Description

Mariko,
I am pleased to recommend the special grants below. As you know, we invited our democracy grantees to nominate partners for consideration of support. We asked grantees to identify organizations that they collaborate with to advance shared goals or rely upon to carry out their own work. We believed that this approach to grantmaking in an exploratory initiative would be educational for us, helping us to understand better the networks and alliances that shape and define the democracy field. We also wanted to experiment with participatory approaches to grantmaking.
We received more than two dozen nominations. You and I reviewed the endorsements prepared by the democracy grantees and agreed to invite full proposals from six organizations. I have reviewed those proposals and supporting materials and am recommending general operating grants of $100,000 for each of the following:
Department of Public Transformation (DPT), Granite Falls, MN. DPT was nominated by Rural Strategies. Like their ally, DPT works to strengthen rural communities by amplifying the voices and perspectives of those who live in them. DPT is particularly focused on arts-based approaches to building wealth in small towns in the Upper Midwest. Through artist residencies, artist support and networking programs, and facilitated partnerships between towns and artists, DPT seeks to change the popular narrative about small towns in decline and to offer small towns assistance in developing creative economy initiatives. DPT and Rural Strategies both work to ensure that rural America—which is often perceived as alienated from and opposed to the progress of the nation—can tell its own story in all its complexity.