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2007 NONPROFIT
AWARDS
Honoring Exemplary Minnesota Nonprofits
 Nonprofit
Mission Award for RESPONSIVE PHILANTHROPY
This award recognizes funders who mobilize community resources for public benefit. The winner of this category should:
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be responsive to citizen initiatives,
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recognize public policy issues and long-term strategies to fight problems, and
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commit substantial resources to disadvantaged people in Minnesota communities through a process of dialogue and partnership.
And
the finalists are . . .
view a list of
previous Mission Award recipients
Finalist
Profiles
Greater
Twin Cities United Way
The Greater Twin Cities United Way (GTCUW)’s
mission is to unite caring people in building stronger communities
by inspiring people to help others, increase resources to meet
needs, and foster innovative solutions to problems.
Some examples of Greater Twin Cities United Way's recent efforts
follow:
 Greater
Twin Cities United Way partnered with the Itasca Project to share
results of a critical study known as the Mind
the Gap report. We
educate donors, particularly our Emerging
Leaders™ segment. Emerging Leaders are up and coming Twin
Cities leaders
ages 25-45 in the business community who have potential incomes of
80 – 200K.
Early Childhood
Forum: United Way and Ready 4K 2006 collaborated in first-time,
hour-long Twin Cities Public Television forum that aired in late
fall. Hosted by TPT political reporter Mary Lahammer, it included
pre-taped two-minute statements by then-gubernatorial candidates on
their commitment to quality early childhood education and concerns
of parents and early childhood educators; a panel of state
legislators, corporate executives and early childhood education
professionals; with a live studio audience.
Lease-to Own
Program: United Way collaborative effort with corporations,
agencies, car auction lots, and repair shops, to ensure that lower
income families have reliable transportation for their families.
Reliable transportation is critical to ensuring people are
able to retain a job and care for their families.
Parenting: Ready, Set Go show: 50 percent of
Minnesota
children are not fully prepared for kindergarten.
As a way of addressing this concern, United Way
and Twin Cities Public Television collaborated by creating a pilot
program aimed at parents. This
potential early childhood education series which is scheduled to
premier in September 2007, includes a panel of parents and other
caregivers talking about issues such as early literacy.
Community Impact Efforts:
Greater
Twin Cities United Way
focuses on three critical areas: Basic Needs, Children and Families,
and Health and Independence
– to identify emerging issues and build partnerships.
Agencies cannot solve these critical issues alone.
One example is our Bright Smiles oral health program.
Health and Independence
noticed a trend: children, especially immigrants, were missing
school due to poor oral health.
A partnership of dental hygienists, businesses and
nonprofits, was formed. We
work with parents and service providers to educate them about the
importance of dental care: 4,000 kids received help last year, at
least half were first time visits.
GTCUW also commits
substantial resources to Minnesota communities. In 2006, GTCUW
invested 77.2 million dollars in the three aforementioned focus
areas. We dialogued with community leaders, agencies and our
end-users (clients), conducted primary and secondary research – a
process that yielded a state-of-the-community white pages report and
was utilized in a 6-month dialogue in determining the strategic plan
for our focus areas.
Community Impact Director Marcia Fink spearheaded an effort to
attack the problem of increased food shelf usage by creating the
Hunger Task Force in 2006.
This is another first-time combined statewide effort
that is taking a hard look at food shelve users and taking steps to
eradicate the hunger problem.
Greater Twin Cities United Way website: www.unitedwaytwincities.org
Otto
Bremer Foundation
The
Otto Bremer Foundation’s mission is to assist people in achieving
full economic, civic and social participation in and for the
betterment of their communities.
The Otto Bremer Foundation realizes that there have been many
changes in the communities they fund, and that resources and support
often shift as a result. In
response to these changes, the Bremer Foundation’s methods of
support have evolved and expanded over time, but the Foundation
continues to look to the residents themselves for solutions to
shared issues. In 2006,
the Foundation awarded over $28,000,000 in grants and program
related investments.
The Otto Bremer Foundation uses several grantmaking strategies in
its approach to funding nonprofit organizations.
Its organizational effectiveness strategy recognizes that
nonprofits often have an unmet need to strengthen and build
infrastructure and capacity.
One such example is the Foundation’s support for the Center for
Asians and Pacific Islanders (CAPI).
