Note: Last month, we announced that Aimee Witteman, Midwest Climate & Energy program director, will step down from her position on July 30, 2020. After 10 years with McKnight, Aimee is pivoting to new adventures. Following are Aimee’s parting reflections on the climate movement and climate philanthropy, including her thoughts on McKnight’s newly expanded climate …
During this extraordinary moment in history, our communities must contend with two pandemics. The first is a deadly novel coronavirus that confounds experts. The second is systemic racism—an infliction that led to the murder of George Floyd. The convergence of the coronavirus with the senseless police killings of more Black Americans has forced our country …
Reflections on 27 Years of Funding The McKnight Foundation’s board of directors has sustained an impressive 27-year commitment to protecting the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. That commitment was a recognition of the river’s extraordinary history as a focus of community, culture, food production, and transportation for millennia. The river has been, and …
Below is Vice President of Program Neal Cuthbert’s foreword from the McKnight-commissioned Small Towns, Big Ideas: Reimagining Southeast Minnesota, an essay by Jay Walljasper that explores innovative examples of economic resilience in Southeast Minnesota that could serve as models for the entire Midwest. Jay Walljasper’s Small Towns, Big Ideas: Reimagining Southeast Minnesota was commissioned by The …
Through our Pathway Schools Initiative, McKnight partners with seven schools in the Twin Cities — as well as the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute — to align and improve the quality of literacy instruction from PreK-3rd grade. Dual Language Learners (DLLs) make up nearly two-thirds of the student population in our Pathway Schools — across Minneapolis …
It’s been a contentious month for water quality in Iowa. In early March the Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) announced that the utility will file a federal suit against three rural counties in northwest Iowa for nitrate pollution. Residents of Des Moines and other nearby municipalities receive tap water that originates from the Raccoon and …
Even as the high human, economic, environmental, and planetary costs of climate change come into sharper focus, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, tightening the timeframe for a transition to a low-carbon future. Climate change exacerbates growing pressures on life-sustaining resources, including freshwater, soil, and biodiversity. We all have a stake in efforts to …
Elizabeth McGeveran says $1 of every $3 McKnight invests goes to advancing its social goals. Photo credit: Molly Miles The following article was originally published by The Chronicle of Philanthropy on January 8, 2019 as part of a special series of stories on impact investing. It is reprinted here with full permission. Of the biggest foundations …
"There is not in the wide world a river as grand As the one whose bright waves lave my own native land" —Kate Harrington, “The Mississippi River” The Mississippi River is woven throughout the economic and social fabric of Minnesota and the Midwest. Nearly half the country depends on this vast river and its tributaries. …
Minnesota is at an inflection point: We know communities thrive when they have clean drinking water and swimmable, fishable lakes and rivers, but agricultural production, a bedrock part of Minnesota’s economy, continues to contaminate water with high levels of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment. Cities and small towns across the state are grappling with a combination …