Fluff Free Fundraising
From Access Philanthropy
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JULY 2022
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FIRST THINGS FIRST
Welcome, Kristin Batson
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For the first time in more than 20 years, Access Philanthropy will have a very accomplished and capable chief executive. Our new friend, Kristin Batson takes the reins of Access Philanthropy on July 18, less than two weeks from now.
For the past three years, Kristin has been the State of Minnesota Deputy Commissioner of Management and Budget. She’s had lots of history with the State of Minnesota, and with other organizations
- Assistant Director of the Employment and Training Division of Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis, where she was responsible for strategic planning and implementation, program oversight, and fundraising.
- Office of Grants Management at the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota
- Director of the State’s in-house, fee-for-service management consulting group
- In most of her roles, Kristin has been responsible for budgeting and financial management, handling budgets of all sizes.
You can’t imagine how excited our whole team is about this advancement. Imagine someone who excels at management, consulting, fundraising, and grantseeking!
Just wait until you meet her! We really hope you can take time to get to meet Kristin and see what she brings to AP clients, Access Philanthropy, and the MN nonprofit and funding sectors.
BTW, Paprocki will stick around, but we’ll use him where he can do the most good and do the least harm – research, consulting, training, and talking to people.
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CHAT WITH US
THIRTY MINUTES FREE WITH ACCESS PHILANTHROPY TEAM MEMBERS
Need a sounding board for your development ideas? Need promising new ideas from the philanthropic sector? Need someone to think about the big picture or the day-to-day fundraising stuff? AP crew members offer 30-minute chats for free. Drop a note to 4info@accessphilanthropy.com to set up a time to chat
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In This Issue of Fluff Free Fundraising
Yes, it's a long one this time. In fact, your email be truncated. If that happens, be sure to select "View the Entire Message" at the bottom.
- Funder Notes
- Funder Feature: National Endowment for the Arts
- Survey Says...
- The Fundraiser's Toolbox
- Jobs
- Also new at AP
- Grant Reports
- Interesting Reading
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TARGET FOUNDATION – Things seem to be moving at the Foundation. Some reorganization, some new faces, and a more accessible website. Visit all the programs and past grantees (without dollar amounts). Good for Target.
THRIVENT CHARITABLE IMPACT AND INVESTING (fka Thrivent Foundation) – has a new Vice President, Charitable Operations & Impact, Kim Borton (612-844-8608 kim.borton@thrivent.com), whom you may remember from her past jobs with the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota and the Humphrey Institute.
Perhaps you should meet Mandy K. Tuong, the President & CEO (612-844-4182, mandy.tuong@thriventcharitable.com). Thrivent moves more toward the donor advised fund model (76% of giving), but it also keeps an invitation-only grant program through its Impact Funds.
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There have been lots of changes at UP as well, including online forms, deadlines (5/31, unfortunately) and lots of clarity about what the foundation funds and doesn’t fund: 1) Encourage safe behaviors, 2) Eliminate risks and improve safe and equitable access to community spaces, 3) Prepare and equip residents and emergency responders to effectively respond, 4) Prevent crime and violent incidents, 5) Provide homeless and at-risk populations access, 6) Build the capacity of safety-focused organizations
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ANDRUS FAMILY FOUNDATION – has a new Interim Director, Katayoon Majdwhich, who has worked for both the Borealis and Public Welfare Foundations. She has lots of history with criminal justice funders, especially those looking at youth in the system.
AFF is a sub-fund of the Surdna Foundation and is comprised of the younger generation of the extended Andrus family. They typically award $5 million/year. But none in MN.
GOLDEN VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION – AP has always admired the spirit and the sense of community exhibited by community foundations, especially those that work in smaller communities. GVCF is one of those, working in Golden Valley and surrounding communities. But in addition to its grantmaking, GVCF is coordinating/parenting lots of other community events, such as PRIDE festivals, arts/music festivals, farmers markets, and SPARK (microgrants). That’s a lot for one small foundation, so AP is especially proud to have GVCF as a client.
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THE FUND FOR WORKFORCE EQUITY – is a project of the Workforce Matters Funding Collaborative, about 20 national funders which all have workforce funding priorities. The collaborative has issued an RFP for FWE, a new pooled fund that aims to center workers of color in the design and implementation of workforce policies and programs.
