund using an integrated capital model to promote access for black communities and work towards eliminating the racial wealth gap

Rapid City, SD — To improve data collection and analysis by Rapid City Collective Impact for its Affordable Housing Initiative

Pierre, SD — South Dakota Day of Giving 2020 - prize grants and program support

Columbia, MD — To pilot a peer learning community in South Dakota for increasing homeownership opportunities and creating a mortgage ready environment in tribal communities

Grand Rapids, MN — To partner with justice-involved youth and their families in Itasca County to design and pilot a whole-family solution led by Itasca County Public Health that is appropriate, sustainable, and impactful

Saint Paul, MN — To create capacity and support for African American businesses to survive and recover during COVID-19

New York, NY — For community engagement to advance social impact investing and equitable development in designated Opportunity Zones

Saint Paul, MN — Expand and embed an innovative partnership model between community members and juvenile justice system leaders to transform Ramsey County justice system practices

Minneapolis, MN — To address emergency operational needs and sector wide problems faced by affordable housing providers due to COVID 19

Minneapolis, MN — Technical assistance grant to help Oyate Hotanin with financial advising and fund development support to help diversify its revenue

Saint Paul, MN — To identify regional solutions to reduce unsheltered homelessness in the seven-county metro area of the Twin Cities

Saint Paul, MN — To mobilize a collaborative effort to ensure families receive meals during the COVID-19 outbreak

Agency Village, SD — Dakod Ohna Wasagic’iyapi, to strengthen yourself through the Dakota language

Brookings, SD — Conducting community deliberations to enhance inclusion among Brookings area businesses

Sioux Falls, SD — To create a fund and fill gaps in resources accessible to immigrant and undocumented communities in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic

Minneapolis, MN — Thriving In Place: Surfacing innovative strategies to prevent the negative impacts of gentrification and displacement

Minneapolis, MN — Technical assistance to support increased capacity for Bush Prize grant #17-61458 to advance the organization’s charitable mission

Sturgis, SD — To create a trauma-informed approach to building career pathways for low-income adult learners

Moorhead, MN — To develop long-term, community-based, proactive solutions to climate change in order to reduce vulnerability and reinforce the strengths of people, infrastructure and institutions of Moorhead-Fargo

Minot, ND — To develop a Domestic Violence High Risk Team in Minot, North Dakota

Manning, ND — Go Local! changing the paradigm from an avoidance of scarcity to the promotion of prosperity in western ND counties

Hayward, WI — To support Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia’s staff participation in activities to increase knowledge of nonprofit functions and skills in financial management

Minneapolis, MN — To continue to administer a Community Innovation Grants program that supports community problem-solving in Minnesota

Minneapolis, MN — To pilot a Community Ownership model to preserve affordable housing and reduce displacement in the Phillips Neighborhood of Minneapolis

Minneapolis, MN — To reduce disparities in reproductive health care for African immigrant women in Minnesota with female genital cutting

Grand Rapids, MN — To develop a community-defined vision and action plan to protect Itasca County’s water resources

Saint Paul, MN — Technical Assistance

Saint Paul, MN — To collectively develop solutions to solve the Personal Care Assistants crisis

Minneapolis, MN — To collaboratively develop a Muslim Chaplaincy program as a means to provide culturally grounded support to youth and families

Minneapolis, MN — To achieve a fully inclusive 2020 Census count in historically undercounted communities in Minnesota by Minnesota Census Mobilization Partnership

Bismarck, ND — To contribute additional funds to the Bush Foundation donor advised fund at the North Dakota Community Foundation

Batesland, SD — To develop a model for Career and Technical Education that is grounded in Lakota culture that provides education for Native students in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Saint Paul, MN — To host African women’s tea ceremonies for African immigrant women to increase understanding of gender-based violence, build a community of support, and begin to generate ideas on preventing gender-based violence

