LATEST NEWS |  Foundation Awards $155,000 in Social Change Fund Planning Grants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2009

MINNEAPOLIS - The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota has awarded $155,000 in planning grants to 23 nonprofit groups across the state through its Social Change Fund (SCF).

Through the fund, the Foundation awards grants and provides technical assistance to nonprofits working to achieve equality for women in five cornerstone areas: economic justice, safety and security, health and reproductive rights, human rights, and political power. The grant period is from April 1 to Sept. 30, 2009.

The planning grants mark the Foundation’s first step in transitioning the Social Change Fund (SCF) to multi-year funding. The transition will be completed this fall when the Foundation will open a grant round for SCF funding for up to three years. The grant round will be open to SCF planning grant grantees and other interested organizations.

CORNERSTONE: Economic Justice ($33,500 in funding | 5 grantees)

American Indian Opportunities Industrialization Center | $7,500 (Minneapolis), to evaluate American Indian women’s issues related to the correctional pre- and post-release process, and to work with incarcerated women, service organizations, housing entities, and employers to identify resource gaps in order to create systemic change.

Entrepreneur’s Assistance Network | $7,000 (Montevideo), to engage women in rural western Minnesota to build a networking workgroup of women entrepreneurs to determine and assess the needs of women entrepreneurs in rural communities.

The Minnesota Project | $6,500 (St. Paul), to establish the Women’s Urban Farm Incubator program for immigrant and non-immigrant women to develop small-scale urban farming businesses.

The Reentry Clinic at William Mitchell College of Law | $5,000 (St. Paul), to assess risk and protective factors of women who have reentered the community from prison to help them succeed at employment, education, housing, and care of their children and families.

YWCA of Mankato | $7,500 (Mankato), to form a microfinance program to provide small loans for new women entrepreneurs in three rural counties in southern Minnesota.

CORNERSTONE: Safety & Security ($29,500 in funding | 4 grantees)

ARC Greater Twin Cities | $7,000 (Minneapolis), to increase the capacity of the justice and victim services systems to serve women with disabilities.

Pangea World Theater | $7,500 (Minneapolis), to develop a comprehensive, social change outreach program for the Journey to Safety theater production that can address the specific and unique needs of diverse immigrant audiences.

WATCH | $7,500 (Minneapolis), to provide leadership in monitoring the criminal justice system’s response to violence against women and children, including expansion of their role in promoting court monitoring, nationwide.

Women of Nations | $7,500 (St. Paul), through the collaborative Safety on the Streets System Shift, to educate the justice system, law enforcement, and policy makers about women’s progression into prostitution in order to create a paradigm shift to understand prostitution as an act of violence against women.

CORNERSTONE: Health and Reproductive Rights ($26,500 in funding | 5 grantees)

Centre for Asians and Pacific Islanders | $6,500 (Minneapolis), to support the Health Equity Project to engage and train low-income women in social justice organizing as a way to educate and engage the community to transform the local healthcare system.

Kwanzaa Community Church | $6,500 (North Minneapolis), to refine and evaluate the Sidewalks Saving Lives initiative to expand it into a model project that can be reproduced by other community organizations.

Rainbow Health Initiative | $6,000 (Minneapolis), for public policy advocacy to drive legislative initiatives to protect and promote women’s health and reproductive freedoms at all levels of state government.

Women’s Health Center of Duluth | $7,500 (Duluth), to influence legislation and public policy pertaining to reproductive rights, with special focus on rural communities in northern Minnesota.

CORNERSTONE: Human Rights ($32,500 in funding | 5 grantees)

HNUB TSHIAB - Hmong Women Achieving Together | $6,500 (St. Paul), to pilot the Family-Based Social Change Model to explore gender-equity issues in the Hmong community, in order to improve the lives of Hmong women and girls by engaging families in creating institutional cultural change.

Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless | $6,500 (St. Paul), to identify strategies to raise awareness of homeless women and their children, and recommend policy reforms and programming that addresses the reasons why women with children are more susceptible to homelessness.

OutFront Minnesota | $6,000 (Minneapolis), to develop strategies, programs and policies that ensure inclusion of racial justice in every aspect of its LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) equality policy and organizing work.

Shades of Yellow | $6,500 (Minneapolis), to build organizational capacity to address the needs and build the leadership of Hmong lesbians, bisexuals, and women allies.

Trans Youth Support Network | $7,000 (Minneapolis), to develop the leadership and organizing skills of transgender youth of color to engage them in the creation of a youth-services sector that is transgender-accessible and more effective at meeting the needs of transgender youth.

CORNERSTONE: Political Power ($33,000 in funding | 5 grantees)

League of Women Voters’ Minnesota Education Fund | $6,500 (St. Paul), to expand the Leaders of Today & Tomorrow initiative from an annual seminar to an ongoing mentorship and leadership development program that unites women of diverse backgrounds.

PFund | $7,000 (Minneapolis), to research and identify barriers (including sexism) to the full participation of women in the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) movement.

University of MN – Center on Women and Public Policy | $6,500 (Minneapolis), to create professional leadership programming to connect locally elected women across the state in a systemic and formal way, in order to fill the statewide gap in women’s leadership.

Wellstone Action Fund – Sheila Wellstone Institute | $6,500 (St. Paul), to partner with women-led tribal councils to update tribal codes to provide greater safety for Native women; to increase the number of native women who vote for policies and leaders that best represent their needs; and to engage young Native tribal college women in the work of ending environmental racism.

The White House Project | $6,500 (Washington, D.C.), to develop programming for the Rural Leadership Program in Minnesota, including a best practices summit on rural women’s leadership and a model/toolkit for rural women’s leadership training.

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