Foundation Awards $285,000 in Social Change Fund Grants

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota has awarded $285,000 in grants for a third and final year of funding to 20 nonprofit organizations through its Social Change Fund. The grant period is February 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016.

Through the Social Change Fund, the Women’s Foundation awards multi-year grants and provides technical assistance to nonprofits across the state working to achieve equality for women in economics, safety, health and reproductive rights, and political power.

Grantees:

Economic Opportunity ($120,000 total)

Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (Virginia) | $15,000 — To support the Adult Workforce collaborative in Hibbing and Virginia to bring a gender lens to post-secondary technical education for welding and millwright work in the region.

Asian Economic Development Association (Saint Paul) | $15,000 — To increase and support the leadership of Asian women business owners and managers by providing business counseling and training.

Community Action Duluth (Duluth) | $15,000 — To implement the Getting Ahead program, a 10-week economic justice leadership program which empowers participants to understand issues of poverty and overcome barriers.

Comunidades Latinas Unidas En Servicio (Saint Paul) | $15,000 — To develop and implement a financial empowerment program to educate survivors of domestic violence/sexual assault about economic self-sufficiency.

Jeremiah Program (Minneapolis) | $15,000 — To develop an advocacy program to build knowledge and skills to become active citizens and leaders within school systems, health care systems, and in public arenas focused on economic issues and creating change.

Latino Economic Development Center (Minneapolis) | $15,000 — To involve more women in its micro entrepreneurship trainings and to expose Latinas to career opportunities in the construction trades.

Legal Services of Northwest Minnesota (Moorhead) | $15,000 — To broaden employment access, enhance economic opportunity, and address needs of women in workforce development.

YWCA of Minneapolis (Minneapolis) | $15,000 — To conduct research on the intersection of racial equity and early education and support advocacy efforts to bring this information into the public debate around childcare policy.

Safety & Security ($60,000 total)

Breaking Free, Inc. (St. Paul) | $15,000 — General operating support. Breaking Free serves women and girls involved in systems of commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking.

Kwanzaa Community Church – Northside Women’s Space (Minneapolis) | $15,000 — General operating support. Kwanzaa Community Church’s Northside Women’s Space provides a safe place where girls and women who have been exploited by sex trafficking and the sex trade can find rest, a place to think, and connections to services and supports that will get them from where they are now to where they want to be in life.

Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (Minneapolis) | $15,000 — General operating support. MIWRC addresses systemic gender inequities across boundaries, focusing on the disproportionate gender violence against American Indian women and girls.

North Shore Horizons (Two Harbors) | $15,000 — To enhance women and girls’ crime victim rights in Lake County, Minnesota, North Shore Horizons and partnering agencies will improve system and community response to sexual and domestic violence crimes through a multi-agency collaboration.

Health & Reproductive Rights ($60,000 total)

Centro Cultural Chicano (Minneapolis) | $5,000 — To support and develop systems and evaluation practices – development of logic model, work plans, and performance monitoring plans for program implementation.

Everyday Miracles (Shakopee) | $15,000 — To provide program support for Isis Rising, a prisonbased pregnancy, birth, and parenting project for women prisoners at the Shakopee Women’s Prison to improve maternal and health outcomes in the context of incarceration and to support its advocacy efforts focused on an anti-shackling bill.

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota North Dakota South Dakota (Statewide) | $15,000 — General operating support for public policy work to advance reproductive justice. Pro-Choice Resources (Minneapolis) | $10,000 — To build a coordinated, long-term organizing effort that strengthens organizational, policymaker, and public support for public coverage of abortion.

Women’s Health Center of Duluth (Duluth) | $15,000 — To build community capacity by strengthening women leaders, increase access to resources, and create effective networks.

Political Power & Leadership ($45,000 total)

American Indian and Rural Women’s Leadership Project (Virginia) | $15,000 — To confront and effectively challenge political inequity and change the cultural context of political leadership by providing practical skills, support, on-going relationships and training for American Indian and rural women.

OutFront Minnesota Community Services (Minneapolis) | $15,000 — To identify and develop leaders within the lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women of color communities to focus on organizing, coalition building, base building, and issue cutting on issues most important to them.

Women’s Action for New Directions Education Fund (Statewide) | $15,000 — To support a comprehensive, multi-year program to build the leadership and communications capacity of women leaders in Minnesota to advance long-term, sustainable solutions to the budget crises.