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Our Work

Boldly Driving Systems Change for Gender & Racial Justice

As a statewide community foundation, we make grants, invest in research, advocate policy, and forge cross-sector partnerships to ensure community-based, community-led solutions across Minnesota.

What We Do

Our goal is to raise transformational gifts to make the maximum investment in and with communities across the state so all women and girls thrive.

Explore our Framework for Impact & Growth

  • Listening & Research

    Research drives our work and sets our annual grantmaking and policy agenda. We invest in research to understand and share the lived experiences and solutions of communities through data and stories. Learn more.

  • Philanthropy & Community Investing

    We engage in transformational relationships to advance justice within philanthropy and invest in and with communities so leaders and organizations can do their best work. Learn more.

  • Advocacy & Policy Change

    We set strategic priorities that advance public policy for gender and racial justice. Learn more.

  • Strategic Communications & Narrative Change

    We work to change systems, social norms, and the narrative about women and girls pushed to the margins.

  • Cross-Sector Convening & Partnerships

    We engage in transformational relationships with leaders across sectors to drive collective impact for social change.

Our Methodology: How We Are Different

At the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, we apply an Intersectional Equity Framework inclusive of gender, race, place, and additional identities (ethnicity, sovereignty, socioeconomic class, age, disability, LGBTQ+, immigration status) to our research, grantmaking, public policy agenda, and internal work.

What is Intersectionality?

We engage in participatory learning, conducting research and relationship building, to create transformational change.

What is Justice?

Building, sharing, and using power to proactively eliminate policies, practices, attitudes, and messages that serve as barriers for people and communities to thrive.

How We Define “Woman”

Women and girls includes anyone who identifies as a woman and/or girl. WFM programs are inclusive of transgender and gender-expansive people that experience gender-based structural harm.

Applying the Framework

Step 1: Analysis of problems and solutions

  • Gender – How are women, girls, men, boys, transgender and gender expansive people differently or disproportionally affected, represented, or impacted? How and why? What gender norms limit or impact equity?
  • Race – How are communities of color and American Indian communities differently or disproportionally affected, represented, or impacted? How and why?
  • Place – How are rural, suburban, or urban communities differently or disproportionally affected?
  • Additional Identities – How are other identities, including ethnicity, sovereignty, socioeconomic class, age, disability, LGBTQ+, and immigration status affected or impacted?

Step 2: Implement solutions with intersectional equity in design to ensure equity in outcomes

Equity in Design: Applying an Intersectional Equity Framework to Accelerate Change

What does it mean to lead with equity and an intersectional analysis to create change? How can organizations apply an Intersectional Equity Framework to target solutions with community at the center, change narratives, and create a world where all women and girls are able to lead and thrive?

This report provides historical context and articulates strategies to advance gender and racial equity.

Our Theory of Change

We lead with research and community to expand gender and racial justice and we apply our Theory of Change to all the steps of our process and decision-making to ensure our solutions are inclusive for everyone.

As we invest, leverage, learn, influence, and scale, we use equity in design to ensure equity in outcomes.

  • Invest

    By increasing investments to organizations, we create conditions for leaders and organizations to do their best work.

  • Leverage

    By applying our intersectional equity framework, we target our work to identify problems and the best community solutions.

  • Learn

    By engaging in participatory learning, conducting research, and building relationships, we create transformational change.

  • Influence

    Through policy, partnerships, and strategic communication, we work to change systems and societal norms.

  • Scale

    By resourcing innovation, we scale from the local to the regional to the state and national across the women’s funding movement.

What We Aim to Achieve

We find solutions with communities and begin with research. We scale impact by listening and responding to community concerns and leading systems change in four areas:

Economic Justice

To realize economic justice and a stronger Minnesota for families and communities, we invest in women and girls as key drivers of economic growth.

Leadership & Community Power

Our vision is a state where all women, girls, and gender-expansive people are valued as solution-builders and leaders within their communities.

Holistic Well-Being & Reproductive Justice

To support the mind, body, and spirit of women, we catalyze the conditions to ensure they are well in every area of their being.

Safety

We catalyze the conditions so that women, girls, and gender-expansive people are free from all forms of violence and can be safe at home, school, and in their communities.

Our Research

Listening, Learning and Driving Action With Communities

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota conducts qualitative and quantitative research to better understand the lives of women and girls within communities, identify assets and barriers, and fund solutions.

What is a Systems Change?

For the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, systems change is about shifting structures in order to reduce or eliminate barriers, increase access to opportunity, and achieve gender and racial justice.

Our role is to be the connective tissue and backbone to drive systems change towards gender and racial justice. Systems change and direct service work together. Both are important, interconnecting gears that meet individual and community needs today, while shifting systems, institutions, behaviors, and policies for tomorrow.

The process of systems change includes shifts in:

  • Institutions, laws, or policies
  • Community or individual behavior
  • Definition or reframing of issues
  • Engagement or movement-building
  • Maintaining or holding the line