The RFP is 15 pages long and has LOTS of details. But the four big ones are:
1) Areas of interest: Must provide workforce development, including but not limited to:
- Education and training programs that help individuals acquire and retain good jobs
- Efforts that help workers to increase their income and/or advance their careers
- Internships, apprenticeships, and/or learn-and-earn experiences
- Career coaching/counseling
- Providing or coordinating work supports such as transportation or child care services
- Organizing or advocacy efforts related to any of the above
2) Applicants may request grants of up to $70,000. Typical awards will range from $50,000-$70,000
3) Places of interest. There are 7 areas of interest, including MN and other states funded by the Northwest Area Foundation (Jennifer Racho at NWAF, jracho@nwaf.org, 651-224-9635). The funding preference in these states is to serve immigrants and/or refugees.
4) July 31 deadline.
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JPMORGAN CHASE FOUNDATION’S PARENT, CHASE BANK is opening another branch in Minnesota (St. Anthony). That’s 14 branches opened in less than two years in Minnesota. As you know, banks MUST be participating in their communities, for 1) legal reasons, and 2) because consumers greatly prefer banks do so.
Keep checking on these folks. Both their private clients who want assistance with their philanthropy and the bank’s normal grantmaking operations. Note: easy access is not a top priority for the Foundation and its giving programs.
MODERNA FOUNDATION – the “other” COVID vaccine has a new foundation which emphasizes 1) Promoting public health and access, 2) Advancing science education, and 3) Advancing diversity and inclusion. The Foundation has an online portal, but like most new funders, there’s not a lot of information about the foundation’s priorities or procedures. By the way, here’s Pfizer Foundation’s website.
NEW ULM AREA FOUNDATION – Like several regional community foundations, New Ulm Area Foundation is advertising its grant priorities and procedures. Next deadline is August 15. Here’s the link.
C.H. ROBINSON WORLDWIDE One of Minnesota’s best corporate giving programs, CH (which now refers to its work as Third-Party Logistics, or 3PL) is probably selling one of its subdivisions to a Danish data company, DSV. Is this a bad harbinger for CHR profits (and thus, giving)? An analyst buddy says, “Nah. These corporate swaps happen all the time, like trading in your pick-up truck or living room couch.” So, CHR’s approximately $2 million in giving is still pretty safe.
NDN COLLECTIVE – is a Native American-owned funder with a base and focus in the Greater Midwest/Rocky Mountain states. They announced their Community Self-Determination grants of up to $100,000. Deadline August 1.
W.K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION – in case you’re curious, or you actually need to connect with a program officer at the Kellogg Foundation, here’s the staff list. They haven’t caught up to Ford Foundation and others who list email or phone links, but it’s a start.
Need to know the application process? It’s a 250–300-word online LOI. Here’s the link.
ECMC FOUNDATION has three new program officers. Anna Fontus joins the Career Readiness team, and Ireri Rivas Mier y Teran and Stephanie Sowl, PhD join the College Success team. ECMC has a Minneapolis presence. Their foundation is all about college access and success.
MICHAEL AND BRITTANY REGER FAMILY FOUNDATION, AND TOTAL DEPTH FOUNDATION – (no websites). These two smaller family foundations, which AP has described in our Small Family Foundation (SFF) database and talked about in our SFF workshops, are in trouble. The Reger Family founder/owner Michael Reger and Total Depth’s Ryan Gilbertson were each found liable in a securities fraud case on Dakota Plains and its oil fields.
MALL OF AMERICA & COMMUNITY RELATIONS – According to the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal, Sara Durhman, Director of the MOA Community Relations team, the MOA “has increased community partnership relations by 40%.” Each year, she oversees more than 65 community events. Her fundraising efforts have garnered $10 million to $15 million annually for local and national nonprofits.”
WEM FOUNDATION – (no website). One of the very best family foundations in Minnesota, led by Jim Hield, one of the best EDs, is planning to close shop at the end of 2023. Terrible news.
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FLUFF FREE FEATURES
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS
by Kathy Jenkins Hart*
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The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is committed to reviving the creative economy and getting artists back to work following the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The NEA recently announced more than $91 million in national grantmaking. In Minnesota, organizations receiving support included the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, The Loft Literary Center, the American Craft Council, Pillsbury House Theatre, the Asian Economic Development Association, and many others.
Nationally, arts organizations were hit hard by loss of ticket revenue and the other economic effects of the pandemic shutdown. NEA support is playing a significant role in jumpstarting the arts as an economic engine. In January, the NEA recommended $57,750,000 in American Rescue Plan funding to 567 organizations with the goal of helping the arts and culture sector recover from the pandemic. This was in addition to more than $20 million in ARP funds awarded to state and regional arts organizations for sub-granting.
The NEA is also proactively taking steps to make its application process as user-friendly as possible. For the upcoming July 7 Grants for Arts Projects deadline and other 2022 opportunities, take advantage of technical assistance webinars and an accessible NEA staff to help your organization secure funds that will keep arts professionals working and fuel Minnesota's creative economy! And don't forget to draw on the excellent state-by-state research from Americans for the Arts to help make the case for the arts in your proposals. We need your important work now more than ever!
