Today is Give to the Max Day! Give to the Max Day is an organized statewide effort started in 2009 by GiveMN to show an outpouring of support for local non-profits and schools doing fantastic work in Minnesota.
We encourage you to join us as we take the time today to support these organizations. Below we have listed organizations that work directly with women, children, and families locally! We have been fortunate enough to create relationships with many of them as we have partnered together through events.
Please note: This is just a small list of a few great causes that benefit our community’s women, children, and families. For a full list of your favorite organizations, visit the Give to the Max website!
Featured Causes
Emerge Mothers Academy (Shoreview) | Emerge Mothers Academy was founded in 2011 and officially recognized by the IRS as a 501c3 non-profit organization in 2012. Since then we have come alongside many Twin Cities families, headed up by single mothers, to serve them in many facets of their lives. We value: Personal Development, Health & Wellness, Constructive Parenting, and Financial Independence. Each of our programs point back to these values, and serve the mothers in their deepest needs (emotional, mental, spiritual and tangible) as they strive to emerge from the depths of abandonment, divorce, separation, death or betrayal. One of the greatest ways we are serving these women is with our Work-Preparation and MicroLoan grant program. In both cases we are making leaders of these women, helping them see their great capacity for change and building back their confidence. We also have a 94% job-placement rate! WOW! We are grateful for your support, your donations are used to help make a lasting difference in these precious Minnesotan lives.
Kids in Need Foundation (Roseville) | The Kids In Need Foundation’s mission is to ensure that every child is prepared to learn and succeed in the classroom by providing free school supplies nationally to students most in need. For the 15 million kids who come from families struggling with extreme poverty, getting school supplies can make all the difference in the world to their future success. Last year, the Kids In Need Foundation helped nearly 200,000 teachers and more than 6 million students in some of the most challenged communities across the country.
Dress for Success Twin Cities (St. Paul) | The mission of Dress for Success is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. They offer high touch, high impact career and workplace skills development programs for low income women to help them achieve career advancement, career stability and economic sustainability.
Women
Missing Grace Foundation (Rogers) | National nonprofit providing support, education and resources for families experiencing a pregnancy or infant loss, infertility or adoption.
Second Stork (St. Paul) | Second Stork gives women the basics to care for a newborn during the first crucial months of life. Second Stork is dedicated to serving a very distinct and typically under-served group of women — new mothers who find themselves in desperate need of practical, immediate support. They focus on direct and urgent material aid — diapers, portable cribs, and other essential care items. Their goal, through the partnership of hospital social workers, is to provide assistance as soon as a mother’s need becomes evident, with no red tape, no paperwork … just immediate help. They currently serve over 60 Minnesota hospitals and will help 2,000 newborns in crisis this year.
Women Venture (Minneapolis) | Women Venture is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping women start and grow small businesses in the Twin Cities. For more than three decades, WomenVenture has provided women of all ages, cultures, races and income levels with the tools and resources to achieve economic success through small business ownership.
Children & Families
360 Communities (Burnsville) | 360 provides hope and support to about 18,000 individuals each year with services in over 40 locations, including a network of five food shelves, two resource centers, two domestic and sexual violence shelters (Lewis House), and two programs that support school success from birth through high school graduation.
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation (St. Paul) | A nonprofit community organization that helps children, families and older adults in the greater East Metro area of Saint Paul through direct service programs, research, leadership development, and community building. Wilder serves thousands of children and families each year through mental health, education, housing, social adjustment, early childhood, and aging programs.
Andrew’s Bravery Box | Andrew’s Bravery Box currently serves Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota by providing toys and rewards for some of the bravest people in the world. Each and every day, patients at Children’s show courage as they push through tough situations in their battle against illnesses, congenital heart defects, cancer, and many other conditions that require hospitalization. By providing small rewards in the form of toys, activities, and other fun items for families and nurses to give to patients, Andrew’s Bravery Box seeks to make the hardest parts about a hospital stay a little easier to endure. Whether a patient has a fear of IV’s, an aversion to taking medications, or is just needs some encouragement, we want to reward their courage and provide the tools for families and staff to be able to do so in every situation.
Arc Greater Twin Cities (St. Paul) | Creating a good life starts with making choices about personal relationships, where to live, attending school and work, and how to spend leisure time. Support The Arc GTC by using your voice to create powerful change in your community through the choice of giving.
