21 survey respondents
Location: 6600 France Ave South, Suite 550, Minneapolis, 55435 MN
EIN: 46-5588406
89%
11%
5 hours
Median
90%
10%
87%
13%
2017 Deadlines:
Types of Grants Awarded:
Geographic Focus:
For Fiscal Year
Total Assets:
Total Grants:
Change in Assets FY :
Amount of Grants to Minnesota Nonprofits:
Largest Grant:
Smallest Grant:
Average Grant:
Grant Applicant - applied in 2018
Contact the foundation - they are very approachable and willing to discuss a potential LOI. Also be aware of their LOI process and timings.
Positive leader in the field, Friendly, Builds relationships, Likes site visits, Responsive
Minnesota
Current or former grantee
Funded for amount requested
2018
Good
Good
Site visits and responding to questions.
7
Thanks for your feedback, we are glad to hear that you’ve had a positive experience with our process and with getting your questions answered.
Professional in the field
Do not approach this foundation if you have a mission focused on POCI communities. Coming from an organization that is embedded within such communities, we were encouraged not to speak about our work in such terms and to instead focus on strictly on socioeconomic status. In an initial meeting with a Senior Program Officer, they made the assumption that we had a high number of undocumented participants because of our numbers of African and Hispanic participants, and was visibly less interested in our work because the majority of our participants are POC.
Culturally incompetent
Minnesota
Professional in the field
2018
Bad
Not accessible to communities of color.
Bad
If this foundation sets out to be responsive to community need in the Twin Cities, they do not meet this goal well since they are leaving out half of our communities by not being culturally competent to POCI communities.
Ensure that your values are being represented by your staff. If you do intend on providing support to communities of color, you need to ensure that your staff knows how to navigate conversations around race and understand basic racial data and why it is collected.
Being upfront about their standards.
0
Thank you for taking the time to provide this feedback and we are sorry that this was your experience. We are disheartened to read this because it does not reflect our values or approach as a Foundation. Our grant making programs support many organizations that work primarily and extensively with communities of color. We invite you to visit our website to review our lists of grantees and for more information about our work and our values.
Grant Applicant - applied in 2018
Foundation interest areas are clearly defined and laid out on website to determine fit potential. Very great foundation to work with.
Positive leader in the field, Friendly, Builds relationships, Likes site visits, "Gets" nonprofits and issues, Openminded
(Unknown)
Current or former grantee
Other
2018
Good
Staff are easy to get a hold of whenever questions/concerns arise.
Good
This foundation is committed to making a strong impact on the metro area and funding key services to help low-income youth, families and adults.
Funding request in process
Very transparent about what they expect through guidelines and explanation of SMART objectives - they provide a lot of information to help grant seekers succeed in their requests.
5
Grant Applicant - applied in 2017
Request feedback on whether your idea is good fit before you submit application.
Risk taker, Insightful, Friendly, Likes site visits, Openminded, Responsive
Minnesota
Current or former grantee
Funded for amount requested
2017
Good
Good
5
Thanks for sharing your positive feedback.
Reviewer 7611 - Grant Applicant - applied in 2018
Reach out to a program officer before applying if you have questions about fit, etc. They do want to help and we have found their advice helped us to craft a competitive proposal. They are also very into using SMART objectives and provide great resources on it.
Positive leader in the field, Friendly, Likes site visits, Openminded, Responsive
Minnesota
Current or former grantee
Funded for amount requested
2018
Good
Good
They are eclectic in their giving. Their user friendliness and resources they provide in writing SMART objectives is why I say they are reaching their philanthropic goals.
No advice.
While many of the grantees are traditional social services, there is an interest in entrepreneurial approaches (reflecting R. Schulze's background) but don't write yourself off if you don't seem to fit among the current grantees. Call the foundation and asked to meet with them before even submitting the LOI
The RFP is very clear in its emphasis on measurable objectives and how to write them. They also require an interim progress report which is basically 'meeting program goals/objectives', 'not meeting them but expect to by end of project period; and 'can we talk'.
5
Thanks for your feedback, we are glad to hear that you have found our process to be user friendly and our website and program officers to be helpful resources.
Reviewer 1480 - Grant Applicant - applied in 2018
There are clear guidelines for the proposal, including using SMART goals. Our initial conversation with the program officer was very helpful. They recommended that as a new grantee, we apply for program funding rather than general operating funds.
Friendly, Builds relationships, Likes site visits, Responsive
(Unknown)
Grant currently pending
2018
Good
Our site visit was friendly and congenial, and offered us an opportunity to gain clarity about the foundation's goals and priorities.
Provides a clear outline for structuring your proposal
0
Thanks for sharing your positive feedback.