*Kathy is an Access Philanthropy writer and researcher. She's written several successful NEA grant requests.
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FIRST INDEPENDENCE BANK OF MINNESOTA
According to our friends at MinnPost, of the 44 Black-owned banks and credit unions in the U.S., with approximately $8.12 billion in combined assets, none is in Minnesota. That changed in April, when Minnesota’s first known Black-owned bank, First Independence Bank, 3430 University Ave. S.E., Minneapolis, opened for business.
If you’ve been following our work on national banks and philanthropy, you’ll know that banks really need consumer deposits and loans to make a profit and to justify their work to the Federal government. You may also remember 12 national banks (such as Chase, and PNC) have opened up offices in TC just to capture local deposits and loans. We’re hoping First Independence will use their deposits/loan income well and will generously support our communities.
MINDREADING YOUR GRANTMAKER
Inside the Mind of Your Program Officer. If we really could read our grantmakers’ minds, our grantwriting jobs would be so much easier. Of course, we can’t, but the folks at Inside Philanthropy are fairly close to grantmakers and they may have some good notions on what’s going on inside philanthropists’ heads. Here’s a few things they say are happening there:
- Most Program Officers Have Been on Your Side of the Fence
- They Want to Get to Know You Better. Really
- They Also Feel Your Pain. (Or So They Say)
- Still, They Think You Have Some Major Blind Spots
- If They Really Want To Fund You, They Often Can – Or Maybe They Can’t
- They’ve Got a Good Gig and They Know It.
As a former grantmaker consultant or program officer for several national and local foundations, I agree.
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SURVEY SAYS…
Several fundraising reports were recently published. Each year, the grandparent of all fundraising reports, Giving USA, issues its summary report of all giving and types of giving from the prior year. Because of its all-inclusiveness, lots of the data doesn’t apply to individual donors, funders and nonprofits. But, along with other reports, it’s an interesting look at overall trends
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Giving by individuals totaled an estimated $326.87 billion, rising 4.9% (but staying flat at 0.2%, adjusted for inflation). Giving by individuals comprised under 70% of total giving
Giving by foundations grew 3.4%, to an estimated $90.88 billion Giving by foundations, represented 19% of total giving in 2021
Giving by bequest totaled an estimated $46.01 billion, a decline of 7.3%. Bequests are known to be particularly volatile from year to year, and it is likely that several extraordinarily large bequests in 2020 resulted in a comparative decline in 2021.
Giving by corporations is estimated to have increased by 23.8%, totaling $21.08 billion (18.3%, adjusted for inflation). Corporate giving includes cash and in-kind contributions made through corporate giving programs, as well as grants and gifts made by corporate foundations.
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Overall giving grew 4.1% over the past year, the 6th consecutive year of growth.
Online giving grew by 12.1% over the past year.
45% of worldwide donors are enrolled in a monthly giving program.
41% of worldwide donors give in response to natural disasters.
Missions related to international affairs experienced a 19.2% increase in overall donations over the past year. Environmental issues and medical research were the next most popular causes with donors.
31% of offline-only first-time donors are retained for over a year, versus 25% of online-only first-time donors.
30% of annual giving happens in December, with about 10% of all annual donations coming in the last three days of the year.
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Events are back and driving renewed revenue potential. Not only did we see tremendous year-over-year donation volume growth for events, but events with peer-to-peer fundraising converted at 47%, the highest rate of all campaign types.
Donors give more when they have choices. Organizations leave money on the table when they fail to give donors modern payment options. The average one-time donation was nearly 1.5 times more when nonprofits offered ACH, PayPal, and digital wallet payments.
Fundraising among peers thrives on social media. Time-based campaigns that include peer-to-peer fundraising raise on average 3.8 times more than all other time-based campaign types.
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In 2020, several reports, including those from McKinsey and Bridgespan found foundations were saying they were giving multiple billions of dollars for racial and ethnic community education.
But in 2021, two major reports from the Philanthropic Initiative for Race Equity and the Schott Foundation for Public Education, found that education giving for racial and ethnic communities was significantly lower, percentage wise, than the estimates from McKinsey and Bridgespan.
To check the discrepancies, Grantmakers for Education surveyed their own 300 members about their racial and ethnic grantmaking. They used three tools: Member Forms, Surveys of Annual Reports and Grantmaking, and Field Scans. Once again, there were big discrepancies. And there was still a big discrepancy among what members said was a priority and what they really did.
