OVERVIEW: The McKnight Foundation is a Minnesota-based funder that supports work in its home state and throughout the Midwest, as well as neuroscience research across the U.S. and agroecology work in select countries in Africa and South America. Its core grantmaking areas are Midwest Climate & Energy, Vibrant & Equitable Communities, Arts & Culture, Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems, and Neuroscience. McKnight also maintains a longstanding relationship with six independent Minnesota Initiative Foundations serving Greater Minnesota.
IP TAKE: McKnight is a major funder in its areas of giving, with a particularly strong footprint in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. Its giving prioritizes systems change, community power, collaboration and equity, and the foundation has substantially increased its grantmaking in recent years. McKnight reported more than $150 million in grant payments in 2025, its highest annual total to date.
In a recent Inside Philanthropy interview, McKnight president Tonya Allen emphasized the importance of working collaboratively with nonprofits and other funders. “If you believe in an organization, act like you do,” she said, “meaning, give them enough resources and figure out how we can bring additional resources to them, like creating relationships with other funders, and connecting them to research and ideas.” McKnight has subsequently increased it’s payout.
For grantseekers, McKnight is more accessible than an “invitation-only” label suggests. The Vibrant & Equitable Communities program, Arts & Culture program and Midwest Climate & Energy program for organizations based in and working in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa accept applications on a rolling basis through a one-step process. McKnight encourages prospective applicants to familiarize themselves with program priorities and, in most cases, contact program staff before applying. Communities explicitly notes that a staff conversation is encouraged but not required for funding. Climate grantmaking elsewhere in the Midwest remains invitation-only.
Access is narrower in other areas. Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems is primarily invitation-only, although McKnight periodically issues thematic open calls. Neuroscience operates through competitive award cycles rather than conventional nonprofit grant applications. Individual Minnesota artists generally access McKnight support through fellowship partners, Regional Arts Councils, Forecast Public Art or the Distinguished Artist Award.
McKnight is unusually transparent for a private foundation. Its website provides program strategies, application guidance, staff information and a searchable database covering recent grants. For organizations that fit its geographic and strategic priorities, this is an important funder to know — and, in several programs, one that can be approached directly.
PROFILE: Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is an independent family foundation based in Minneapolis. This is the foundation of William McKnight, one of the early leaders of the 3M company, and his wife, Maude McKnight. Today, fourth-generation family members actively serve on its board of trustees. According to its mission statement, the McKnight Foundation “advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and the planet thrive.”
McKnight’s latest strategic framework places “equity, stewardship, respect and curiosity” at the center of its approach. The foundation describes itself as a “funder, convener, thought leader, and as an employer, economic entity, and institutional investor,” using all of its “resources and leveraging all forms of capital, including social investment and philanthropic risk capital” to facilitate its mission.
McKnight’s grantmaking is organized around five principal program areas: Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems, Midwest Climate & Energy, Arts & Culture, Neuroscience, and Vibrant & Equitable Communities. It also supports the six Minnesota Initiative Foundations and makes additional grants outside its standing portfolios through categories including Other Grantmaking and its recent All In On Mission increase.
Grants for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
McKnight’s Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems, formerly the Collaborative Crop Research Program, seeks to cultivate resilient food systems by connecting farmer-centered agroecological research, action and influence. The program supports collaborative research and knowledge-sharing involving smallholder farmers, research institutions, development organizations and other partners.
Its current strategy works at two interconnected levels: accelerating local and regional food-systems transformation through co-created agroecological knowledge and practice, and influencing funding flows, policies, research norms and agendas that affect agroecology internationally.
Grantmaking is organized around three regional Communities of Practice and cross-cutting work:
- The Andes Community of Practice works in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.
- The East & Southern Africa Community of Practice works in Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya and Uganda.
- The West Africa Community of Practice works in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
- The Cross-cutting grant portfolio supports work relevant across the regional communities and McKnight’s global strategy, including innovations in agroecological research and efforts to influence funding, policy and research systems.
This is McKnight’s least accessible major program for unsolicited grantseekers. The foundation describes the program as invitation-only with occasional thematic open calls. Proposals are accepted from organizations invited by McKnight or in response to an open call. Prospective applicants should monitor the program’s application page for new opportunities.
