Insights Archives

In October, Compass hosted its second annual Fact-based fundraising seminar for grant seekers and foundation program officers. Neal Cuthbert, vice president of program at The McKnight Foundation, talked about McKnight's new evaluation framework, the strategy behind it, and how his organization is using evaluation to assess the effectiveness of its grantmaking investments. Here is an excerpt from his remarks.

The Unequal Distribution of Health in the Twin Cities, a new Wilder Research study commissioned by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation, reveals some surprising socioeconomic factors that may influence health in the region. Marsha Shotley talks about the findings and how Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation is working to address them.

Ahh, summer. We hate to see you go. But for those of us who care about educational equity, maybe we shouldn't be so sad. A recent article in Time magazine made the case that summer itself is a culprit in the achievement gap between high-income and low-income students, often between white students and students of color.

Over the past several months, many Compass users have asked how to find data for their county. Susan Brower points out some interesting county trends and walks us through the steps to finding it on Compass.

It takes a village: coalitions across the state work together to nurture children

Jennifer Ford Reedy is vice president of strategy and knowledge management for Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation. She drives strategy development and implementation across all areas of the two Foundations. She guided the development and launch of Minnesota Idea Open, an idea platform designed to involve as many Minnesotans as possible thinking and talking about solutions to critical issues facing our state.

Minnesota Compass research intern Heather Vinge Hanson recently completed a literature review of evidence-based strategies that combat obesity from a systems-change perspective, rather than those that involve actions individuals can take.

We talked with Andi Egbert about working on the new immigration section on Compass. Get Andi's take on why it was exciting to expand the immigration data, what surprised her, and what Compass has that you can't find anywhere else. We hope you will use Andi's suggestions as an impetus to delve deeper into this rich topic.