A Look at Impact Investing
A trend among some funders at the national, regional & local level is the adoption of impact investing strategies. Foundations and large funders still provide grants, but are blending the “investment” model with traditional grants. =>see below for a list of Impact Investors in MN The investment portion aims to produce both financial returns and […]
Materials Available from Past Workshops
Materials from these past workshop are available:
MN Arts & Culture:The Book of the top 150+ resident and non-resident Arts, Culture, and Humanities grantmakers who award grants in Minnesota; a closer look at 60 MN Arts funders; workshop recording, and a copy of the Q&A.
Unlocking the 990 and Other Prospecting Tools & Directories: A toolkit with a prospecting template and sample LOI, and a list of online research tools and resources to streamline your fundraising efforts
Unlocking the 990 and other Prospecting Tools & Directories
Materials For this Workshop are Available for download. Learn More For more information, contact Mary Anne ([email protected]) Boost your fundraising as you head into the new year Join us for an engaging and informative workshop where we’ll guide you through strategic prospecting, helping you target the right funders and build lasting relationships. Hosted by Steve […]
Press Forward Minnesota
Press Forward Minnesota announced key leadership appointments, including newly formed committees and a strategy consultant. The five-year initiative is dedicated to strengthening and sustaining local news across the state.
What Gets Funded, Who Gets to Decide, and Vehicles Used for Funding
Arabella Advisors on 2024 Philanthropy: What, Who, and How | Trista Harris’s Philanthropy Predictions | Here’s what The Chronicle of Philanthropy says we’ll see in the coming year.
Northwest Area Foundation has changed its mission
Northwest Area Foundation has changed its mission to reflect a commitment to put justice at the center of its support of Native Americans, communities of color, immigrants and refugees, and people in rural areas.
Better Way Foundation Redoing Glen Taylor’s New Foundation in the Greater Mankato Area
Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx owner, Glen Taylor, is gifting assets valued at $172 million to the Taylor Family Farms Foundation, to support people in southern Minnesota and rural communities across Minnesota and Iowa
The Ultimate Guide to Google Ad Grants for Nonprofits: 2024 Edition
Google Ad Grants is a philanthropic initiative by Google that provides nonprofit organizations with free advertising credits of up to $10,000 per month on the Google Ads platform. The program allows nonprofits to display their ads on Google Search results pages, potentially reaching millions of people interested in their causes. Essentially, it’s an in-kind donation […]
Calculating the Real Costs of Fundraising Events
In a Linkedin post, Jim Langley, President at Langley Innovations, asks: Are you counting everything spent to put on your event? Staging costs, staff costs, morale costs and more.
How to have a successful introductory meeting with a funder
Caroline Altman Smith from the Kresge Foundation shares some lessons in the hopes that they help nonprofits use their introductory meeting to begin a beautiful friendship with a potential funder.
How to Craft Your Organization’s Financial Story
From Nonprofit Finance Fund Crafting a financial story requires a shared understanding and interpretation of your organization’s numbers and how this connects to your current and continued mission success. This guide will help you develop your financial story, which can be used to align stakeholder and organizational priorities, navigate leadership transitions, and convey how your programmatic […]
Jobs in Philanthropy
Last updated on October 27th, 2025 This is a free job board that AP puts together. Our interest is getting good Minnesota nonprofit folks into good local and national foundation jobs. With few exceptions, we only include foundations, corporate giving programs, and related grantmakers. Philanthropic sector Job Boards: MINNESOTA COUNCIL ON FOUNDATIONS FUNDERS FOR LGBTQ […]
ChatGPT in Philanthropy: Useful?
A number of recent articles have covered artificial intelligence gone awry: Microsoft’s AI’s strange declarations of love. ChatGPT’s inaccuracies. Midjourney’s odd human portraits with too many fingers and too many teeth. And worse, accusations of plagiarism from both human and AI. Midjourney is getting crazy powerful—none of these are real photos, and none of the […]
People in Philanthropy 2024
Changes at 3M, Kraus-Anderson/Engelsma Family Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Headwaters Foundation for Justice, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, and elsewhere.
Two Great Tools from the Nonprofit Finance Fund
The Nonprofit Finance Fund is a NYC-based national nonprofit finance organization, awarding loans, making investments, offering consulting services and workshops, and occasionally offering grant opportunities via other grantmakers. Recently, the Fund published two great grant/loan tools: First, How to Craft Your Organization’s Financial Story. These days, your financial story is probably the most important document […]
Six tips on fundraising
1. Holt Gift Planning on Matching an (In-kind) Asset to The Right Gift Type Interesting chart matching the type of organization you have with the type of donation a donor wishes to bestow on you. Really a starting point if someone offers you a tractor. Download this Gift Grid: It’s a quick reference guide for […]
Saint Paul and Minnesota Foundation: Guide to Donor Advised Funds
The SPM Foundation has published a comprehensive guide answering common questions about donor advised funds.
