New Community Grantmaking Committees Named

This summer, the Women’s Foundation welcomed 20 members to join the Young Women’s Committee and Community Power Committee, which make key decisions about WFM grantmaking. Each committee includes a recent community or grantee-partner, a community leader, a donor-partner, and a staff member. A young person (age 16+) and program alumni from the Innovators and/or Young Women’s Cabinet program are also part of the Young Women’s Committee.

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFM) has engaged in participatory grantmaking since its founding in 1983, with a focus on elevating communities experiencing systemic barriers because they have the expertise to provide solutions. One way WFM puts equity into the design of programs and processes is to build collective power with the communities we serve and engaging individuals most impacted by gender and racial inequity in funding decisions that affect their communities.

This kind of grantmaking brings together WFM’s community across race and ethnicity, geography, and socioeconomic status and includes participants from WFM programs and communities who reflect the diverse statewide communities. Committee members hold knowledge about our areas of impact: leadership, economic justice, safety, and health, and provide thought-leadership and community expertise as part of their role.

Before they start making grants, committee members gather virtually to learn about different types of grant makers, how community foundations work, the history of grantmaking, and how WFM applies an Intersectional Equity Framework to ensure that communities with expertise in issues affecting their own lives are driving solutions. Committee members discussed how they might analyze community issues across race and ethnicity, geography, and socioeconomic status and what it means to to engage with the most pressing issues in our communities, listen, and create meaningful change through grantmaking.

In recruiting these participatory grantmaking committees, each member was asked to share what they hoped to get out of the grantmaking committees. Many shared their interests in:

• Growing professionally
• Having a sense of community
• Building relationships
• Learning more about how philanthropy works
• Being part of shifting power to community by sharing my story

After the grantmaking training, members shared reflections that they were feeling:

• Excited
• Renewed
• Informed
• Blessed
• Enlightened
• Grateful
• Energized

Grantmaking committee members are appointed to two-year terms. At the end of each term, committee members will have an option to recommit for an additional term. Committee members can serve a maximum of two consecutive participatory grantmaking terms (four years). During each term, committee members participate in grantmaking training, site visits, and grantmaking days.

We look forward to working with the new committee and seeing how their leadership builds community power and equity in grantmaking.

Meet the 2026 – 2028 Participatory Grantmaking Committee Members:

Fowzia Adde
Moorhead, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader

Jeannine Burnette
(she/her)
Minneapolis and Leech Lake Reservation
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader

Reyna Davila-Day
(she/her)
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
YWI Innovator Alumni; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Evett Ellis
(she/her)
Moorhead, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader

Niila Hebert
(she/her/y’all)
White Bear Lake, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Kitana Holland
(she/her)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader;YWI Innovator Alumni;Grantee-Partner

Kira Holtzon
(she/her)
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Maria “Fernanda” Honebrink
(she/her)
Minneapolis – Saint Paul, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader

Iman Ibrahim
(she/her)
Woodbury, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Young person, age 16+; Young Women’s Initiative Cabinet Alumni

Barbie Levine
(she/her)
Mendota Heights, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader

Aida Martinez-Freeman
(she/her/ella)
Maple Grove, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Emily Rose McManus
(she/her/hers)
Northfield, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader

Andrea Pierre
(she/her)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Lauren Skar
(she/her)
Eagan and Duluth, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader; Young person age 16+

Anne Sutkowi-Hemstreet
(they/she)
Hopkins, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader

Mika Takamori
(she/her/hers)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader; Grantee-Partner

Nina Terrero Groth
(she/her/ella)
Minneapolis – Saint Paul, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Tameika Williams
(she/her/they)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader

Elizabeth Winslow
(she/her)
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Young Women’s Committee
Community Leader; Participatory Grantmaking Committee Alumni

Pahoua Yang
(she/her)
Minneapolis – Saint Paul, Minnesota
Community Power Committee
Community Leader