Our Mission

Native Arts & Cultures

Our grantmaking helps ensure that Native arts and cultures of the Upper Midwest, Montana, Idaho, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southwest are more deeply understood, more widely practiced, and more broadly recognized. We strengthen networks of Native artists, supporting their livelihoods and helping communities of practice throughout these regions to thrive sustainably.

Program Highlight: Supporting intergenerational learning in Native Arts & Cultures

Our Native Arts & Cultures grantee partners support indigenous communities in creating art and practicing traditions central to each community’s self-determined cultural identity. This is crucial so that a new generation of Native artists and culture bearers can thrive.

The American Indian College Fund supports programs and opportunities offered at Tribal Colleges and Universities throughout the Upper Midwest. This work includes specialized academic programming, as well as community extension learning.

Because Native arts reflect diverse Tribal cultures and lands, it’s critical to work through established and trusted community partners and programs. When working with trusted community partners, students and practitioners can teach and learn about the arts and cultural practices that are rooted in their specific lands, cultures, and languages.

Students and community members attending a workshop on traditional basket weaving at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, for example, first learn how to identify a cedar tree, remove the bark, and prepare it for weaving. Students enrolled in quillwork at Sitting Bull College in North Dakota begin the course by gathering and sorting quills and collecting dyes before they learn to apply porcupine quills to leather and other materials using traditional patterns.

(left)La Corte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College, Black Ash Basketry workshop. Photo by Amber Marlow.

(right) Buffalo hide tanning workshop at Sisseton Wahpeton College. Photo courtesy of Erin Griffin.

Folk Arts & Cultures

We focus on the deep understanding, wide practice, and broad recognition of Scandinavian folk arts and cultures. Initial areas of support include the Scandinavian American folk arts and cultures in the Upper Midwest and Appalachian folk arts and cultures of the Southeast.

Program Highlight: A Hub for Scandinavian Folk Arts & Cultures in the Midwest

Folk Arts & Cultures including arts, crafts, and other practices have traditionally been passed down through families and networks of acquaintances. Today, schools, arts centers, and cultural venues are honoring and continuing these traditions and making them more widely accessible.

In Decorah, Iowa, Vesterheim, the National Norwegian-American Museum & Heritage Center, is home to thousands of artifacts, many historic buildings, and a Folk Art School that offers classes in such Scandinavian traditions as embroidery, knifemaking, and rosemaling. But not all members and followers from around the region are able to visit Vesterheim regularly.

With MACP support, the organization has been offering offsite classes all over the Upper Midwest to enable lovers of Scandinavian folk arts to remain connected and continue their learning. Participants are delighted and grateful when world-renowned instructors arrive in their town to teach woodcarving at a local church or community center, and it strengthens Vesterheim’s connections to communities well beyond Northeast Iowa.

Above, an example of Rosemåling, a Norwegian style of painting. Artist: Catherine Castellanos.

Below, volunteer weaver Wendy Stevens at the loom.

Preparedness

Our grantmaking helps communities develop a culture of preparedness to reduce disaster vulnerability, foster self-reliance, and address disaster costs and impacts. This focus will reduce human loss and suffering, decrease economic loss, and enable faster recovery after a natural disaster.

Program Highlight: Mercy Corps work in Nepal

Communities along the floodplain in the far western region of Nepal experience annual flooding. Every few years this flooding is catastrophic, with the Mohana River actually shifting its course from 30-100 feet. Unlike major earthquakes, these flooding disasters get little to no media attention and minimal international funding.

To help with preparedness efforts in communities along the river, MACP has funded Mercy Corps’ work to install early-warning systems. Simple technology allows communities upstream to share vital changes in the river’s depth and course with their downstream neighbors. Through these early-warnings, communities can prepare and plan ahead to protect and store their food, water, and other assets.

Knowing that after a flood comes, communities are in dire need of resources, Mercy Corps incorporated a livelihood aspect into their project, which involved planting sugarcane along the riverbanks. Sugarcane is a hardy plant that helps shore up the river from future river-movement and erosion. It’s also a cash crop that isn’t affected by flooding. The sugarcane provides local work and income that is sorely needed for the community to adequately prepare for and recover from recurring flooding.

MACP staff and board visited Nepal and saw Mercy Corps’ work firsthand in February of 2017. Above, bioengineering structures shore up the river, with sugarcane planted in the background. Below, river cutting and erosion along the banks of the Mohana river.

Relief

We focus on meeting the immediate needs of communities in the aftermath of low-attention natural disasters. Working through capable partners, our grantmaking helps reduce suffering and the loss of lives and community assets.

Recovery

Our grantmaking helps ensure the facilities, livelihoods, and living conditions of communities affected by natural disasters are restored and improved in ways that fortify them against future disaster impacts.

Coastal Ecosystems

Some of the planet’s greatest concentrations of wildlife and people depend on coral reefs, mangroves, and coastal wetlands for their survival. Our work helps communities in coastal ecosystems develop strategies to sustain themselves in harmony with their environment, particularly in the face of rising sea levels and other climate change impacts.

