Photo courtesy of Feed My Starving Children
In the North Star State, we know a thing or two about giving. In fact, Minnesota is widely regarded as a philanthropic powerhouse, consistently ranked as a top charitable state by WalletHub. On Give to the Max Day in 2024, Minnesotans raised more than $37 million through the contributions of 6,556 organizations, showcasing a deep, statewide commitment to philanthropy. According to AmeriCorps data, about 40% of state residents volunteered in 2024.
Meeting Basic Needs
But there’s always more work to be done. Food insecurity affects more than 20% of Minnesotan households, according to a recent study by Second Harvest Heartland and Wilder Research. Second Harvest Heartland, based in Brooklyn Park, distributed more than 167 million pounds of food last year. The organization’s services include SNAP education, summer meals for children, and food boxes for low-income seniors. Feed My Starving Children engages volunteers to pack meals distributed to over 112 countries. Likewise, Open Arms of Minnesota, based in Minneapolis, delivers weekly, tailored meals to critically ill residents, preparing more than 800,000 meals in the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Addressing housing needs, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity provides affordable homeownership opportunities and advances racial equity in housing. Bridging, a charity with warehouses scattered around the Twin Cities, offers furniture and essentials to families in need, while People Serving People, one of the largest family-centered homeless shelters in Minneapolis, provides meals, early childhood programs, financial skills training, and resources to help families achieve stability. Volunteers can support these organizations through hands-on or behind-the-scenes work.
Community Connections
Organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS), Ace in the City, and Literacy Minnesota focus on youth and education. BBBS pairs youth with mentors through various programs, and Minneapolis’ Ace in the City fosters literacy, family engagement, and fair housing efforts. St. Paul’s Literacy Minnesota helps adults advance their reading skills through free in-person and digital programs. Additionally, the world’s 200,000th Little Free Library was inaugurated in St. Paul in March of this year, promoting literacy and community engagement.
Several Minnesota businesses integrate philanthropy into their operations. Love Your Melon, through partnership with more than 200 hospitals, donates $1 per product sold toward the fight against pediatric cancer. Meanwhile, Minneapolis-based Fair Anita partners with artisans in nine countries to create fair-trade jewelry, ensuring fair wages and educational support. Woodchuck USA plants a tree for every Minnesota-made customizable wood product sold, with more than 4 million trees planted worldwide. Serving Those Serving focuses on mental health care and harm reduction in the restaurant and bar industry, equipping establishments with naloxone and fentanyl test strips to combat the opioid crisis.
Photo courtesy of Communities Organizing Latinx Power and Action
True to the diverse cultural spirit of the Twin Cities, organizations like Voices for Racial Justice, based in Minneapolis, work to honor the knowledge, power, and healing of Black communities, Indigenous communities, and other communities of color. Communities Organizing Latinx Power and Action empowers Minnesota’s Latino community through
advocacy in environmental justice, civic leadership, health, and voting rights, while St. Paul-based Minnesota Voice increases voter participation in underrepresented communities to ensure every voice is heard.
With thousands of charities serving communities across the state, it’s clear the desire to lend our neighbors a helping hand is deeply ingrained within our collective culture. Here, “Minnesota nice” is more than just an arbitrary stereotype—it’s an unspoken mandate we embrace with pride, year after year.
My Twin Cities: Shoreé Ingram
Executive Director, Voices for Racial Justice
How long have you lived in Minnesota?
Thirty-four years.
What is your favorite part about living in Minnesota?
I love experiencing the best parts of all four seasons, especially in nature. I’m in the lakes every summer, at the orchards with my family every fall, sledding every winter, and watching life bloom again—what feels like overnight at times—in the spring, once the weather breaks.
How does your organization impact the quality of living for individuals in the Twin Cities?
Voices for Racial Justice is a multiracial organization that builds power among Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color throughout Minnesota to impact the quality of living for everyone in the state. Our vision is a future where we all know how to be in caring community with each other, the world, and ourselves.
How is Voices for Racial Justice working to meet the needs of BIPOC members
in the community?
We were founded as the Organizing Apprenticeship Project and spent more than two decades training organizers to build power in Minnesota’s progressive organizations and government agencies. As we trained new organizers, we taught them not only the skills of organizing but also how to think about their own identities, how white supremacy shaped their lives, and how systemic barriers to racial and economic justice presented in their work. Over the past three decades, we have trained hundreds of leaders on different systems and issue areas of importance to BIPOC Minnesotans.
Is there anything else you’d like to mention about the nonprofit sector of the Twin Cities?
The Twin Cities is abundant with kind and caring people who seek change in the world, doing incredible things through nonprofit and grassroots-led movements. It is up to us to be in relationship with one another—creating, supporting, and being the type of communities we hope to see. Consider this a call to action or a gentle invitation.
