Find Nonprofit and Small Business Grants

Grants of $20,000 to Minnesota nonprofit organizations that are led by and serve people of color and indigenous populations. Eligible organizations will engage the community in collaborative projects that address the conditions or root causes of injustice. Funding is intended for general operating support.

To further POCI (People of Color and Indigenous People) self-determination and leadership, each NMF grant recipient will be offered two spots in the Movement Leadership Project. Staff, board, or volunteers will represent their organizations and participate in an ongoing professional development cohort.

Applicant organizations will need to tell the Foundation about:
- How they use community organizing to promote social change;
- The POCI community or communities they serve and represent;
- The structures and systems behind the challenges their community faces; and
- The power-building goals and strategies they plan to use to change those structures and systems.

All NMF grant recipients share the following characteristics:
- They are led by the people most directly affected by the issues the organization is working on.
- They continually build leadership from within its own membership, base, or community.
- They work to understand and address the root causes of the issues, not just the symptoms.
- They bring people together to build power they wouldn’t have individually. The Foundation defines power as “the capacity of a group of people to decide what they want and to act in an organized way to get it.” (Class Action, Building Bridges Across the Class Divide.)
- They use that power to create institutional, cultural, and/or structural change.
- They see itself as part of a larger movement for social change and work towards strengthening that movement.