Grants

Looking for funding? The Jewish Community Foundation of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation manages several funds that provide funding through a competitive grant process. Check below to see if any of our participating funds meet your needs.

Louis Herman Memorial Fund

Currently: Closed

The Louis Herman Memorial Fund, a designated fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, is closed to applications for the 2020 grant cycle.  The Louis Herman Memorial Fund has been used to support a variety of organizations in the Jewish community.  Areas of particular interest to the Fund include:

  • Promoting Judaism among children and youth
  • Day school education
  • Israel experience
  • Technology in schools

While the fund does not place a limit on the dollar amount requested, historically most grant recipients have received grants of $5,000 – $20,000.

Special consideration will be given to new and innovative projects. Grants will not generally be awarded for regular operating budgets.

Grant finalists will be invited to give a brief presentation to the Louis Herman Memorial Fund Advisory Committee in June.

Mount Sinai Community Foundation

Currently: Closed

The MSCF funds one-time projects up to $10,000 that fulfill the MSCF’s mission to improve health, enhance well-being, or otherwise advance medical care for Minnesota residents. MSCF gives equal consideration to proposals that impact the Jewish and non-Jewish communities in Minnesota. MSCF is especially interested in proposals that provide innovative approaches for addressing health, well-being or medical care that might not be funded by other grant sources. MSCF also gives priority to identifiable, discrete projects that the Foundation may fund alone or with other funding partners.

Through the generosity of the Frances & Samuel Finkelstein/Janice Finkelstein Mattison Memorial Fund, one of the grants funded will be in the area of cancer research and education. Organizations interested in securing the designated Memorial funds, should address the connection to cancer research and education in their application.

Click here for more information.

The Howard B. & Ruth F. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment Fund

Currently: Closed

The Howard B. and Ruth F. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment Fund is awarding Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council a special three-year grant for its unique Artist Salon series. With a distinctive dialogue format, the Salons invite the public to meet artists explaining what inspires them and how they create their art. Rimon produces its Salon series for Jewish artists in an array of venues throughout the Twin Cities, each uniquely suited to its subject. The Brin Endowment’s funding will enable Rimon to commission new works of art specifically for one of the Salons in each of the three years.

This new grant to Rimon changes the nature of the 30 year-old Brin Endowment which previously had solicited annual applications. The Brin Endowment has awarded more than $150,000 to nearly 130 projects in support of Jewish arts in music, dance, theater, puppetry, literature, visual arts, photography and film.

Learn more about Howard B. & Ruth F. Brin

The Brin Endowment Fund was established in memory of the prominent Minneapolis couple Howard B. Brin and Ruth F. Brin. They believed that the arts are an essential way to enhance Jewish identity. Recognizing the challenges to artists and communities to foster and to support Jewish creativity, their family set up the Brin Endowment. The Brin Endowment endorses and now supports the Rimon Artist Salon commissions to individual artists. 

Howard B. Brin (1919-1988), helped establish the Minneapolis Jewish Community Center in 1967 and was its president; he was also a noted collector of Jewish coins, amateur archeologist who participated in the first famous Masada excavation, and businessman. Ruth F. Brin (1921-2009) was nationally recognized for her 13 published books including children’s books, a memoir, a novel and poetry.  Her pioneering liturgical poetry can be found in the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist prayer books.  

The Howard B. and Ruth F. Brin Jewish Arts Endowment is a designated fund of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation’s Jewish Community Foundation. For further information contact Amy Newman, at anewman@jewishminneapolis.org or David J. Harris at rimon@sabesjcc.org.

The Toodie and Frank Trestman Collaborative Education and Special Needs Fund

Currently: Open

The Toodie and Frank Trestman Collaborative Education and Special Needs Fund supports local efforts in two areas:

  • Collaborative education: formal and informal Jewish education programs that involve collaboration between two or more organizations
  • Special needs: increasing the ability of children and adults with special needs to participate in Jewish life and receive a Jewish education.

Apply here

For an in-depth description of the Trestman Fund’s goals, click here

The Toodie and Frank Trestman
Collaborative Education and Special Needs Fund
The Fund was created through generous donations from our community to the Federation Community Capital Campaign, chaired by Toodie and Frank Trestman. Income derived from investments in designated endowment funds such as this one, help support Federation’s mission to build community, care for the welfare of Jews everywhere and maximize participation in Jewish life.
Grantmaking Focus
The Fund makes grants in the following focus areas:
Collaborative Education – support for formal and informal Jewish education programs that involve collaboration between two or more organizations, primarily (but not exclusively) in three programmatic areas:
  • Family education;
  • Teen programs; and
  • Professional development.
  • Special Needs – subsidies and other support for the education of children and adults with special needs and their participation in all aspects of Jewish community life.  This includes the removal of barriers of attitude, communication, physical accessibility and affordability, the provision of other support to enable people with disabilities to participate in Jewish education (both formal and informal), recreation, and social activities.
Grantmaking Guidelines
  • The target audience of any project or programming must be local.
  • Grants may be awarded from the Fund to support both new and existing programs and/or subsidize tuition or a voucher system.
  • The Fund’s advisory committee will consider multi-year funding requests to support innovative programming that will impact a large segment of our community with special needs and/or programming in the arena of collaborative education.
  • Preference is given to requests that:
  • Are programmatic in nature
  • Assist those in the lowest income brackets
  • Have a track record of proven quality
  • Have a wide reach of impact on the community
  • Requests will NOT be considered to fund education programming for individuals with special needs otherwise funded by the Minneapolis Jewish Federation through unrestricted funds or from the special education funding pool or for requests where funding is available through government, either federal, state or local, sources.

Women’s Endowment Fund

Currently: Closed

The Women’s Endowment Fund supports programs and projects that enhance the lives of women and children in the Jewish community and beyond.

2020 Grant Awards:

  • Adath Jeshurun Congregation – Early Childhood Jewish Family Education
  • Adath Jeshurun Congregation – When the World Feels Like a Scary Place Program
  • Beit Ruth Educational & Theraputic Village – Advocacy and Outreach Initiative
  • Global Village Connect – Tikkun Olam Primary School Farm
  • Jewish Community Relations Council  – Zoom Education on Judaism
  • National Council of Jewish Women – #Me Too to #WeToo Program
  • Sabes JCC – Portable Handwashing Stations for Camp, Inclusion and ECC
  • Sha’arim – Summer Support Scholarship Fund
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