Women’s Foundation Awards $190,000 in New Community Response Fund Grants

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota (WFM) announced $190,000 in Community Response Fund grants to 19 organizations.

Through the Community Response Fund, the Women’s Foundation responds quickly to organizations and programs that ensure women and their families are safer and healthier. In the last year, WFM awarded $250,000 to 25 organizations across the state to support reproductive justice, healing justice, and emergent community needs.

All Women’s Foundation grants support general operating expenses, which provide greater flexibility, crucial for organizations to build stability around community-sustaining programs. Applications are invitation only. For more information and eligibility, please contact Erika or LaCora through community office hours.

Grantee-Partners:

Annex Teen Clinic (Robbinsdale) | $10,000 – To support the activities for the Clinical Sexual Healthcare program, reaching 1,600 young people with sexual healthcare services. Additionally, 300 young people will receive referrals and/or emergency financial assistance for mental health, food insecurity, housing, and abortion care.

The Brittany Clardy Foundation (Saint Paul) | $10,000 – To gather data for the legislative report and support the efforts of the Missing and Murdered African American Women (MMAAW) Task Force to bring awareness to victims of violent crime and warriors of justice. The group led discussions in local events on MMAAW Task Force efforts, including the first Minnesota event for Missing and Murdered African American Women and Families.

COPAL MN – Communities Organizing Latino Power and Action (Minneapolis) | $10,000 – To support the Navigator Program, a bilingual hotline for community members experiencing emergent needs. Over 80% of callers receive support from COPAL’s Health and Wellness and Workers’ Center programs.

Minnesota NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund / ERA MN (Burnsville) | $10,000 – To work with coalition partners to protect reproductive healthcare and create public awareness on the equal rights amendment to the Minnesota Constitution.

Face to Face Health & Counseling Service, Inc. (Saint Paul) | $10,000 – To continue to provide critical low-barrier, low-cost medical care including confidential reproductive health, prenatal and postpartum care, general medical care, sexual health education, case management, and more to young people.

Family Safety Network of Cass, Hubbard, and Clearwater Counties (Walker) | $10,000 – To provide safety, support, and advocacy for all victims of domestic violence. Opportunities include financial education, independent living skills, trauma response and recovery, mental health access, and peer support groups.

Grace House Transitional Shelter (Winona) | $10,000 – To support programs aimed at assisting low-income families with living expenses and navigating resources in community such as employment training, caregiving support, as well as stable housing and transitional housing for women and children. Grace House is the only shelter that is specific to women with children in Winona.

Healthcare Reparations Cooperative (HRC) (Minneapolis) | $10,000 – To create general membership programming and services to expand the HRC framework and grow the organization’s base. Founded in 2020, HRC works to create an independent system for health and healing that incorporates systemic and interpersonal reparations for society’s most oppressed communities.

Living Naturally Abundant (Saint Paul) | $10,000 – To support the Wellness Art Conference that provides yoga, meditational breathing, speakers, artists performances, food sampling, fitness demonstrations, games, and more for women to learn how to manage stress, practice self-care, and develop trauma resiliency. In addition, to support the Manifest You(th) program, designed for youth to learn, engage, and experiment in nutrition education, mental health, and wellness art.

Mewinzha Ondaadiziike Wiigaming (Bemidji) | $10,000 – To create a community-centered and co-created group-supportive pregnancy program for Anishinaabe and Indigenous birthing people in the region. Mewinzha Ondaadiziike Wiigaming (MOW) “Long Ago Women Birthing in Lodge, Home or Hospital” is an Anishinaabe-led organization with the mission to provide maternal child health and family to community members in northern Minnesota.

Minnesota 8 (Saint Paul) | $10,000 – To support organizational capacity by increasing the number of staff who provide direct services for people facing deportation and their families, including immigration help, mutual aid, financial assistance, and more. Minnesota 8 exists to end the ongoing harm our unjust immigration system is causing Southeast Asian individuals, families, and the greater community.

Positive Image (Minneapolis) | $10,000 – To support the Youth and Adult Connection Twin Cities program which promotes healthy lifestyles, mental health, building stronger relationships with fathers and daughters, and creates safe spaces that serve low-income communities and underserved BIPOC communities of color in North Minneapolis and surrounding areas.

Rivers of Hope (Monticello) | $10,000 – To support the Adult Advocacy program for victims of domestic violence in Wright and Sherburne counties. Rivers of Hope’s mission is to provide a community-coordinated response to end family violence through advocacy, education, and interagency collaboration.

Telling Queer History (Minneapolis) | $10,000 – To create storytelling events that respond to and transform the generational trauma that LGBTQ+ communities experience by creating safe spaces for individual and collective healing.

Project H.O.P.E. (Saint Paul) | $10,000 – To continue providing urgent services for housing, employment training, and holistic well-being including help with moving, finding a job, and meeting with certified licensed practitioners to support mental health with grief support, healing circles, one-on-one counseling sessions, and weekly group therapy.

University YMCA – Y of the North (Minneapolis) | $10,000 – To increase the field of mental health first aid trainers who are Native American and/or women of color. For nearly 160 years, the YMCA has been listening and responding to community needs to bring people together, connecting people of all ages and backgrounds to bridge the gaps in community needs.

Whole Woman’s Health Alliance (WWHA) – (Bloomington) | $10,000 – To support advocacy work that shifts stigmas through education and building community power to transform the political and cultural landscape around abortion and reproductive health. WWHA’s mission is to provide abortion care that puts patients first. WWHA provides direct services in clinics in Charlottesville, Virginia; South Bend, Indiana; and Bloomington, Minnesota.

Women’s Advocates (Saint Paul) | $10,000 – To create new community-based programming that ensures victim-survivors can access trauma informed, supportive advocacy services and resources even when shelters are full. Women’s Advocates was established in 1974 as the first emergency shelter in the nation for victim-survivors and children escaping domestic violence.

YWCA Mankato (Mankato) | $10,000 – To support the New American Families Program with necessary resources for immigrant and refugee women with children such as clothing, food, transportation, housing, language classes, education and more. The YWCA Mankato is dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all.