Minneapolis, MN — To develop a statewide framework for collective impact focused on supporting Veterans in Minnesota

Bismarck, ND — To continue to administer a Community Innovation Grants program that supports community problem-solving in North Dakota

New Town, ND — To unite MHA Nation community segments in Fort Berthold Reservation and overcome isolation

Grand Forks, ND — Tribal community conversations to identify the need for and methods of improving the competency of Lay Advocates who represent parties in criminal and civil cases before six tribal courts in North Dakota and Minnesota

Washington, DC — To align the stewardship of Pine Ridge tribal lands with community needs and aspirations

Bemidji, MN — To address structural oppression, institutional racism and systemic gaps in support for Indigenous and People of Color in the Bemidji area through the Healing for Justice (Gwekendam) process

Saint Paul, MN — To better understand the needs of sandwich generation caregivers and explore innovative solutions to better serve them

Minneapolis, MN — To assess the accuracy of current screening indicators as a predictor of successful tenancy and create more equitable, effective and accurate screening tools and an implementation plan

Finland, MN — To advance an interrelated food system that increases access to healthy foods and builds local wealth in Finland, Minnesota

Fargo, ND — To work at the Intersection of Hunger and Health to improve health outcomes for food insecure individuals

Bemidji, MN — To build a regional workforce recruitment approach guided by local industry projections

Bemidji, MN — To coordinate local transportation services for vulnerable people in the Headwaters Region

Sioux Falls, SD — To fund a coordinated social service system of care for low-income individuals called the Sioux Empire Network of Care

Minot, ND — To identify short-term and long-term collective strategies to address the opioid epidemic and create a regional hub for treatment and family services for people addicted to opioids in the Minot North Dakota area

Saint Paul, MN — To support the development of an LGBTQ+ health curriculum in partnership with Minnesota-based medical training programs to ensure more health professionals emerge from degree programs equipped and ready to serve LGBTQ+ patients

Devils Lake, ND — For a new college-linked Information Technology Apprenticeship Model in North Dakota, a public-private partnership to improve the growing state demand for skilled information technology professionals

Saint Paul, MN — To advance healing among the Dakota people harmed by disconnection from their spiritual homeland at Wakan Tipi, and to increase the number of neighbors of color who use St. Paul’s Swede Hollow Park

Duluth, MN — To develop an effective model of preventative strategies to eliminate sexual assault on major campus universities, using the University of Minnesota Twin Cities as a test site

Saint Paul, MN — To further the collaborative development of equitable workforce solutions through an exchange between employers and residents on the East Side of Saint Paul

Saint Paul, MN — Technical Assistance to support the unexpected increase in construction cost for Community Innovation grant #17-60986, given for the GROW-IT Center, an innovative response to maximize an unused capital resource for university and community groups

Minneapolis, MN — To identify community-led solutions to decrease use of payday loans in Minnesota

Bismarck, ND — To develop culturally responsive social-emotional learning implementation framework and delivery mechanisms in North Dakota

Sioux Falls, SD — To facilitate the process of expanding community-based mental health support within three rural communities in South Dakota

Minneapolis, MN — To identify community-led strategies to address homelessness in the Minneapolis Native American community

Washington, DC — Technical Assistance to continue the support to further develop a multi-tribal power authority and to plan workforce development of a utility-grade wind power installation

Rochester, MN — Realizing Well Care: Achieving a sustainable system for community-based chronic disease management and prevention

Minnetonka, MN — Technical assistance to support increased capacity for Community Innovation grant #17-63421 to accelerate key project strategies by studying a leading edge model and by receiving structured consultation to implement it

Bismarck, ND — To address critical gaps in North Dakota’s behavioral healthcare system using data, evidence and innovative financing

Belcourt, ND — To promote high quality research relevant to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians that will advance the tribe's problem solving capacity and economic development, and uphold its positive images