43% of surveys of actual grantmaking showed grantmakers had a major interest in funding for racial and ethnic communities. But 51% of members’ membership forms indicated these same funders have a major interest in giving to these communities.
Their Conclusion: “It’s clear there is movement among Grantmakers for Education members to increase support for racial equity. To really make a difference, funders need to be ready to maintain funding for the long term.”
Our Conclusion – Grantmakers for Education’s experience is not very different from the surveys of other types of grantmakers on race and ethnic grantmaking – what you say is a priority often differs from what you can actually do. These grantmakers are not really deceptive, but right now their actions are more indicative than words.
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- Most copy apps are only going to flag your copy for long words if your average word length is longer than what we find in personal letters and conversations.
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Adjectives don’t add as much as we think. They tend to add clutter and are often lots of telling instead of showing.
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Prepositions are often unnecessary. This won’t seem obvious at first, but now that you’re sensitized to it, you’ll likely find that you can change many of your prepositions to verbs or just delete them altogether.
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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.
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FORD FOUNDATION – among the 15 jobs that Ford is advertising this month are four Program Assistants for Indonesia, India, China, and Egypt. Ford also needs a Program Officer in its U.S. Technology and Society thematic area.
ROCKEFELLER PHLANTHROPY ADVISORS – among the ten jobs they’re advertising are several administrative jobs. But also, Advisory positions, including Deputy Director and Senior Philanthropic Advisor. RPA is the spin-off of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund which engages the next generation(s) of Rockefeller family members. Besides supporting the philanthropy of family members, RPA also supports hundreds of other family philanthropies
PILLARS FUND is looking for a Program Manager for its Catalyze Fund. Pillars is a small, Chicago-based, but nationally funding. organization that “Amplifies the leadership, narratives, and talents of Muslims in the United States.”
SEGAL FAMILY FOUNDATION is looking for a Grants & Compliance Manager for its work in Africa (remote workplace, btw). SFF is “building an equitable community of visionary organizations—both doers and donors—across Sub-Saharan Africa so that together we can improve the lives of millions.”
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SPEAKING OF NEW FOLKS at AP!!
Along with our new Managing Director, AP is also excited to introduce three new Advisors/Writers
Ron Osterbauer, who you may remember as the past ED of that great and innovative organization, Bridging. Ron lives in Montana (with grandkids) but still knows more about corporate giving in Minnesota than almost anyone on our team. Ron is working with two AP clients on corporate sponsorships and western grantmaking organizations.
Anastasia (Ana) Elgina, has successful grantwriting experience for both domestic and international organizations, including OneSky for All Children, Santa Clara University, Dignity Dominican Hospital Foundation, and Hartnell Community College. Her great instincts and grantwriting knowhow have already excited one of our newest AP clients.
Jesse Geary, who you might remember as Director of Development of Duluth’s Men as Peacemakers. He’s been the Program Director at another great grantseeking support consulting firm in DC, and, for a time, varsity captain on Macalester’s soccer team. Jesse is currently supporting one of our client’s capital campaign feasibility surveys.
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That puts our team at 28 people including writers, advisors, researchers and administrators. We hope you’ll take advantage of meeting one of us.
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KA JOOG is the organizing sponsor for Somali Week Minnesota, a series of cultural and community events celebrating Somali Independence Day (July 2). The event has drawn corporate sponsorships from loyal MN corporations, Amazon.com, and Chase Bank.
Listening House, The Dwelling Place, Walker West Music Academy, and Groves Academy are all at the beginning stages of capital campaigns. All four groups are wonderful organizations that are desperately needed by our communities and their constituents – people who are homeless; women/children who need shelter; budding musicians and those who care about them; and students/families who need support with reading and learning disabilities.
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July 1st is Somalia’s Independence Day. The date celebrates the unification of the Trust Territory of Italian Somaliland and the British Somaliland on July 1, 1960, which formed the Somali Republic. Abdullahi Issa, Muhammad Haji, Ibrahim Egal, and other members of the trusteeship and protectorate governments formed a government which was recognized a year later in a public referendum. In Minnesota, Somalia Week extends for more than two weeks.
Somalia was the first government worldwide to officially recognize the United States of America as an independent nation (seven years before the Brits). In gratitude for Somalia’s recognition of our radical plans for democracy, raise a glass – anytime during July – to Somalia and its people.
Know someone who could use Fluff-Free fundraising information? Know someone who could use a FREE chat with a group of great fundraisers? Drop us a note at 4info@accessphilanthropy.com
Best to you.
slp
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Access Philanthropy Inc | 612-900-8861 | 2100 Stevens Ave., Mpls, MN 55044 | www.accessphilanthropy.com |
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