Providing Tools to Build a Healthy Community

Friends,

The Dalai Lama once offered, “The creation of a more peaceful and happier society has to begin from the level of the individual, and from there it can expand to one's family, to one's neighborhood, to one's community and so on.”

For more than 75 years, The Saint Paul & Minnesota Community Foundations have worked to strengthen our state and ensure that Minnesota is a place where everyone can thrive. We consistently work to make our community stronger and more equitable.

One of our strategic objectives is strengthening communities. To achieve this, we partner with members of the community to create lasting legacies while solving important community challenges. We know that this partnership ultimately ensures a stronger, healthier community.

At the Foundations, we believe that when it comes to the overall health of our community, it is not our task to make a diagnosis and prescribe treatment. It is our responsibility to make certain that the community has agents and agencies of change that are equipped with the tools and support needed to execute this important work.

The needs facing our community today cross the stress lines of disparity more than ever. We continuously seek to attend to the stress lines in areas such as education, economic opportunity and security, community connectedness, health, housing and transportation and human services and family support. Fortunately, we live in a community filled with agents and agencies of change that are well equipped to both diagnose and care for members of the community in the midst of whatever stress we experience.

Our role in supporting these active individuals and organizations is an eternal one, because it is their ongoing work that determines the health of the community.

The Saint Paul & Minnesota Community Foundations are committed to investing in people and organizations that have a passion for community and will attend to the needs of today. We also intend to give rise to new voices seeking to have an impact on the challenges of the future.

Eric J. Jolly, Ph.D.
President & CEO
The Saint Paul & Minnesota Community Foundations