Join a powerful collective of donors making a positive impact. You can help make more possible.
Our Impact
For 85 years, the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation has brought people together to inspire, advocate and invest to advance community visions.
From Saint Paul to Worthington and Warroad to Grand Marais, our grantmaking invests in the long-term vitality of communities across the state.
Grantmaking
$2.3B
Granted
By the Foundation, our fundholders and partner organizations since our founding in 1940
9,418
Grants Given
To organizations, initiatives and projects in 2024
$210M
Granted
By the Foundation and our partners in 2024
3,444
Organizations
Receiving grants to further their missions in 2024
Impact through Grant Programs
As a grantmaker, connector and facilitator, we are honored to invest in and partner with organizations working daily to address our most pressing issues. In 2024, our Foundation-directed grant programs made 1,663 grants.
Advancing Community Visions
Our largest application-based grant program is responsive to community-identified priorities in the East Metro region of Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties.
Throughout 2024 and 2025, we have been reimagining this grant program alongside our partners at F. R. Bigelow Foundation and Mardag Foundation. New grant application processes and updated priorities will launch in 2026.
Saint Paul Urban Tennis
Community Sharing Fund
Since 1980, the Community Sharing Fund has provided more than 43,000 emergency grants to individuals and families in crisis in partnership with nonprofit agencies and case workers serving residents Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties.
In 2024, the Fund awarded $435,000, with an average grant of $924. Ninety percent of grants supported housing needs, and 1,729 household members benefitted from the Fund.
Management Improvement Fund
Management Improvement Fund helps small to midsize nonprofit organizations invest in their organizational capacity, management practices and leadership.
Since 1991, the Fund has provided $7 million to more than 470 nonprofit organizations.
Minnesota Education Equity Partnership
Bush Prize: Minnesota
The Bush Prize identifies and honors extraordinary organizations that consistently engage and lead their community toward creative solutions. As the community grant partner to the Bush Foundation in Minnesota, we began implementing Bush Prize: Minnesota in 2024. Last year, we selected three honorees and seven finalists.
Minnesota Community IDEAS Program
This new statewide opportunity offers grants based on an organization’s transformational impact within target communities — Greater Minnesota, the Twin Cities Metro Area and Native-led, Native-serving organizations. The program, a partnership with Bush Foundation, will award its first grants in May 2025.
Northfield Union of Youth
Impact in Action
Mni Sota Fund
Housing
Safe, affordable housing is fundamental to our overall wellbeing. To demonstrate how the Foundation has invested in this critical need, we’re sharing stories of community leaders, donors and organizations doing important work in the housing space.
Our Donors Make More Possible
We are proud to be the partner of choice for families and organizations seeking to make a lasting charitable impact.
As Minnesota's largest community foundation, we steward approximately 2,000 charitable funds – from donor advised funds and nonprofit endowments to support services for private, family and corporate foundations of all sizes.
Our fundholders demonstrate their commitment to the community with generosity and passion.
Our Donors’ Generosity in 2024
$145M
Dollars Granted
to organizations through donor advised funds
6,453
Grants
From donor advised funds
2,738
Organizations
Received grants recommend by donor advised fundholders
61
Minnesota counties
plus 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico received grants
