OVERVIEW: The McKnight Foundation is a Minnesota-based funder that supports work throughout the U.S., as well as in select countries in Africa and South America. The foundation’s current program areas include climate and energy, arts and culture, neuroscience, housing and community development, economic development, and food systems and agriculture.
IP TAKE: The McKnight Foundation is a major funder in its areas of giving, which have evolved substantially in recent years. In 2019, McKnight announced that it was phasing out its longstanding Mississippi River, education, and Southeast Asia programs, and would redouble its efforts in climate and equity in Minnesota. McKnight’s giving prioritizes communities, collaboration and policy and systems change efforts. In a recent Inside Philanthropy interview, McKnight president Tonya Allen emphasized the importance of working collaboratively with nonprofits and other funders. “If you believe in an organization, act like you do,” she said, “meaning, give them enough resources and figure out how we can bring additional resources to them, like creating relationships with other funders, and connecting them to research and ideas.” McKnight has subsequently increased it’s payout.
McKnight is a transparent funder that provides detailed information about past grantees contact information for all its staff. Grant application procedures differ depending on the program; some programs accept inquiries on a rolling basis, while others accept inquiries and proposals on an invitation-only basis. McKnight is an important funder to know about for Minnesota-based nonprofits and those working in its areas of interest.
PROFILE: Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is an independent family foundation based in Minneapolis. This is the foundation of William McKnight, one of the early leaders of the 3M company, and his wife, Maude McKnight. Today, fourth-generation family members actively serve on its board of trustees. According to its mission statement, the McKnight Foundation “advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and the planet thrive.”
In McKnight’s latest strategic framework, the foundation places “equity, stewardship, respect and curiosity” at the center of its approach. The foundation describes itself as a “funder, convener, thought leader, and as an employer, economic entity, and institutional investor,” using all of its “resources and leveraging all forms of capital, including social investment and philanthropic risk capital” to facilitate its mission. To this end, McKnight deploys a “robust toolkit that includes grantmaking, collaboration, policy reform, research, strategic communications, and investments,” which implies that this foundation is hands-on in its aims to provide support beyond funding.
Current programmatic areas of interest include Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems, Midwest Climate & Energy, Arts and Culture, Neuroscience and Vibrant and Equitable Communities, with grantmaking focused on projects in the U.S., Africa, and Latin America. The foundation also runs a grantmaking program to support regional foundations in its home state of Minnesota.
Grants for Global Development and Sustainable Agriculture
One of its largest areas of giving, Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems, focuses on cultivating “resilient food systems globally by bridging farmer-centered agroecological research, action, and influence.” This represents a departure from McKnight’s previous work, which focused on natural resource management and community resource rights. McKnight explained to IP how and why they chose this new direction here.
- The program has a clear giving approach that necessitates close alignment with the program’s Communities of Practice (CoP) model to receive funding. This model pairs funding with efforts to “facilitate collaboration, knowledge co-creation, and innovation/information exchange, as well as helping to strengthen capacity at regional, institutional, project, and individual levels.”
- The program is divided into several regions, each with their own strategies, and include:
- McKnight’s global food program runs “a closed application process with occasional targeted calls.” Only invited proposals will be reviewed by the foundation.
- Among this program’s grantee partners are the Center for the Analysis of Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Ecuador’s Fundación Aliados, Burkina Faso’s Institut de l’Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles and the University of Eldoret in Kenya, which received funding for its “[c]ommunity-driven interventions for sustainable food systems and soil water conservation in the Drylands, West Pokot.”
- McKnight’s programs evolve quickly, so make sure to check back bi-annually to keep up with the latest developments.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
In 2013, the McKnight Foundation reimagined its larger environment program to create a more targeted Midwest Climate & Energy program. This program seeks to take “bold and urgent action on the climate crisis by dramatically cutting greenhouse gas emissions and advancing an equitable clean energy transition.”
- The McKnight Foundation’s Midwest Climate & Energy approach, through a systems change lens, uses “its philanthropic funding to support efforts that build power through partnership, aligning climate and equity goals” across five specific strategies: transform the energy system, decarbonize transportation, decarbonize buildings, support working lands, and strengthen democratic participation.
Climate and energy-related grants are laser-focused on Minnesota and the upper Midwest, which includes Wisconsin and Iowa.