Freshwater Ecosystems

With rising stressors on global water supplies, there is growing demand for conservation programs aiding freshwater systems and the biodiversity they support. Our grantmaking focuses on important river basins and the development of sustainable strategies for the communities who depend on these ecosystems to thrive.

Tropical Forests

Tropical forests are the most biodiverse of all terrestrial ecosystems. Sustaining these forests is important for many reasons, including mitigating climate change. Our grantmaking helps communities living in tropical rainforests to develop symbiotic strategies to sustain themselves and their vital forest ecosystems.

Program Highlight: CLUA

An example of putting MACP strategies into practice is our partnership with the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA). Their members share a realization that better land use plays a critical role in addressing the global challenges of climate change.

MACP supports CLUA’s work in implementing sustainable, community-based forest management in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Central America. The Alliance’s efforts are focused on supporting the development and implementation of an effective, sustainable, and equitable strategy for cutting forest emissions.

Around the world, more than a billion poor rural people depend on forest resources for all or part of their livelihoods. When forests are cleared or degraded, it has an immediate impact on local and indigenous communities.

MACP grantmaking to CLUA focuses on strengthening community forestry and local capacity. ‘In many cases, the opportunity to make a global impact on forest loss begins at the community level,’ according to CLUA leader, Chris Elliot. ‘MACP’s commitment, along with the support of other partners, is invaluable in this local-to-global approach, and it’s already beginning to pay dividends.’

Grasslands

Grasslands, particularly in temperate climates, are among the most vital and yet most overlooked of Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. Our grantmaking supports grassland-dependent communities with community-based conservation programs and sustainable strategies to preserve these vanishing ecosystems.

Companion Animals

Our grantmaking helps local shelters and animal welfare organizations advance their work in a number of ways including community outreach, spaying/neutering, and sheltering animals in need.

Program Highlight: A Partnership to Build Capacity of Animal Welfare Organizations

Photo courtesy of the ASPCA and Oneida County Humane Society.

The Animal Welfare domain at Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (MACP) seeks to improve care for domestic animals through building the capacity of local animal welfare organizations within our seven-state region (Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin). To achieve this goal, we partner with highly-capable intermediary organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), to impact communities across the region.

MACP began supporting the Northern Tier Shelter Initiative in 2015. Within this initiative, a dedicated team of four full-time ASPCA staff mentors and provides funding to local organizations. The ASPCA assists groups with a variety of opportunities, including veterinary capacity, healthier shelter environments, and programs to enhance adoptions and community services.

Since the launch of the Northern Tier Shelter Initiative, the ASPCA has engaged in-depth with over 100 local organizations, delivering more than $4 million in sub-grants. Thanks to our partnership with the ASPCA, veterinary care and shelter conditions are indeed improving for animals.

Photo courtesy of the ASPCA and Oneida County Humane Society.

Empathy and Compassion for Animals

Our research has identified educational programs at zoos and aquariums as playing a significant role in fostering strong connections between humans and other animals. This program focuses on helping people of all ages connect with, appreciate, and develop empathy for animals.

Wildlife Rehabilitation

We support organizations that help wild animals that are injured, sick, orphaned, or victims of oil spills, with the aim of recovery and release back into their natural habitats.

Aging

Our Aging program focuses on supporting older adults in targeted rural communities to live their lives with autonomy and dignity. We seek to engage older adults and their caregivers in their own health, promote social engagement, provide access to services and supports, and strengthen the quality of care provided by formal and informal caregivers.

Family Stability

This program works within targeted local communities to encourage healthy, supportive, and stable families, especially those most often left behind. We seek to help vulnerable families achieve greater stability, build supports, and increase self-sufficiency through programs that address the whole family.

Postsecondary Success

Our support focuses on increasing success factors for college students from rural and Native American communities. This includes increasing institutional commitment to student success and investing in interventions across key moments of the student experience. These efforts ultimately aim to improve the retention, attainment, skill development, graduation, and employability of these students.

Youth Camping & Swimming

We support camps, swimming, and other enrichment experiences that provide positive, affirming, and safe exposure to nature and build character and community for all youth. This program focuses on improving the quality and accessibility of nature-based residential camp programs as well as swimming programs that improve safety around water.

Every year, the Y teaches more than one million children from all backgrounds invaluable water safety and swim skills. “This year, we’re committed to addressing the disturbing statistics around fatal youth drownings by making free swim lessons available to more than 27,000 children in underserved communities,” commented Kevin Washington, President and CEO of Y-USA. “It’s our mission to help mitigate the socio-cultural factors that inhibit today’s youth, especially those of color in urban communities, from receiving the potentially lifesaving skills to keep them safe in and around water.”

Since 2013, MACP has provided support to Y-USA for swim scholarships and programs reaching nearly 57,000 youth. With continued support in 2017, that number will increase to 84,750 youth impacted through our partnership with Y-USA on water safety.

Arts Education

Our grantmaking focuses on improving development and increasing recruitment of qualified students and teachers so that more high quality educators who teach the arts exist and remain in K-12 schools. This program is in its early stages, with efforts focused in Wisconsin and Alaska.

Southern California Grantmaking

We provide assistance and support to Southern California beneficiary organizations specifically named by our founder, Margaret Cargill.