Boys and Girls Club of the Twin Cities (St. Paul) | The mission of Boys & Girls Clubs of the Twin Cities is to enable all young people, especially those who need it most, to realize their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.
Cookie Cart (Minneapolis) | Cookie Cart gives teens the skills they need to build better futures. Our unique “earn as you learn” program empowers young people with a paycheck, prepares them for work with foundational job skills and tools, and exposes them to opportunities that broaden their views of what’s possible.
Doing Good Together l Doing Good Together™ (DGT) empowers families to raise thoughtful, civic-minded children by offering opportunities for them to practice kindness and serve others. Families who seek ways to contribute helps to offer unique opportunities for families to add more compassion and empathy to their daily lives. And with a new awareness and an urgent need to think deeply and talk openly about justice, inequity and humanity from a young age, we feature Raising an Anti-racist Generation tools. Together, we can build a better world.
Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota (Twin Cities)| That is the Down Syndrome Association of Minnesota’s mission as they offer parent groups, resources, support, medical and educational outreach, conferences and events for individuals with Down syndrome and their families/caregivers throughout the state.
Girls on the Run Twin Cities (Minneapolis) | Inspiring girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun experience-based curriculum, which creatively integrates running. Girls on the Run Twin Cities, Inc. is a transformational youth development program for girls in 3rd-8th grade. We teach life skills through dynamic, interactive lessons and running games.
Greater United Way (Twin Cities) | United Way partners with non-profits, businesses, government, and social services agencies to help with the greatest needs in the community. United Way focuses on two areas: Safety Net (basic needs) and Education/Job training. One of their programs, Women United, is comprised of strong and like-minded women whose goal is to fund innovative programs to help women find financial stability and early childhood education.
HandsOn Twin Cities (Minneapolis) | Established in 1919 as America’s first volunteer center, HandsOn Twin Cities is the Twin Cities only full-service volunteer center that both promotes and facilitates volunteerism while improving the community’s ability to create more impact with the time generously given by volunteers. They work with all types of volunteers, companies and nonprofit affiliates to ensure that every hour spent in the community is valuable.
HopeKids (Twin Cities) | HopeKids provides ongoing events and activities and a powerful, unique support community for families who have a child with cancer or some other life-threatening medical condition. They surround these remarkable children and their families with the message that hope can be a powerful medicine.
Lifetrack (St. Paul) | Kids arrive at Lifetrack’s Families Together Therapeutic Preschool, each with a different set of strengths, and each burdened with a unique set of life challenges. Poverty, homelessness, disability, instability at home are some of the challenges our preschool kids face. They come to Lifetrack to learn and grow and discover healthy ways to overcome the stress in their lives.
Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans (Minneapolis) | A non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping Minnesota veterans since 1990. They have many unique programs that help Minnesota veterans and their families.
Marie Sandvik Center (Minneapolis) | Their mission is to meet the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of homeless men, women, and children.
My Very Own Bed | My Very Own Bed’s mission is to provide new beds and linens to children of families that have recently secured stable housing. My Very Own Bed was created to help families get one step closer to thriving in their new homes. By providing beds and linens to kids who need them, we’re making those new homes more livable and restful. By making sure the beds and linens are new, we’re giving kids and families something all their own — not a hand-me-down.
Pinky Swear Foundation l Pinky Swear Foundation provides families facing cancer with financial and emotional support, including, stable housing, reliable transportation, groceries and payments for bills. With 17,000 kids newly diagnosed with cancer each year in the U.S. – including approximately 260 in Minnesota alone – Pinky Swear needs help from people like you to help more families with children with cancer.
Raising Our Celiac Kids-Twin Cities Chapter Inc l Twin Cities ROCK is a non-profit volunteer group that provides information and support for families whose children have Celiac Disease through its website, by sponsoring educational events and programs and by operating a summer camp for kids with Celiac Disease.
Ronald McDonald House Charities Upper Midwest (Various Twin Cities locations) | When a child’s health is at risk, a family’s world can feel like it’s falling apart. Their mission is to provide those families with a loving and sympathetic community – as well as meals, lodging, and family-friendly activities – when they need it most. They serve more than 4,000 families each year at our four Twin Cities locations: The Ronald McDonald House on Oak Street, near the University of Minnesota, The Ronald McDonald House inside the Hospital, Children’s, Minneapolis, The Ronald McDonald Family Room inside Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare, St. Paul, and The Ronald McDonald Family Room inside Children’s, St. Paul.