Reviewer 9914 - Grant Applicant - applied in 2018
Well worth the effort to apply if you are a match for their interests, which are pretty broad. No games with them.
Positive leader in the field, Friendly, Likes site visits, "Gets" nonprofits and issues, Openminded, Responsive
Minnesota
Current or former grantee
Funded for amount requested
2018
Good
Responsive and easy to reach. I have had several clients receive grants from them and every single grant officer seems to be a joy. Open and clear application process and accurate info on website about what they fund.
Good
Schulze wants to make a difference NOW, they care about human services, they fund gen ops and ongoing programs, and they do that very effectively. They don't expect social services for people with low-incomes to become magically sustainable, or require you to reframe your services around some jargony goal, or require you to create special projects, or expect agencies to operate with no staff or electricity. They just help agencies help people. One of many things to love about them. At the same time they make good choices - they choose agencies they trust to do good work and then let them do it.
Please give classes to others because you are rocking it.
If I could clone Richard M. Schulze Foundation and make everyone just like them, I would. Their application process is very intelligent - for example, they don't ask you to "repeat your LOI answer, just make it 2000 characters longer" -- they just carry over that info and ask a couple additional questions. You can attach things in the format you have rather than re-keying. I think they have a near-perfect application and reporting process. All the questions just make sense and the length and format is appropriate to their decision-making.
More than 15
Thanks for your feedback, we are glad you've had a positive experience.
Reviewer 9258 - Grant Applicant - applied in 2017
The program officers are amazingly friendly and great to work with. You need to have strong, clear, measurable outcomes to succeed, but they will help you articulate those.
Their LOI is actually more like a grant proposal, and their grant proposal is just a few small additions to the LOI. It's a weird set up, but it works for them, I guess.
My one frustration with them is that they don't do a great job on front-end communication. They have changed their deadlines every year for the last few years and never communicate the changes to their grantees besides posting on their website. When approached about this lack of communication, their response is that they expect that people will just constantly pay attention to their site. As we know in nonprofits, no one has time to constantly pay attention to one funder's website and still do our work. A simple announcement out to your grantees would not be that difficult, especially since you use an online grant portal and have everyone's email addresses.
Gives more than money, Friendly, Likes site visits
Minnesota
Current or former grantee
Funded for amount requested
2017
Good
Generally, they are accessible, minus the changing grant deadlines.
Good
For what they state they want to accomplish, yes they seem to be meeting their goals.
Please communicate with your grantees when you change deadlines. Nonprofit staff don't have the capacity to be constantly paying attention to your website (which also could use some navigation improvement). You will build better trust and positive customer service with your community if you consider a simple solution, like sending an announcement to current grantees through your online portal system.
Most of the program staff came from a development background.
They do a great job during site visits.
7
We appreciate your honest feedback about our deadlines and your ideas for improvement with regard to communication about grant cycle deadlines. Our business processes are routinely reviewed, and we strive to be as clear as possible to all organizations interested in RMSFF. We are working with our founding family to see if we can project future board meetings and cycle deadlines farther in advance--we’re hoping that will help.
Grant Applicant - applied in 2017
The character limits are really tight on the LOI and application--it forces you to (overly) simplify your message.
Builds relationships, Responsive
Minnesota
Current or former grantee
Funded for amount requested
2017
Good
The staff is easy to get ahold of and responsive.
Good
The staff of Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation is highly responsive and communicative. It feels like a true partnership.
15
We strive to be responsive to our grantees, so we appreciate this feedback. We also appreciate your feedback related to character limits, and we will review our LOI and Application form settings with this input in mind.
Reviewer 6235 - Grant Applicant - applied in 2017
The Foundation runs a clear and simple process that really reduces burden on applicants. They start by being close to the community they seek to fund - they do much leg work up front, so they are clear what they seek to accomplish. The LOI makes the process more accessible, and once invited, we found the full application to be straightforward, relevant and pretty simple to complete. They didn't ask repetitive questions - they focus on the work and the impact in a very clear and simple way.
Positive leader in the field, Builds relationships, "Gets" nonprofits and issues, Openminded, Responsive
Minnesota
Grant currently pending
2017
Good
Please keep going the direction you're going - it was a welcome change from other local funders that continue to make their processes more complicated and burdensome. Your process feels fair, even to smaller non-profits.
At least in some areas of their portfolio, there appears to be a preference for Catholic organizations, but they seem to welcome other organizations, at least in some of their funding areas - be sure to check that!
Not sure, as we're not familiar with their current portfolio of grantees, but given their clarity in mission, it seems likely they will have impact.
The LOI is not burdensome or complicated. Then the full application (which we were invited to submit) only required a few very relevant, straightforward answers - thank you!
0
Thanks for your response! We are glad to hear that you found our process to be accessible and straightforward.
