Staff at the Minneapolis Urban League has been a buzz about recent budget cuts. One MUL staffer who wishes to remain unidentified says, “I hope the $14,000 that my program is not getting doesn’t affect my job.
It has been alleged that the Minneapolis Urban League will not be getting 4th quarter dollars from the McKnight Foundation. In a ”leaked” letter to the MUL, the McKnight Foundation will not move forward on a grant request for the Minneapolis Urban League favoring an “operational review.”
Is it time for the Minneapolis Urban League to have a Sigma Six review?” (A Six Sigma is a philosophy that mandates operational excellence. This operational excellence is achieved through tools designed to reduce variations in processes. Six Sigma is also considered as a disciplinary methodology by many companies to meet client expectations. As per the philosophy, Six Sigma is not something else that is required to be done but it is what is required to be done.”)
A call made to the McKnight Foundation about the alleged letter regarding stopped funding for the Minneapolis Urban League, and the Foundation being in favor of an operational review, Tim Hanrahan, Communication Director for the McKnight Foundation says, “We don’t have a set amount we give to any programs but we did give the MUL a $50,000 dollar grant for operating support In 2007, (a one year grant).
In an email sent to the Independent Business News Network (IBNN) from the McKnight Foundation’s communications director, Tim Hanrahan – it reads, “After McKnight’s board of directors approves each new grant; we generally follow with a public announcement of the approval. I can tell you that McKnight’s most recent approved grant to the Minneapolis Urban League was for $50,000 in 2007, to support operating expenses. Beyond disclosing approved grants, however, McKnight simply doesn’t comment about confidential discussions with prospective grantees or community partners. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.”
What does this mean for the Minneapolis Urban League? The Minneapolis Urban League established the relationship with the McKnight Foundation in 1972’s when Russ Ewald was the Executive Director of the Foundation and Ms. Virginia McKnight, the matriarch of the McKnight Family made sure that the community in North Minneapolis and all underserved areas in the Twin Cities were being served by the Foundation. As they continue to do today.
There has been a good relationship throughout the years between the Minneapolis Urban League and the McKnight Foundation. Long time community leaders and activists don’t understand why–with the exit of Mr. Clarence Hightower and the upcoming layoffs in January the Minneapolis Urban League has not committed to a Capital Fundraising Campaign or a Membership Drive to assist in building capacity for the organization. The MUL may be facing difficult funding times ahead.
It has been observed that the Minneapolis Urban League, its programs and employees have worked in silo’s “within the building”, opting for the most part not to include other interoffice groups and programs in an effort to create an inept since of competition that cannibalizes the organizations programs, events and employees. For the most part the institution has become an institution unto it’s self – with consequences that don’t favor a productive community social-service organization delivering education, wealth and independence to their target demographic.
A fine example of this is Mr. Hightower’s going away celebration. While the event was going on downstairs, there was another meeting going on upstairs. In our views we think that Mr. Hightower’s celebration trumped anything else going on.
The second example was when the University of Minnesota–School of Medicine had their liaison for the Quit Smoking program interviewing people at the Minneapolis Urban League. The first group to participate was employees from the Social Wellness Cluster at the Minneapolis Urban League – the reward for taking part in the research was a $50 dollar Target Gift Card. We are not against Capitalism – but at the expense of the community turns into an issue. If it was about making a buck – in some cases the community wasn’t alerted including RFP’s (Request for Proposals) and other “soft-services” that could be completed by the community/business talent pool.
The Minneapolis Urban League, outside of its annual dinner is without a fundraiser this year. If questioned different people in the organization as to why the organization failed to mirror other successful social-service agencies in the Twin Cities and around the country by using marketing and communications to assist in creating an in-house source of new funding streams and build capacity through membership drives, the question went unanswered.
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