Overview
In recent years, the state of Minnesota has been one of the epicenters of the national reckoning on racial bias in policing. In May 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was murdered in Minneapolis by a White officer of the Minneapolis Police Department. Floyd had been arrested for allegedly making a purchase using a counterfeit $20 bill. While Floyd was handcuffed, the police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, despite Floyd exhibiting signs of distress and repeatedly saying he was unable to breathe. Widespread protests began in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area and quickly spread nationwide and across the world. This was not the first time the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area had to grapple with police violence. The 2015 fatal shooting of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis and the 2016 fatal shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights (a suburb of Saint Paul) both inspired significant protests in the Twin Cities and beyond.
This is the charged environment in which the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation (the Foundation) has been operating, and has made the Foundation’s equity journey all the more essential and powerful. Founded in 1940, the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation is a statewide community foundation, serving the entire state of Minnesota. The Foundation granted $90M in 2022, and stewards assets of $1.7B. Reflecting on the impact of these incidents of police violence, President and CEO Dr. Eric Jolly said, “Philando Castile, George Floyd, and other tragic events, they put Minnesota in the wrong space on a map … these community traumas underscored the criticality of our equity work in every way.”
Racial Equity Updates
The Foundation’s board approved the responsible investment policy. The policy affirms the criticality of aligning the investment portfolio to the Foundation’s aspiration and values. Related, the Investments Team is engaged in a community-centric design process that will result in the Foundation’s ability to more fully leverage the full spectrum of its capital to achieve social impact and financial returns.
The Foundation hired Alfonso Wenker as the VP of Community Impact. Alfonso has extensive experience in designing, building and implementing equity strategies and under his leadership, the Community Impact Team is undergoing a community-informed grant redesign process that recognizes the ongoing social and economic impacts of the pandemic and structural racism. The Foundation also promoted Rhonda Cox to VP of People and Culture; Rhonda sits on the executive leadership team which further ensures that the Foundation’s practices of equity, belonging, and inclusion are integrated into our culture all decisions related to our people.