Safe Families For Children (Minneapolis) | Safe Families for Children is a national movement of compassion that gives hope to families in crisis. Safe, loving homes are provided where parents may voluntarily have their children cared for while parents seek to restore stability in their lives. Our dedication to family support, stabilization, and child abuse prevention is driven by responsibility for the well-being of children in our communities.
SOURCE MN (Minneapolis) | Through urban outreach and anti-trafficking efforts, SOURCE empowers the at-risk and unreached to make a break from the past and build foundations for the future.
Urban Ventures Leadership Foundation (South Minneapolis) | Our programs and social enterprises work holistically to serve the whole family, creating sustainable jobs, developing youth and enhancing K-12+ education, strengthening relationships within families and increasing access to healthy food.
Washburn Center l Washburn Center remains a steadfast resource for children and families in Minnesota. In 2020, we served nearly 3,800 kids, and approximately 11,000 family members benefitted from services – regardless of ability to pay. Through the power of early intervention and comprehensive care, together families are able to build a path forward.
Health & Wellness
Feed My Starving Children (Minneapolis) | FMSC tackles world hunger by sending volunteer-packed, nutritious meals to nearly 70 countries each year, where they’re used to operate orphanages, schools, clinics and feeding programs to break the cycle of poverty.
Free Bikes 4 Kidz (Eden Prairie) | Free Bikes 4 Kidz (FB4K) wants every child to have this experience no matter their family circumstance or socio-economic background. FB4K exists to give low-income families and children bikes by collecting, refurbishing and distributing used bikes to kids in need. We give kids a reason to exercise and improve their physical and mental health while experiencing that slice of childhood joy and freedom.
Loaves and Fishes Too (Minneapolis) | Loaves and Fishes serves a basic need by providing free, nutritious meals to anyone in need. A no-questions-asked approach helps provide a welcoming, hospitable environment that protects the dignity of their guests.
MATTER (St. Louis Park) | Here in the Twin Cities, Matter has launched a new MATTERbox program, a healthy food box designed in partnership with the Hennepin County Medical Center dietitians and approved by the American Diabetes Association as a way of fighting diabetes and obesity in the lives of those living in scarcity. These boxes are distributed by schools, hospitals, police officers, and through a variety of other nontraditional partners.
Second Harvest Heartland (St. Paul) | 1 in 10 households in Minnesota are affected by hunger and with your support on Give to the Max Day, the Thanksgiving season can look a little brighter for Minnesota families in need. Over the next three months, Second Harvest Heartland must provide more than 20 million meals for the one in 10 Minnesotans who otherwise might not be able to put food on the table this Thanksgiving season.
The Sheridan Story (Minneapolis) | Over 200,000 children in the state of Minnesota live in food insecurity and do not always know if they will receive their next meal. The Sheridan Story’s purpose is to respond to this need by closing the weekend food gap between Friday and Monday, when children are not able to participate in the free or reduced meal programs at school.
Hospitals & Clinics
Fairview Health Services (Twin Cities) | With you by our side, we can meet community needs, invest in the latest technology and find new ways to keep people healthy from the start. Together, we can keep our care teams ready to spring into action, ease the pain of hospice patients, give patients access to life-saving medications they otherwise could not afford and so much more.
Park Nicollet (Twin Cities) | Park Nicollet Foundation is fortunate to have kind hearts, like yours, among our supporters. For more than 40 years, we have used philanthropy to enhance the patient and family experience, promote innovation and research, and respond to the health care needs of our community. We partner with schools, nonprofits, community agencies, and local government to develop innovative solutions to complex community health issues and have a powerful and immediate impact on the well-being of our entire community.
Animals
Secondhand Hounds (Minnetonka) | A non-profit animal rescue providing safe shelter, quality veterinarian care while placing animals into loving homes. They rescue dogs from kill shelters around the Midwest and cats from local shelters.
Spot’s Last Stop (Twin Cities) | A non-profit canine rescue that matches animals with a forever home while also financially supporting other rescue partners. They have a quick and easy adoption process to try and decrease the number of dogs who are euthanized.
