Thank you for your interest in seeking a grant from the McKnight Foundation. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with our varied Programu and their specific strategies and grantmaking criteria. In addition, McKnight has ended four program areas: Education, Region & Communities, Mississippi River, and Southeast Asia.
Arts & Culture
Our strategies include: supporting partnerships that provide direct support for individual artists and culture bearers; developing and sustaining the presence and visibility of underrepresented artists and cultural institutions, including Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx artists, and those in rural areas, Tribal Nations, and across Greater Minnesota; and supporting working artists and culture bearers advancing justice.
Organizations that fit our eligibility and selection criteria can apply directly through McKnight’s website.
Individuals can apply for a grant through the Regional Arts Councils or an Artist Fellowship through one of our fellowship program partners. Minnesota-based public artists can apply for a grant from our partner Forecast Public Art. Once a year, a committee selects one artist to receive a Tuzo la Wasanii maarufu.
How to Apply for an Arts & Culture Grant
Ushirika wa Wasanii wa McKnight
Misaada ya Baraza la Sanaa za Mikoa
Chagua Msanii kwa tuzo la Msanii wa Wasanii wa McKnight
Mikopo ya Sanaa ya Umma Midcareer
Global Food
The program’s projects generate technical and social innovations to improve productivity, livelihoods, nutrition, and equity for farming communities. Large-scale impact is realized when new ideas, technologies, or processes are adapted to different contexts, when insights from research catalyze change in policy and practice, and when innovation inspires further success.
Midwest Climate & Energy
The program takes a systems change lens, focusing on shifting the conditions that perpetuate the climate crisis, which includes structural racism. Grantmaking is directed toward work that shifts mental models, changes power dynamics, engages communities, and advances transformative policies, practices, and resource flows.
Our strategies include:
- Transform the Energy System
- Decarbonize Transportation
- Decarbonize Buildings
- Support Working Lands
- Strengthen Democratic Participation
Neuroscience
Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Award
Tuzo za Scholar
Tuzo za Teknolojia
Jumuiya Mahiri na Usawa
- Accelerate Economic Mobility
- Build Community Wealth
- Cultivate a Fair and Just Housing System
- Strengthen Democratic Participation
Within these strategies, we seek to achieve systemic improvements in individual, community, and societal outcomes. We look to the ingenuity of people working together across Minnesota to craft solutions that meet community-defined needs, address local context, and shift policies, practices, and institutions in lasting ways.