Apple Tree Dental is pleased to announce that the nonprofit organization has just finished the final steps to join forces with ADT Dental, a clinic located in Uptown Minneapolis, and with the nonprofit it helped found, called Ready, Set, Smile. ADT Dental is Apple Tree’s ninth Center for Dental Health, and its third Center located in the Twin Cities region. An innovative funding model that combines both charitable grants and Program-Related Investment (PRI) loans made the partnership possible. The approach was designed to accelerate the growth of nonprofit, Critical Access Dental (CAD) providers, like Apple Tree and Ready, Set, Smile.

When Venn Foundation and Youthprise collaborated to launch MAA with a small pilot in Northfield, MN, in 2018, they used an innovative financing tool called program-related investments (PRIs) to help five students access $1,500 in educational enrichment services. Just four years later, MAA has reached a major milestone. In 2022 alone, the program has advanced over $1 Million in support of 1,150+ students. With two months remaining this year, these numbers continue to grow. Over the past two years, the program has assisted students in over 200 Minnesota cities across 70 counties.

The $1.5 million major gift launches a campaign to raise a total of $2.5 million in charitable capital to build housing for seasonal workers in Rangeley and on Saddleback Mountain. Construction on the $4.5 million, 100-bed accommodation could start as early as late spring 2022. Saddleback Mountain seeks to raise an addition $1 million in charitable gifts for affordable workforce housing and the remaining $2 million in construction costs will come from other sources.

Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing (Thrivent Charitable) announced today a grant of up to $1 million to Venn Foundation and Youthprise to accelerate the growth of their joint Minnesota Afterschool Advance (MAA) initiative over the next year.

Saddleback Mountain, in collaboration with Venn Foundation, is pleased to announce the launch of a new phase in its philanthropic campaign as well as a significant lead gift. Inspired by the rapid progress on re-opening Saddleback Mountain with its much-anticipated, new high-speed detachable quad, PARC Foundation has pledged $1.3 million to Venn Foundation, which has assumed a leadership role in raising charitable capital from supporting donors and deploying it into the Saddleback Mountain project.

In response to COVID-19 and after four years of design, Breathe99 today announces the launch of B2 Mask, a lightweight, reusable respirator that offers industrial-level protection for use in daily life.  Not only does B2 Mask offer superior comfort and protection compared to competitors, its disposable filters can be manufactured quickly to meet crisis-level demand from both the health care system and the general public during a pandemic.

As a self-described “experiential learner,” Jeff Ochs says he learns best by doing—applying himself to new tasks and gaining expertise as he goes. His method is working.

Venn Foundation, with anchor financial support from Bush Foundation, today formally announced a bold new initiative to drive $1 million of seed capital to early-stage social businesses in Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, and the 23 native nations that share this geography (the “region”) before January 1, 2020.  The goal is to help make this region the best place in the country to launch and grow businesses that officially commit to solving social problems.

Acelero Learning, Reflection Sciences and Venn Foundation are collaborating to introduce Executive Function measurement and interventions within select Head Start campuses.

Venn Foundation, in collaboration with The Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF), today released a first-of-its-kind report on the historical use of Program-Related Investments (PRIs) by Minnesota-based private foundations from 1998 to 2016. The PRI PulseTM   report gives Minnesota’s philanthropic and investment communities high-quality information on how PRIs have been used in the past, right when many of the state’s foundations are discussing how best to use them going forward.