Minneapolis, MN — To collaboratively design the K-12 Standards of Inclusion for Somali Parents and Youth to equip K-12 educators with the context necessary to mitigate the challenges of Somali student learning and parent participation in the school system

Minneapolis, MN — To remove barriers that prevent low-income families from accessing the Minnesota K-12 Education Tax Credit

Atlanta, GA — To partner with Community Health Centers and other community stakeholders to improve access to colorectal cancer screening in North Dakota and South Dakota

Saint Paul, MN — The METRO Green Line light rail line connects downtown Minneapolis and downtown Saint Paul. When it opened in 2014, it brought many benefits for neighborhoods along the line, as well as new challenges. Despite new construction, barriers to stable and affordable housing in the Frogtown Rondo neighborhoods remain. The Frogtown-Rondo Action Network (FRAN) will bring together residents from these neighborhoods, along with district councils and other advocates, to begin a dialogue about ways to break through barriers to accessible, affordable housing for residents. At the same time, FRAN will train and guide local leaders on ways to engage their fellow residents, share what they’re learning with key community stakeholders and create a housing action plan that can be implemented in 2018.

Minneapolis, MN — Studies show that high quality out-of-school-time programs really make a difference in the lives of young people. However, young people of color and from families with lower income access these programs at lower rates. Urban Arts Academy is creating “Agents of Change”: a highly collaborative, sustainable youth program model fueled by youth-driven engagement. The 20 organizations in the Agents of Change collaborative believe that they will better serve youth and families in the Bancroft, Bryant Central and Powderhorn neighborhoods of Minneapolis if they truly listen to youth and work together.

Williston, ND — Affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues in Western North Dakota. The influx of people arriving in Western North Dakota in search of jobs in the oil fields created an unprecedented demand on service providers. Williston, a community at the center of this rapid growth, experienced extraordinary burdens on services. In response, six churches in Williston, together with Community Action Partnership, Job Service ND, Veterans Administration, ND Veterans Department and the Williston Basin Resource Coalition, will collaborate on an effort to better understand and respond to this issue in their community and surrounding rural areas. Together, they will collect data about the homeless population in the area, present findings to community stakeholders, develop a plan to address the issue and test some of their ideas.

Fargo, ND — Technical Assistance funds to advance Information Technology services and sustain distribution of resources and trainings to community partners

Saint Paul, MN — To make progress on tenant and landlord energy issues through community conversations, communication strategies, collaboration, toolkit/policy implementation and sharing lessons learned

Saint Paul, MN — For a cross-sector community collaboration united together to solve the problems of drugs and alcohol abuse within the Karen community

Minneapolis, MN — To build community collaboration and inspire action on climate change through rural climate dialogues

Bismarck, ND — For Legal Advocates for Health, a cross borders medical-legal partnership embedded in Family Health Care Center to improve the social determinants of health for New Americans and other vulnerable populations

Minneapolis, MN — Technical Assistance to help transition the organization’s Finance, Human Resources and Information Technology services

Saint Paul, MN — To support the realization of a Rondo Land Bridge to reconnect communities proximate to I-94 in the Rondo neighborhood of Saint Paul

Backus, MN — Energy poverty, or a lack of access to modern energy services, affects one out of eight families in the United States. Rates in some communities like Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe (Leech Lake) are even higher. In communities where households are on a fixed income, even a modest increase in the cost of heating or cooling can force families to make difficult choices about their resources. While energy assistance is available, funds are limited. Rural Renewable Energy Alliance will collaborate with Leech Lake partners to build a local, sustainable and shared alternative energy infrastructure. This partnership engages energy insecure households through the Tribal Government Community Action Agency, sustains an education and workforce pipeline with Leech Lake Tribal College and consult local utilities agency expertise. Developing and demonstrating this model has the potential to be transformative at the regional and national scale.

Minneapolis, MN — To engage local residents, primarily new American communities, in the transportation design planning process for the crossings of I-94 between Seward and the West Bank