How we work

A grant is a decision about where to place trust. We seek organizations whose work is grounded in their communities and whose commitments can be sustained over time.

Our five program areas encompass creative expression, the environment, education, health, and global development. Together, they address conditions that shape a person’s ability to live with dignity and participate in the life of a community.

In 2023, the board approved a multi-year expansion of the grantmaking budget. Annual giving reached $640 million in 2024, compared with $380 million in 2019. That growth widened the resources available to our partners while retaining our emphasis on locally led work and enduring relationships.

Minnesota is the foundation’s home and the center of its regional commitments. Across the state and the wider Midwest, our support includes access to housing, public health infrastructure, clean energy, and the arts.

Our international grantmaking supports educators, community health systems, cultural preservation, and sustainable agriculture. The places differ; our regard for local knowledge remains. People who live with a problem hold experience essential to understanding it.

Working at this range requires care. A useful idea in one community may need a different form in another. Our emphasis on local leadership allows the work to be shaped by the circumstances, priorities, and judgment of the people it concerns.

Institutional strength develops through repeated effort. Trust, too, is built over time. We value partners who bring patience to difficult work and who remain attentive to the people they serve.

Our understanding of progress includes the opportunities made available and the dignity preserved. Numbers help describe the reach of a grant. They sit alongside a more demanding concern with what becomes possible in people’s lives.

That perspective asks us to keep the foundation’s role in proportion. The daily work of teaching, caring, creating, and organizing belongs to our partners. Our responsibility is to support it with care and with a willingness to learn from their experience.

How capital is invested also carries consequences. The endowment gives the foundation the capacity to make grants over time, and its investments provide another means of advancing our purpose.

Our program-related investment portfolio totals $250 million. It includes low-interest loans to community lenders, long-term capital for sustainable infrastructure, and equity investments supporting affordable housing, rural electrification, and inclusive economic development.

More than 60 percent of the endowment is invested using environmental, social, and governance criteria. These approaches extend our concern for communities into the management of the foundation’s assets.

Grants and investments are distinct forms of support. Grants distribute charitable funding; loans and equity investments provide capital that may be returned. Both require judgment about the purpose the money serves and the people affected by its use.

The foundation identifies potential partners through research and recommendations from trusted advisors. We do not accept unsolicited grant proposals.

General questions about the foundation and its work may be directed to the address below. Our program descriptions explain the areas we support; they do not constitute an open call for applications.