MACC COVID Resilience Fund

The MACC Network COVID Resilience Fund provides mini-grants to help our members as they target the critical, but often unfunded operational and program adaptations needed to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crises, and racial injustice harming our communities. The Resilience Fund is made possible by a grant from the Minnesota Council on Foundation's Minnesota Disaster Recovery Fund.

It's been a year since the Minnesota Disaster Recovery Fund (MDRF) made it's first grants to the community. MDRF is commited to learning and improvement and they've published a report: Learnings From Collaborative Funding to Support Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

How they'll use their grant: Banyan has needed to make big shifts in all their programs. Their youth programs are now a mix of  online and in-person support. Their family strengthening program now takes place on Zoom or by phone. Banyan will use the grant for their general operating to help cover the costs of staffing, cleaning, and to support needed changes during this time.

How they'll use their grant: CAPI’s food shelf has moved to a new curbside distribution model that ensures socially distanced interactions with community members and limits the risk of transmission. With the food shelf’s shift to a curbside model, however, CAPI does not have sufficient labor to restack the shelves, prepack the boxes, orchestrate curbside exchanges, and perform the range of other labor-intensive tasks. This grant will help CAPI support a part time food shelf assistant to help with all these critical tasks.

How they'll use their grant: East Side will use the funds for training and troubleshooting support for their Office 365 transition. With about 90% of agency staff working remotely East Side migrated their entire infrastructure the cloud based Office 365. They've had funds for the physical infrastructure but not the training for staff on how to use the new platform. Lack of familiarity with the new technology is getting in the way of staff delivering services. The grant will also support additional finance staff to help East Side manage CARES act funding and ensure that resources get passed on to the community as effectively as possible.

How they'll use their grant: Family Enhancement Center will use this funding to continue offering virtual services for both psycho-therapy and parent education by offsetting the costs of Zoom and Docusign through the first 6 months of 2021. They had been able to offset the cost of zoom until the end of 2020 however, with the pandemic worsening, they're expecting to continue delivery virtual services until at least June 30, 2021.

How they'll use their grant: Hope 4 Youth has remained open to allow youth to access their immediate basic needs; providing services youth are often unable to find elsewhere including a shower and laundry facilities. The grant will Hope 4 Youth staff their expanded Drop-In Center hours for youth, and continue their hot meal program at their drop in center. They will also be able to ensure procedures are followed for social distancing monitoring for illness, and providing PPE for youth, volunteers and staff so everyone can stay safe and connected.

How they'll use their grant: Winter will be here soon and House of Charity will use this funding to purchase outdoor patio heaters and other equipment and supplies to keep people warm outside their facilities. There just isn't enough space for folks to be able to wait inside and distance safely. The heaters will help folks be comfortable while they wait for the public shower, food, or other critical House of Charity services.

How they'll use their grant: Merrick has been absorbing ongoing costs for staffing, PPE, and other program supplies that are currently strained. Merrick Community Services will use the grant from MACC to support some of their core ‘infrastructure’ staff time that is often difficult to get covered through other grants and gifts. Additionally, as they've pivoted to online events and are learning new virtual fundraising models, this grant will help with some financial stability as they move toward the end of the calendar year.

How they'll use their grant: A grant from MACC will help NEON build capacity to maintain their current pace and level of service as their clients work to rebuild North Minneapolis. NEON needs to hire additional staff to work with their North Minneapolis entrepreneurs. They are also working to develop a commercial kitchen so their food entrepreneur clients can have access to commercial kitchen space. Many of the partners NEON used to work with can no longer offer kitchen space due to COVID.

How they'll use their grant: Northwest Indian Community Development Center staff are often are so busy with community needs they work through their lunches; tirelessly and unselfishly and forget to care for themselves. Staff often go without eating or just grab something quick, pre-made and unhealthy. NWICDC will use a grant from MACC to provide healthy foods for their staff prepared by our Nutrition Specialist who is knowledgeable and trained in safe cooking practices.

How they'll use their grant: Phyllis Wheatley Community Center will use the grant to help purchase an additional 100 Chromebooks to distribute to school-aged children and families. Many of their program participants who cannot afford a computer need one in order to access our programs and services. Most importantly, they need to provide computers to school-aged children in their programs so that they can "stay on track" with their studies during the school year.

How they'll use their grant: PCYC will use the grant to support installing new air purifiers in their building. These air purifiers are critical during this pandemic to protect their workers, volunteers and community members who enter our facility. In order to welcome students and the community back into their building PCYC needs to ensure the air in their building is safe and healthy as possible.

How they'll use their grant: Funds from MACC will allow PRISM to pay for temporary workers needed to meet the increased demand they are seeing for their Marketplace Food Shelf. These temporary staff members help PRISM serve their participants quickly by packing food boxes and delivering them to cars. Additionally, these staff members take some of the pressure off PRISM's team and allow permanent PRISM workers to focus on their assigned duties.

How they'll use their grant: Sabathani Community Center will use the grant from MACC to help them reopen their center under stringent COVID guidelines so they can resume discontinued community services, be a much-needed meeting space for the neighborhood, and begin to generate earned income revenue to support all of their programming. The additional cost needed to adhere to strict COVID protocol in order to reopen the building and return to full services is a huge barrier. This includes added maintenance to provide deep cleaning of the building nightly, additional security needs, and needed PPE (masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer stations).

How they'll use their grant: SEWA will use the funds from MACC to meet the greater demand of technology for virtual connectivity, connecting from social media, and increased and regular usage of PPE supplies. The funds will also support the increase in staff and volunteer time needed to meet growing community needs.

How they'll use their grant: Southside Family Nurturing Center will use a grant from MACC to cover the costs and recent unanticipated expenditure for 27 Chromebooks, three Air Purifiers and filters that each offer 500 sq. ft. coverage, three touchless thermometers, and the ongoing purchase of vinyl gloves. These resources will ensure staff and families can stay safe and connected.

How they'll use their grant: In wake of the murder of George Floyd, the feelings of anger, pain, anguish, and confusion have impacted all residents and all staff at Stepping Stone. MACC Resilience Funds will go towards the hiring of two experts who will provide training and guidance on case-based scenarios on Racial Inequities, Implicit and Explicit Bias, and Trust-Building. This training will be given to both staff and Board members and will build on the efforts Stepping Stone has already has in motion.

How they'll use their grant: The Link continues meeting the needs of youth by providing for new and increasing staffing needs. This includes overtime costs for staff who need to cover for sick or medically compromised staff, paid sick time, and modest hourly rate increases for front-line staff providing crisis intervention or working on-site in shelter and other 24/7 programming. The support of MACC for The Link's staffing needs will ultimately allow them to continue providing the ongoing and enhanced services that are needed to stabilize youth and help them navigate the pandemic.

How they'll use their grant: Women of Nations will use the majority of this funding to continue and expand its hotel/motel program. Housing clients in a hotel/motel program is costly, but it has been essential during the pandemic in order to keep clients safe. The funds will also help Women of Nations continue to provide PPE and sanitizer to staff and clients at no cost is perhaps the most important thing Women of Nations is currently doing along with educating on why PPE is so important at this time.