According to CAPI’s executive director Vee Phan Nelson,
“The Otto Bremer Foundation provided support while CAPI was
involved in a merger with Project Regina – a sewing program that
provides women with limited English with job skills and English
language training to help them move into the workforce. Once these
women become familiar with Western work habits and an
industrial-based vocabulary, they are then empowered to seek
employment with the skills they have learned at Project Regina.
Project
Regina
would not be able to accomplish this mission without the support of
the Otto Bremer Foundation”.
The Otto Bremer Foundation has also adopted civic engagement as a
strategy to strengthen nonprofits’ position within their own
communities, as well as influence some of the solutions to
underlying issues they face. The
Foundation supports a number of different civic engagement
initiatives, including community organizing, advocacy, and voter
education.
Centro Legal, an organization funded by the Otto Bremer Foundation
is one such example. One of the organization’s programs, the
Centro Legal Civic Participation Project, works to inform and engage
the Latino community across the state about voting rights, civic
participation, and the democratic process. Finding no culturally
appropriate materials, Centro Legal developed a Latino Voter
Participation Toolkit on how to vote, where to vote, and where to
register to vote. All of the activities associated with this project
worked to overcome barriers that previously hindered full civic
participation by Latinos.
Otto Bremer Foundation website: www.ottobremer.org
Traveler’s
Foundation
For more than 150 years, Travelers has been committed to the communities
where we do business. By supporting nonprofit organizations and
their work serving others, Travelers ensures that the threads of our
communities’ social fabric have both strength and resilience.
Travelers provides support for charitable organizations in
the community through Travelers Foundation and Travelers Connecticut
Foundation. The Travelers Companies, Inc. and its two private
foundations, Travelers Foundation and Travelers Connecticut
Foundation, awarded $15.5 million to charitable organizations
nationwide in fiscal year 2006. Giving is focused on education,
community development and arts and culture - areas where Travelers
has helped create opportunities for people to succeed and build
economically stable communities for more than 150 years.
Travelers (formerly St. Paul Companies and St. Paul Travelers) is
Minnesota
's oldest business organization, and the second-largest writer of
commercial
U.S.
property casualty insurance.
Changes accompanying mergers over the past several years have
not deterred Travelers from its commitment to maintain its
headquarters in downtown
St. Paul, nor from its strong culture of community support and involvement.
Travelers is an unusually responsive source of philanthropy because they
state their giving priorities clearly, and their grants match up
with these priorities. Community
affairs staff are highly accessible by telephone, e-mail and site
visits, and their procedures and behavior are very much in accord
with the Minnesota Council on Foundations' "Principles for
Minnesota Grantmakers."
In stating their public position on philanthropy, Travelers
says, "...we have pledged to perform with energy and heart.
Whether we are sitting in a boardroom or in a school helping
a child to read, we understand that it takes a unique combination of
investing in both business and in our communities to make us
successful. We approach
business and community involvement with an eye toward tenacity,
leadership, vision, enthusiasm and inspiration.
We partner with nonprofit leaders who share these qualities.
In turn, these qualities guide us as we work together to
revitalize communities, educate under-served populations, enrich
lives, and celebrate diversity through arts and culture.
When we make investments in people and nonprofit
organizations, our company, employees, shareholders and communities
all share in the rewarding returns."
To help build the workforce of tomorrow, Travelers contributed more than
$3.3 million in 2006 grants to support the success of low-income,
first-generation students in post-secondary education. Building and
preserving family assets and earning power in low-income communities
is another focal point of Travelers giving.
Examples of Travelers' $5 million in community development
funding programs include a $250,000 grant to Twin Cities Local
Initiatives Support Corporation to support the development of
affordable housing and commercial development in low-income
neighborhoods, and a $250,000 national grant to Habitat for Humanity
International to build houses in
Saint Paul
,
Hartford
and communities across the country. More than $2.6 million in arts and culture grants from
Travelers helped preserve cultural heritage and reflect our diverse
communities, including grants to COMPAS: Community Programs in the
Arts for support of ArtsWork, the organization’s summer employment
for young people in
Ramsey
County
between the ages of 14 and 21.
Travelers website: www.travelers.com
If
you have not already done so, you
are also encouraged to view the finalists and vote for the Nonprofit
Mission Awards in the areas of:
Return
to About the Nonprofit Mission Awards   
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