Grantmaking for the above areas remains accessible, but other Midwestern states must be invited to apply. All prospective grantseekers should contact the Midwest Climate & Energy team prior to beginning the application process.
This program has a useful FAQ page to reference prior to reaching out to McKnight.
Recent grants have gone to Minneapolis’s Center for Energy and Environment, the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition and the St. Paul Transportation Management Association.
Grants for Mental Health, Brain and Cell Research
McKnight’s Neuroscience initiative aims to “bring science closer to the day when diseases of the brain and behavior can be accurately diagnosed, prevented, and treated.” The foundation runs two awards programs to this end:
The Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Award encourages “research aimed at translating laboratory discoveries about the brain and nervous system into diagnoses and therapies to improve human health” with grants of $100,000 per year for three years.
McKnight’s Scholar Awards support neuroscientists in the early stages of their careers whose work focuses on clinically relevant issues of disorders of learning and memory with grants of $75,000 per year for three years. Recent grantmaking and awards have prioritized collaborative, interdisciplinary work in the areas of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries, to name a few.
- Neuroscience Fellowships evolve often and frequently focus on improving the field of neuroscience research, mentorship and development.
- All of the opportunities above have individual guidelines, deadlines and profiles of past awardees linked to their program pages.
Grants for Housing, Community and Economic Development
McKnight’s grantmaking for housing stems from its Vibrant and Equitable Communities program which aims to achieve “a vibrant future for all Minnesotans with shared power, prosperity, and participation.”
This program has a distinct grantmaking approach, FAQ page and accessible grant guidelines; however, the foundation encourages contact prior to sending a proposal.
Grantmaking strategies focus on accelerating economic mobility, building community wealth, cultivating a fair and just housing system, and strengthening democratic participation.
Recent grants have focused on financing and maintaining affordable housing projects throughout Minnesota, as well as initiatives to ensure housing equity and the rights of renters.
McKnight has also given to several organizations that provide emergency and transitional housing and services to homeless and vulnerable people in Minnesota.
Grantees include Minneapolis’s Urban Homeworks, the Neighborhood Development Alliance of St. Paul and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.
Grants for Arts and Culture
McKnight’s Arts and Culture program works to “(c)atalyze the creativity, power, and leadership of Minnesota working artists and culture bearers.” To this end, McKnight’s vision supports arts and culture through a variety of ways with a clear grantmaking approach.
Its McKnight Artist and Culture Bearer Fellowships provide mid-career artists with unrestricted grants of $25,000.
The McKnight Distinguished Artist Award “recognizes artists who have made a lifelong commitment to creating art that is locally, regionally, and/or nationally significant” with awards of $50,000.
The foundation also supports Minnesota’s eleven Regional Arts Councils, which direct McKnight funding toward individual artists and arts programs across the state.
Note that the McKnight Arts program has grant guidelines that are distinct from other focus areas. Arts grants can support either individual artists or arts organizations.
Past arts and culture grantees include the Duluth Art Institute, Minnesota’s Full Circle Theater Company, the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis and the Minneapolis American Indian Center.
Important Grant Details:
The McKnight Foundation’s grants mainly range from $10,000 to $500,000, with a few partner organizations receiving much more. The median grant size for this funder is about $200,000, and in a recent year, the foundation made over $109 million in grants.
Grantmaking tends to prioritize community and economic development, as well as the environment; however, grant history shows a healthy amount of giving across all focus areas.
The foundation makes hundreds of grants a year, giving mainly to well-established organizations. Smaller and lesser-known outfits in the Minneapolis area stand a better chance than those in other parts of the U.S.
McKnight provides general operating (unrestricted) and specific program/project (restricted) grants to organizations, groups and Tribal Nations primarily in Minnesota.
This funder makes grants all over the U.S. and in specific areas abroad, but U.S. based-grants appear to prioritize Minnesota and, to a lesser extent, also cluster in New York and California.
McKnight accepts applications for some of its grant and award programs. Guidelines and due dates vary by program.
Interested grantseekers should visit the foundation’s individual program pages for specific information and updates about funding.
Information about past grantmaking is available at the foundation’s Grants Database.
- Inquiries may be submitted via the foundation’s contact form or to specific staff members, whose emails are available at McKnight’s staff page.
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