Three Minnesota nonprofits are receiving up to $500,000 from the Bush Foundation to boost their community work.
The St. Paul-based foundation announced Tuesday the recipients of its competitive "Bush Prize for Community Innovation" awards. This is the seventh year of the Bush Prize, the foundation's biggest open application grant program.
The Hmong American Partnership in St. Paul, which provides social services and programs to immigrants and refugees, and the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center in Minneapolis, which runs programs for Native American women and their families, each received $500,000 grants. The Rural Renewable Energy Alliance in Backus, Minn., which provides solar assistance and does solar projects in low-income and Native American communities, got $408,000.
Two nonprofits in South Dakota and North Dakota also received the competitive grants: Valley City-Barnes County Development Corporation in Valley City, N.D., received $358,000, while the Wokini Initiative of South Dakota State University in Brookings, S.D., got $500,000.
Bush, which is among the 10 largest foundations in Minnesota in terms of the amount it gives each year, doled out $35.7 million last year.
"It is unusual to give big, unrestricted grants like this. We think of it as creative capital," Bush Foundation President Jennifer Ford Reedy said in a prepared statement. "These are organizations who have shown they can make amazing things happen, working with their communities."
The five winners were selected out of 81 applications. The prize is awarded to organizations "with a track record of successful community problem solving," the foundation said.
Kelly Smith • 612-673-4141