Recent grantmaking includes farmer organizations, universities, research institutes and development organizations working on agroecology, farmer-led research, climate resilience, soil health, crop diversity, nutrition and food-systems transformation. The foundation reported roughly $10.8 million in Global Foods grant payments in 2025.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
In 2013, the McKnight Foundation reimagined its larger environment program to create a more targeted Midwest Climate & Energy program, which seeks to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while advancing an equitable clean-energy transition in the Midwest. The program takes a systems-change approach and directs funding toward work that changes policies, practices, power dynamics and resource flows.
Its five current strategies are transforming the energy system, decarbonizing transportation, decarbonizing buildings, supporting working lands, and strengthening democratic participation. Grantmaking may support organizing, policy advocacy and implementation, research, coalition-building and efforts to advance equitable climate solutions.
- Access varies by geography. Organizations based in and working in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa may submit proposals directly, while organizations in other Midwestern states are generally invitation-only. McKnight has a one-step, rolling application process and provides both operating and project grants. Prospective applicants are asked to contact the Climate team before beginning an application.
- Grantseekers should pay close attention to the program’s systems-change orientation. McKnight generally does not fund isolated construction, equipment or implementation projects without a broader strategic rationale. Recent grants include support for clean transportation, rural climate organizing, clean-energy policy and implementation, working lands, utility reform and community participation in climate decision-making. Its current grants database includes awards to groups such as Clean Grid Alliance, Clean Up the River Environment and Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.
- McKnight paid approximately $32 million through this program in 2025, making Climate & Energy one of its two largest standing portfolios.
- Recent grants have gone to Minneapolis’s Center for Energy and Environment, the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition and the St. Paul Transportation Management Association.
Grants for Mental Health, Brain and Cell Research
The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience is an independent charitable organization established by the McKnight Foundation. It supports research intended to advance understanding of the brain and bring neuroscience closer to preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases of the brain and behavior. Unlike McKnight’s nonprofit grant programs, funding is awarded to scientists through competitive research awards.
- The Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Award supports scientists applying findings from basic research to neurological and psychiatric disorders. Up to four awards are made annually, with each providing $100,000 per year for three years, or $300,000 total. Current priorities include innovative research on mechanisms of brain disease and translating discoveries toward diagnosis, prevention, treatment or cure.
- The McKnight Scholar Awards support exceptional neuroscientists in the early stages of establishing independent laboratories and research careers. Up to 10 Scholars may be selected in the 2027 competition, with each receiving $75,000 annually for three years, or $225,000 total. The program supports significant questions in neuroscience and is not limited to learning and memory disorders.
- As of August 2026, both 2027 competitions are open: Neurobiology of Brain Disorders applications are due October 15, 2026, while Scholar Award applications are due November 3, 2026. Applicants should consult the respective program pages for eligibility requirements and future deadlines.
Grants for Housing, Community and Economic Development
McKnight’s Vibrant & Equitable Communities program seeks to advance “a vibrant future for all Minnesotans with shared power, prosperity, and participation.” Its four strategies focus on accelerating economic mobility, building community wealth, cultivating a fair and just housing system, and strengthening democratic participation.
This is primarily a systems-change portfolio, not a general human-services program. McKnight supports activities including community organizing, research, analysis, planning and nonpartisan policy advocacy. The program does not generally fund direct services, including basic social services, case management and emergency shelter.
- The program provides operating and project support and accepts applications on a rolling, one-step basis. McKnight encourages prospective applicants to speak with program staff before applying, but explicitly says such a conversation is not required for funding. Fiscally sponsored organizations may also be considered, provided an appropriate fiscal-sponsorship agreement is in place.
- Grantmaking concentrates heavily in Minnesota and emphasizes work that can shift systems, policies and institutions affecting economic opportunity, wealth, housing and civic participation. Recent grantees in McKnight’s database include Aeon, African American Leadership Forum, 100 Rural Women and other housing, economic justice, community-power and civic-engagement organizations.
- McKnight reported about $31.5 million in Vibrant & Equitable Communities payments in 2025.
Grantees include Minneapolis’s Urban Homeworks, the Neighborhood Development Alliance of St. Paul and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.