Grant Writing Tips
Last updated on December 29th, 2024A Social Psychologist On Five Elements Of Good Writing grantmakers become more isolated from most grantseekers, and most grantseekers become less visible to grantmakers, the art of writing becomes more and more critical to relationship-building success. There are a thousand good articles on good grant writing. Joachim Kreuger, a social […]
Fundraisers aren’t afraid to ask, it’s because*:
They know success is dependent on putting the donor in charge of the pace and the donor is in no rush. There’s no real urgency they can point to. They don’t feel like they have the right project to put in front of the donor. They don’t want to blow a bigger opportunity The […]
New Terms: 2023
Social Impact Infrastructure Organizations (SIIOs) Propel Philanthropy uses the term to identify groups they call “the indispensable backbone for the philanthropic, nonprofit, and civil society sectors”. They are resource builders, conveners, networks, platforms, trainers, educators, researchers, media outlets, and advocates. Race Equity Glossary: Maintained by MN Education Equity Partnership, used by several national organizations, coalitions […]
Native American Funding
Inside Philanthropy Sites Six Funders (including 2 Minnesota Funders) As Stand Outs in Native American Funding Inside Philanthropy reports Native Americans represent 2.9% of the U.S. population and receive just 0.4% of philanthropic support. But, according to the Funding Map at Investing in Native Communities, that’s improving. The map is a data visualization application developed […]
7 Mistakes New Philanthropic Foundations Make
Kris Putnam-Walkerly writes in her “Confident Giving” Newsletter: “Drawing from my conversations with thousands of foundation leaders, spanning 23 years, here are seven prevalent missteps. By paying attention to these mistakes, you can avoid them and ensure your foundation’s success.” Being stuck in overwhelm Restricting your potential through a mindset of scarcity Letting it go to […]
Small Family Foundation Workshop ’23
Date: June 15, 2023 Time: 1- 4 PM Price: $75 Where: Virtual (live) Register Now Now in its 11th year! Small family foundations are defined as giving less than $1M, annually. More than 1,000 of these foundations support Minnesota nonprofits. The Small Family Foundation Workshop is a three-hour Virtual Live/Online Event with Access Philanthropy president […]
The Latest on Mackenzie Scott: A Web Database with Mixed Applications
Mackenzie Scott’s new website Yield Giving is now accessible to the public. A cumulative gift database, it gives us a great deal of information the $14,000,000,000 she has given to 1,600+ non-profit teams… though 28% of the grants are missing key data points. But let’s take a look: In November 2022, after facing criticism about […]
Examination of environmental grantmaking practices reveals disparities
“Examining Disparities in Environmental Grantmaking: Where the Money Goes” examines the environmental grantmaking practices of 220 foundations that distributed more than 30,000 grants totaling $4.9 billion that were distributed over three years. The study, conducted by Yale School of the Environment professors Dorceta E. Taylor and Molly Blondell, reveals disparities in environmental grantmaking that are […]
Four articles on DEI
In an open letter published on Black Feminist Fund, some of philanthropy’s most influential organizations say that “It’s time to fund Black feminist movements like we want them to win”. Among the 11 prominent grantmakers who signed the letter are Pivotal Ventures (Melinda Gates), Clara Lionel Foundation (Rihanna), and the Ford and MacArthur foundations. The B […]
2023 Lean Foundation Operations And Management Report
Exponent Philanthropy is an association of mostly small funders- private and community foundations with few or no staff, philanthropic families, and individual donors. The group surveys its membership to understand and share how lean funders are managing their foundation operations. About a quarter of their members responded to the 2022 survey. 35% said racial equity […]
What motivates donors to give? …Matching Gifts
An estimated $4-$7 billion in matching gift funds goes unclaimed per year. This, according to American Charities, a 501(c)(3) membership-based nonprofit that promotes workplace giving. In their Facts & Statistics on Workplace Giving, Matching Gifts, and Volunteer Programs, here is what they gathered on Matching Gifts: 65% of Fortune 500 companies and 28% of small […]
About Those 990PFs…
Many funders don’t have a website, this is especially true with small family foundations. So, the 990PFs are often the only source of information about them.* Foundations must submit tax reports to the IRS every year. But lately… well, according to Candid (fka Foundation Directory Online), “before the pandemic, Candid usually received comprehensive IRS 990 […]
Fundraising Event Experience survey
Classy, a leading online fundraising platform and thought leader, highlighted donors’ 2022 Fundraising Event Experience in a survey of 1,000 event attendees: — 26% attended live events, while 36% went virtual because there was no live event or because they preferred a virtual experience — In-person and virtual attendees gave roughly the same dollar amounts (beyond ticket sales). 20% of […]
Virtual Volunteers
For years, Grantseekers told grantmakers that the only way they’d receive a grant was if a corporate employee was on their board of directors. The pandemic sort of wrecked that plan. Not that Employee Involvement with a nonprofit is less important. It is still worth lots of bonus points when it comes to grantseeking. And, […]
The Equitable Evaluation Framework
Insights for Grantseekers… when funders place equity at the center of their giving The Equitable Evaluation Initiative group recently published a paper in partnership with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations entitled The Equitable Evaluation Framework. While it’s a little on the academic side, the paper’s work will be very interesting to grantseekers who are now faced […]
Best day and time to ask for a contribution
When’s the best day and time to ask for a contribution? A Giving Way survey says that Tuesday and Fridays are the best days to ask, and weekends are the worst). The survey also found the best TIME to ask is generally between 9am and 4pm, but especially between 11am and noon
Funder Affinity Groups
Funder Affinity Groups Funder affinity groups are ongoing open-facing collaborations of grantmakers interested in a specific area of grantmaking (health, environment, K-12 education, for example). Inside Philanthropy explains Affinity Groups: — A group or network of funders that come together around a shared interest. — Circles where funders can interact, and often collaborate, to maximize impact. […]
Impact of Mega Grants on smaller nonprofits
Most philanthropoids seem okay with the huge McKenzie Scott-size grants that foundations are putting out for good causes. But some foundation employees are side-barring concerns about the impact these grants are having on everyday grant programs. Two Ford Foundation (low level) grant people point out the $420 million commitment the Foundation made for equity last month takes away […]
A look at the funding shifts in Mental Health in MN
Mental health has long been a neglected issue area among funders. The money designated for mental health usually went to hospitals. But, during the last decade, we have seen funders taking this area more seriously, and considering its issues independently of physical health issues. Access Philanthropy took a look into the top funders and what […]