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Housing and Unemployment: The Twin Cities' Hardest-Hit Neighborhoods One Year into the Pandemic

September 1, 2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit Minnesota in March 2020 – marked by state-issued stay-at-home orders to protect public health – our communities felt immediate economic impacts. To learn more about some of these impacts on Minnesotans, Family Housing Fund and Wilder Research partnered to analyze unemployment and housing instability data.

Developing Effective Supports for Immigrants and Refugees: Collaboration across Institutions and Community

September 1, 2017

This paper blends the results of a meta-analysis of research literature which identifies key ingredients for the success of inter-organizational collaboration with empirical data on the experience of recent immigrants and refugees in a region of Minnesota, U.S.A.

Spatial and Skills Mismatch of Unemployment and Job Vacancies

May 1, 2016

Opportunities for integrated transit planning and workforce development. Report by Yingling Fan, Andrew Guthrie, and Kirti Vardhan Das, produced at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, with support from Hennepin County, the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation, and The McKnight Foundation.

2015 Portfolio: Culture Across Communities, an Eleven-City Snapshot

October 27, 2015

This report examines the heart of the nonprofit cultural sector across 11 of the country's major metropolitan regions. Using Cultural Data Project (CDP) information, we examined 5,502 organizations, which collectively have 906,000 paid and volunteer positions and spend $13 billion annually. The communities examined had a collective population of over 75 million residents, 23.7% of the total population of the country. Our goal was to understand the distinctive and shared attributes of the cultural communities across every metro region and 11 distinct disciplines. What are the underlying trends running across all metro regions and disciplines?Are communities recovering from the Great Recession? Where are the pressure points for the sector? What are the challenges and opportunities for specific disciplines? What trends are impacting the long-term health of all cultural nonprofits? Keeping in mind that all data has limitations and that our snapshot represents only a portion of the full scope of creative activity across the country, our analysis nonetheless revealed both expected and surprising findings.

Speaking for Ourselves: Perceptions of Transportation, Housing, and Safety Perceptions among Immigrants and Refugees in the Twin Cities

September 1, 2015

The Speaking for Ourselves survey asked immigrants and refugees living in the Twin Cities about their perceptions and experiences related to education, transportation, housing, public health, safety, employment, finances, community and social engagement, and the immigrant experience. This summary highlights what Speaking for Ourselves participants said about transportation, housing, and safety perceptions.

Yes and No: Conversations about Thriving with Artists of Color in the Twin Cities

June 1, 2015

The Twin Cities arts and culture scene is rich and expansive. It exists strongly in small places and in large institutions, in places easily seen and places more hidden. Yet at the same time as we acknowledge the artistic strength of our region, we are aware of the ways in which not everyone benefits from the cultural assets and thriving cultural economy of our region.Too often our approaches to understanding or addressing these complicated realities take a universal approach rather than a targeted approach to inquiry and analysis. This project was created specifically to hear from working artists of color directly on important questions related to their well being as artists, individuals and community.

The Integration Initiative Final Outcome Report

October 1, 2014

A new report represents the culmination of the first three years of Living Cities' Integration Initiative, supporting approaches with the potential to transform the lives of low-income communities.

Taking Care of Our Own: Lessons Learned About Engaging Military Families in Youth Mentoring

September 30, 2014

This report offers valuable findings from the Amachi Expansion for Military and Civilian Families (AEMCF) project, one of the first large-scale efforts to provide mentoring to military-connected children across multiple states. This report examines how AEMCF served these children and illuminates strategies for reaching and serving military-connected youth and their families more effectively.

Work for All the Crafts: Restoring the Union Depot in St. Paul

June 10, 2014

A new report by DC-based nonprofit Good Jobs First reveals how crafts of every kind will benefit from the private reinvestment stimulated by the Depot in Lowertown and the Green Line.

The McKnight Foundation Education and Learning Program PreK-Third Grade Literacy and Alignment: Formative Evaluation Findings

October 14, 2013

The goals of The McKnight Foundation's Education and Learning (E&L) Program are "to increase the percentage of students reading at grade level by the end of third grade and to increase access to high quality learning beyond the classroom so that all Minnesota's youth thrive." For this work, McKnight formed strategic partnerships with seven grantee schools in the Twin Cities: * Andersen United Community School, Minneapolis Public Schools * Jefferson Community School , Minneapolis Public Schools * Saint Paul Music Academy, Saint Paul Public Schools * Wellstone Elementary School, Saint Paul Public Schools * Earle Brown Elementary School, Brooklyn Center Community Schools * Academia Cesar Chavez, independent charter school * Community of Peace Academy, independent charter school Each school is focused on dramatically improving results for readers across the PreK-3 continuum. The schools first received a one-year planning grant before submitting a three-year proposal to implement their plans to improve PreK -- 3 literacy outcomes. All seven schools are now in the implementation phase. The McKnight Foundation hired SRI International (SRI) and the Center for Applied Research and Education Improvement (CAREI) at the University of Minnesota to evaluate the E&L Program in the grantee schools. The evaluation included only the grantee schools from Minneapolis Public Schools, Saint Paul Public Schools, and Brooklyn Center Community Schools. The charter school grantees are not included in the evaluation. The key purposes of the evaluation are (1) to inform internal stakeholders of the successes and challenges of the work as it is under way so that adjustments can be made and (2) to share lessons learned from implementation with others working to improve the PreK -- 3 continuum and literacy outcomes for students. The evaluation team is collecting and analyzing data on teacher practice and on children's early literacy skills and third-grade reading achievement to assess improvements associated with the initiative.

PreK-3 Professional Development Evaluation Brief

September 10, 2013

Evaluation brief about professional development in McKnight's early literacy grantee school sites. Researched and prepared under contract by SRI International and the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the U of M; part of McKnight's efforts to use research, field-building, and advocacy to increase the percentage of Twin Cities students reading proficiently by the end of third grade.

Health Inequities in the Twin Cities

May 1, 2012

Commissioned by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota, this study examines the economic and social factors that influence health outcomes in the Twin Cities region, and finds that neighborhood, income, education, and race all matter. Opportunities and challenges in reducing health inequities are also discussed. The original study looked at 2000 census data; it was updated in 2012 using 2010 census data or the most recent data available. The update also includes a supplement on three "upstream" factors that contribute to health inequities: access to healthy foods, opportunities for physical activity and social connectedness.