Grants for Arts and Culture
McKnight’s Arts and Culture program seeks to catalyze the “creativity, power, and leadership of Minnesota working artists and culture bearers.” The program supports organizations as well as individual artists through a network of fellowship, regranting and award partners.
- Arts organizations, groups and Tribal Nations may seek general operating or project funding, primarily for work in Minnesota. McKnight makes limited grants outside the state when there is a clear benefit to Minnesota artists and culture bearers. Although most organizational grantees are tax-exempt nonprofits, nonprofit status is not an absolute requirement.
- Organizational applications are rolling and one-step, and prospective applicants are asked to contact the Arts & Culture team before applying. McKnight generally does not fund organizations that fail to compensate artists and culture bearers, primarily present rather than produce art, focus on single events or festivals, primarily serve youth or provide arts education/social services, or are at the very beginning of organizational formation.
Its McKnight Artist and Culture Bearer Fellowships provide mid-career artists with unrestricted grants of $25,000.
The McKnight Distinguished Artist Award “recognizes artists who have made a lifelong commitment to creating art that is locally, regionally, and/or nationally significant” with awards of $50,000.
The foundation also supports Minnesota’s eleven Regional Arts Councils, which direct McKnight funding toward individual artists and arts programs across the state.
Note that the McKnight Arts program has grant guidelines that are distinct from other focus areas. Arts grants can support either individual artists or arts organizations.
Past arts and culture grantees include the Duluth Art Institute, Minnesota’s Full Circle Theater Company, the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis and the Minneapolis American Indian Center.
Grants for Greater Minnesota
McKnight has supported the Minnesota Initiative Foundations since establishing them in 1986 during the farm crisis. These are six independent, locally governed regional foundations, not branch offices of McKnight. They serve Greater Minnesota through grantmaking, business financing, regional programming, donor services and other locally driven economic and community-development work.
- The six are West Central Initiative, Northland Foundation, Initiative Foundation, Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, Southwest Initiative Foundation and Northwest Minnesota Foundation. In July 2026, McKnight announced $6 million in new support, or $1 million for each foundation, as the organizations marked their 40th anniversaries.
- For nonprofits in Greater Minnesota, the relevant Initiative Foundation may itself be an important local funding prospect. Applicants should approach the appropriate regional foundation directly for its own grant opportunities rather than treating the Initiative Foundations as a McKnight application program.
Other Grantmaking and Special Initiatives
McKnight also makes grants outside its standing program portfolios. Its 2025 totals included roughly $28.2 million in Other Grantmaking and $32.5 million through its All In On Mission increase. These categories have supported civic, community and emergency-response efforts as well as large intermediary and collaborative grants.
McKnight does not advertise a general unsolicited application process for these flexible or special-purpose funds. Recent grantmaking shows that the foundation sometimes works through community foundations, fiscal sponsors, regional funders and other intermediaries to move resources to organizations and communities. Grantseekers should not assume that these special initiatives represent standing open funding opportunities.
Important Grant Details:
McKnight reported more than $150 million in grant payments in 2025, its highest annual level to date. Its latest available Form 990-PF, covering 2024, reports total year-end assets of about $2.71 billion.
Grantmaking tends to prioritize community and economic development, as well as the environment; however, grant history shows a healthy amount of giving across all focus areas.
McKnight accepts unsolicited applications in several major programs. Arts & Culture and Vibrant & Equitable Communities accept rolling applications, as does Midwest Climate & Energy for organizations based in and working in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
- Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems is generally invitation-only, with occasional thematic open calls.
McKnight provides general operating (unrestricted) and specific program/project (restricted) grants to organizations, groups and Tribal Nations primarily in Minnesota.
This funder makes grants all over the U.S. and in specific areas abroad, but U.S. based-grants appear to prioritize Minnesota and, to a lesser extent, also cluster in New York and California.
- Grantseekers should begin with the foundation’s current program pages and grantseeker guidance. Where McKnight requests contact before applying, a short, well-targeted conversation with the relevant program team is more useful than a generic introductory pitch.
Information about past grantmaking is available at the foundation’s Grants Database.
- Inquiries may be submitted via the foundation’s contact form or to specific staff members, whose emails are available at McKnight’s staff page.
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