Program Background
Program Background: Mississippi River
More than 50 cities and 18 million people rely on drinking water from the Mississippi River and its tributaries. As an ecosystem, a transportation corridor, and a revitalizing community amenity, the Mississippi provides fish and wildlife, economic development, and recreational opportunities. McKnight has a long-term investment and depth of involvement in the river's protection and a keen interest in better understanding any impediments to restoring the river's water quality and resilience.Since 1992, The McKnight Foundation has focused on the 10-state corridor from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico as a funding priority, seeking to maintain and restore the Mississippi River for future generations. The Foundation supports nonprofits that work to restore lands, reduce pollution, and strengthen advocacy for restoration. In 2005, the Foundation initiated the Mississippi River Collaborative, a river-long network of organizations designed to strengthen efforts to reduce all types of pollution entering the river.
In 2009, The McKnight Foundation engaged an external philanthropic advisory group to help evaluate its Mississippi River grantmaking program. The report found that McKnight funding has contributed significantly to the amount of credible information on the river's challenges and potential solutions, increased the capacity of locally focused as well as regionally based groups, and helped create a deeper and more sustained presence by important national conservation organizations.
The renewed goal of our Mississippi River program, since the 2009 report, is to restore the water quality and resilience of the Mississippi River. The three strategies employed in our river work include protecting and expanding floodplains and wetlands in the 10-state Mississippi River corridor, reducing agricultural pollution in the four states along the northern half of the river (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois), focusing on farmland and operations with high nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, and achieving cross-boundary and coordination among the key government agencies whose activities affect the river in the 10-state Mississippi River corridor.