The first step is to show your interest in applying for the Minnesota Community IDEAS program. To do this, organizations can submit an interest form online beginning January 6. Ninety organizations will be randomly selected from those that submitted an interest form and invited to submit a formal application in February.

The interest form is a brief questionnaire that should take no longer than 30 minutes to complete. You will be asked to provide organization and contact information and asked questions to confirm your organization’s eligibility to apply. There are also two brief (3-5 sentence), open-ended responses required to describe the community you serve, the challenges/issues your organization seeks to address, and the proposed idea your organization hopes to accomplish with support from this opportunity.

If you want to review the interest form questions before submitting a form, you can download a PDF of the form.

If you have issues submitting your interest form, please contact us at MNCommunityIDEAS@spmcf.org or 651.325.4202.

You may only submit an interest form for one target community.

Organizations should select the target community in which the organization’s primary address is located, regardless of where the communities served reside.

If you belong to an organization with multiple locations and/or you feel you may be eligible for multiple target communities, you should choose the target community which most closely reflects the community or impact associated with your proposal.

For example, while not required, the Foundation encourages organizations eligible as “Native-led organizations that serve Native communities” to apply within that target community regardless of whether they are in the Twin Cities metro area or Greater Minnesota. Submitting an interest form for the target community that most closely matches the community you serve will help selected organizations form better matches with application advisors and be considered by the Community Selection Committee which is most closely aligned with those they serve.

Contact us at MNCommunityIDEAS@spmcf.org or 651.325.4202 if you have any questions, and we will work with you to identify the target community best suited to your organization.

To be eligible for the Minnesota Community IDEAS program, applicants must be located in Minnesota. If funds are awarded, those funds must be used for charitable purposes to benefit communities in Minnesota.

If your organization also serves communities in South Dakota, North Dakota or any of the 23 Native Nations across the three-state region, you may consider applying to one of the programs hosted by another Bush Foundation Community Partner. Those other programs and partners are:

• North Dakota - Strengthen ND
• South Dakota - South Dakota Community Foundation
• Native Nations - Good Relatives Collaborative

If your organization is selected and invited to complete a full application, you will receive information from the Foundation with instructions on how to apply, including information on how to register your organization and access GranteeView, our online application system.

Organizations invited to apply will also be matched with an advisor/mentor who will help you navigate the application process and support your organization in preparing a successful application.

Potential applicants will be able to submit an interest form from January 6 - 30, 2025. We anticipate reaching out to selected applicants in early February.

No. Consideration of your organization’s eligibility, proposal or grant selection for the Minnesota Community IDEAS Program will not affect consideration or eligibility for any other funding opportunities at the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation, Bush Foundation or other funding partners.

The Minnesota Community IDEAS Program staff and Advisory Committee are committed to a process that respects the time and resources each organization expends to seek funding. The interest form is intentionally brief to reduce the time and resources expended by nonprofits to enter into the initial selection. The responses on the interest form provide the minimum necessary information for the Foundation to determine program eligibility and learn a bit about each organization and their proposal.

All eligible organizations that submit an interest form will be entered into the random selection process. The Foundation will conduct an initial review of all submitted interest forms to determine whether each organization is eligible for the program. Organizations deemed ineligible will be contacted and removed from further consideration. None of the responses provided on the interest form will be used for any merit-based consideration or give preferential treatment to any applicant.

The Minnesota Community IDEAS Program staff and Advisory Committee are committed to broad and equitable access to funding for organizations across the entire state of Minnesota and the 11 Native Nations that share the same geography.

We recognize that many communities across the state have been historically underserved by previous philanthropic opportunities. The three target communities were identified to ensure resources are available broadly to historically underserved communities.

To lean more fully into our value of “community is our compass” when designing this grant program, in the fall of 2024, the Foundation convened an Advisory Committee of philanthropic and nonprofit leaders from across the state to design the Minnesota Community IDEAS Program.

Based on the input from our Advisory Committee, one of the items we took away as critical for applicants was respect for the time and resources each organization expends to seek funding. This included reducing the capacity needed to apply, providing a simplified application process, and providing unrestricted, multi-year funding without formal reporting requirements.

To honor that input, we are piloting a random selection process for grant applicants with a goal to give equal opportunity to organizations with smaller staff and grantwriting capacity as larger, more staffed organizations may have.

Our intent with this process is to:

• Remove merit-based bias from initial selection and provide equal access to this opportunity for organizations of all sizes, capacities and resources
• Reduce the capacity organizations need to submit detailed merit-based applications
• Create opportunity for the Foundation to work more closely with selected organizations to develop the best application possible
• Compensate all organizations submitting applications within the program’s budget

Funding is unrestricted and can be used for any charitable purposes that align with the vision and purpose of the Minnesota Community IDEAS Program including operating costs, program-related expenses, capital expenditures or whatever else would best support the organization's ongoing work.

For example, some organizations use grant funds to hire or pay salaries for staff to support their idea. Others may put the grant funds in reserves to free other resources and consider the long-term sustainability of their idea.

Grant funds must be used for charitable purposes to benefit communities in Minnesota, but they may not be used to fund work in other states or regions, or any non-charitable purposes.

If awarded, there are no traditional interim or future-funding-contingent reporting requirements. Instead, grantees will be required to meet annually with the Foundation for structured time for reflection and insights to build a supportive relationship, prioritize learning and develop deeper partnerships with funded organizations across the state.

No formal final report is required, but the Foundation hopes to work with grantees to support marketing and publicity to amplify the stories of success and organizations supported through this opportunity.