These days our email inboxes are piled high with requests for financial help — for humanitarian aid, environmental causes, public policy proposals, political candidates, and more. These growing needs can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, if you feel moved to give — and Minnesotans rank No. 2 in the U.S. for their generosity — consider connecting with the Eagan Community Foundation.
While this 35-year-old organization was primarily founded to provide scholarships, it has gradually broadened its mission. In 2017 the foundation began expanding community grants while also adding donor services, flexible funds, and programs that build community connections. In total, the foundation has reinvested more than $3 million into the Eagan community since 1991.
Today, this City philanthropic hub is led by Jamie Hopkins, who joined the board in 2013 and was named executive director a decade ago. To learn more, Eagan Business News reached out to Hopkins for insights on the foundation and community giving in Eagan.
EBN: Can you tell us more about how a mostly scholarship organization became a more traditional community foundation?
A decade ago, our board culture shifted — we’d been around for 25 years, had made some time-saving technology improvements with our scholarship program, and we felt that we had the bandwidth to do more. And board members had just worked hard to set aside some surplus Foundation funds in our first permanent investment account. We realized that we could be a fuller-service community foundation for Eagan, but it meant making some changes.
We decided that everything we did needed to help connect the Eagan community. In 2016, we introduced our Community Connections Happy Hour. We invited sponsors, businesses, scholarship donors, nonprofit partners, and others to attend. We used these events not just to build new relationships for the Foundation, but to build connections across the community. We love connecting the new bank manager to the new leader of the shelter, and more.
Then in 2020, we introduced the Community Connections Coffee Break — at first online during COVID, and later in person. These two Community Connections happenings are Eagan-centric networking events with a lot of intentionality.
In February, the annual Community Connections Coffee Break took a new approach. Tell us about that.
It came about sort of the same way we decided 10 years ago that everything we do should be about connecting the community. This time we resolved to embed philanthropy into more of our work. We want to weave philanthropy into the everyday fabric of our community. While most of our community events feature a business speaker, this year we decided to focus on the topic of community giving. So we crafted a Coffee Break that functioned like a giving circle, where neighbors pool their generosity and work together to support organizations and initiatives that strengthen Eagan.
Normally this event is free, but this time we asked attendees to pay a registration fee. In total, we raised $1,500 to use as our giving pool – 100% went back into the community through six nonprofits. Each participant was given three tokens that they could use to vote on what portion of those funds would be given to our selected nonprofits. Before distributing their tokens, participants took a quiz to learn what kind of givers they were — answering questions like, do you typically give during a crisis? And what excites you most about philanthropy? They then had an immediate and real opportunity to align their giving with their values.
How did attendees respond?
We were asking people to be introspective, take action, and think about their community in new ways. It was more cerebral than our usual events, but engagement was high. People talked about the community in ways they never have before and they seemed to really love it. Our guests left the event with new insights into Eagan and their relationship with the community. Plus, we raised an additional $500 for the Eagan Community Response Fund, which currently provides rent and supports other emerging needs.
The foundation has been offering grants for a long time. Can you talk about their importance?
Since our beginnings in 1990, even with a scholarship focus, most years the Foundation made one or two small grants. The grants program became more formalized in 2010 and has been growing steadily since 2017.
Initially, we held a modest private grants awards ceremony and only invited recipients. Later we began inviting sponsors, area businesses, civic leaders, and residents to create a larger public gathering — a celebration of Eagan nonprofits and grant partners but also a kind of “Eagan Community Issues 101” for the community.
After every event, a couple business people would always call to ask for connections to some award recipients so that they could support them as well. My favorite annual call came from a banker who not only wanted to connect with award winners but also asked, “Was there a group you wished that you could have given a grant to before the funds ran out?” That’s the kind of connection we like to support. It’s no surprise that our grant giving has grown since then.
What role do you see the Foundation playing in Eagan down the road, say in 2050?
One of the most important roles we see for the Foundation is helping Eagan think long-term about community generosity and investment. Right now, we raise funds and immediately spend them. Community foundations, however, are designed to be permanent institutions — organizations that steward resources and respond to community needs not just today, but for generations.
Over the past several years, we’ve expanded the types of charitable funds and endowment options available for donors who want to invest in Eagan long term. This work is especially important right now because of the expected large transfer of wealth in the coming decades. In Dakota County alone, estimates suggest that more than $4 billion will change hands in the next 10 years.
A generation ago, when a business owner retired, the family business in Eagan might’ve passed directly to the next generation who still lived here. Today that next generation is often living elsewhere — when businesses are sold, the wealth often follows them.
Community foundations can help make it easy for families and business owners to leave some portion of that wealth behind — invested in a hometown endowment that can create lasting resources to support the community that helped those businesses grow in the first place.
How can individuals, organizations, or businesses work with the foundation?
Eagan is a generous community, and we’re always here to start the conversation about what you care about. Community foundations are unique because they’re often the only nonprofit in a community focused on the well-being of the whole place. Rather than advancing a single cause, community foundations connect people, resources, and ideas to strengthen every aspect of community life — arts, education, environment, basic needs, and civic life.
You can give to the Eagan Community Foundation directly and we’ll focus your generosity where it’s needed most. Or we can help you connect with local needs, align your giving with your values, and ensure your giving has a significant impact. We can even help you set up your own fund.
In addition to providing scholarships and community grants, we offer donor services and flexible funds that can help individuals, families, and organizations give thoughtfully and effectively. And we facilitate giving circles, connecting residents, businesses, and community groups to meaningful volunteer opportunities.
Eagan Community Foundation has a broad knowledge of this community and its needs, and we’re here to help make your generosity intentional and impactful. If you want to learn more, please visit us at eaganfoundation.org.