Anti-Racism Initiative Finalists

Voting for the 2026 Minnesota Nonprofit Mission Awards has closed. We hope you’ll join us at the 2026 MCN Annual Conference to learn about and hear from this year’s recipients!

---

---

Fe y Justicia fosters leadership so community members and volunteers can represent themselves and others with strength and dignity in spaces where decisions are made. Key programs include worker rights education, advocacy training, free health clinics, immigration legal support, and community-based leadership development. The organization blends community education, systems advocacy, and strategic partnerships to deliver direct services while addressing the root causes of inequity.

Fe y Justicia prioritizes building leadership and advocacy power within the Latine community to increase economic stability for workers often laboring on the margins. Grounded in trust and lived experience, the organization strengthens community voice so participants can influence the systems that shape their lives.

Fe y Justicia’s work is a powerful example of anti-racism work rooted in community leadership, trust, and systems change. Working alongside Latine immigrant communities across rural Central Minnesota, the organization focuses on building power among individuals who are often the most overlooked – those who face barriers tied to race, language, and immigration status. In doing so, Fe y Justicia actively works to address systemic racism by addressing inequities embedded in labor systems, public services, and community life.

A key element of their work is advancing accountability and trust through collaboration with local systems. Fe y Justicia has partnered with law enforcement to establish community policing agreements in Stearns County and the cities of St. Cloud, Cold Spring, and Sauk Center. They have also led “Know Your Rights” trainings to ensure community members are informed, prepared, and able to safely navigate interactions with authorities, reducing fear and increasing protection in historically inequitable systems.

During Operation Metro Surge, Fe y Justicia emerged as a trusted and courageous leader. They mobilized volunteers to build rapid response and mutual aid networks, training responders and ensuring support for those at risk. They also launched emergency food distribution, transportation, and legal response efforts amid fear and hostility. Their work not only met urgent needs, it protected lives while standing against racist policies and practices that harmed immigrant communities.

Fe y Justicia’s work has led to both immediate, tangible outcomes and long-term systems change for Latine communities across Central Minnesota, particularly in rural areas where formal services are limited or nonexistent. As a trusted, Latina-led grassroots organization, Fe y Justicia serves as a critical access point for families navigating barriers rooted in racism, language, immigration status, and geographic isolation. Through this work, they actively confront and work to eliminate prejudice and barriers caused by systemic racism that limit opportunity and safety for immigrant communities.

The organization also helped advance meaningful policy and systems change, including Driver’s Licenses for All (2023), Earned Sick and Safe Time (2023), and community policing agreements across multiple jurisdictions. These efforts reduce discriminatory barriers, expand rights, and improve safety, demonstrating a sustained commitment to equity and structural change.

Beyond crisis response, Fe y Justicia advances long-term anti-racism outcomes by building inclusive leadership pipelines, strengthening civic participation, and fostering cross-community relationships. Their work increases access to essential services, improves stability, and builds the collective power needed to dismantle racism and create more just, inclusive communities.

---

RISE’s work is organized across three pillars: Storytelling, which reclaims Muslim women’s narratives and places them in the historical record; Leadership Development, which builds economic power and community resilience; and Civic Engagement, which mobilizes Muslim women as active participants in the political process. Together, these pillars form an integrated anti-racism strategy rooted in the belief that Muslim women, particularly Black, immigrant, and refugee Muslim women, have always held power in their communities.

The organization’s Storytelling pillar is one of our most distinctive anti-racism strategies. Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota has featured 37 Muslim women leaders whose stories are now part of the Minnesota Historical Society’s permanent collection and available through a PBS Learning Media educator guide for grades 6-12, reaching students across the country. Their Expressions blog has published 64 stories authored by Muslim women themselves, including a Black HERstory series centering the experiences of Black Muslim women whose stories sit at the intersection of anti-Black racism and Islamophobia.

RISE’s Leadership Development pillar combats the economic dimensions of racism directly. Through our Entrepreneurial Incubator, a 12-week program now in its third cohort, we have supported Muslim women entrepreneurs facing compounded barriers to economic participation. Financial literacy workshops, halal investing education, and professional development programming build the economic foundation that makes sustained resistance possible.

The organization’s Civic Engagement pillar ensures Muslim women are not only subjects of policy but makers of it. Know Your Rights trainings, multilingual voter education, and direct legislative advocacy all work to dismantle the political exclusion that racism produces. Across all three pillars, we also center pluralism and inclusivity within our own community.

Through the organization’s Storytelling pillar alone:

• 37 Muslim women’s stories are now part of the Minnesota Historical Society’s permanent collection through Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota, reaching more than 2.5 million people
• An accompanying PBS Learning Media educator guide brings these stories into classrooms for grades 6-12 nationwide
• 64 Expressions stories have been published, authored by Muslim women in their own words
• A Writing for Resistance workshop drew nearly 45 participants, equipping Muslim women to use narrative as a tool for change
• A new oral history project on Muslim women philanthropists launched in partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society, preserving contributions that history has too often ignored

Through RISE’s Leadership Development pillar, Muslim women entrepreneurs have completed two cohorts of our 10-week Entrepreneurial Incubator, with four receiving seed funding in 2025. Financial literacy and halal investing workshops have expanded economic access for women who face compounded barriers rooted in race, religion, and gender.

Through the organization’s Civic Engagement pillar, we have trained more than 25,000 Muslim women on civic engagement, supported the passage of nine RISE-sponsored bills in Minnesota, and reached more than 215,000 people through our candidate report cards. When our community faced escalating hate and fear, we responded with Know Your Rights workshops, mutual aid, and direct advocacy with city leadership, demonstrating that anti-racism work is not only cultural but material. The impact of RISE’s anti-racism work shows up in the historical record, in classrooms across the country, in the economic lives of Muslim women entrepreneurs, and in the safety and resilience of our community.

---

Village Arms’ work centers on advocacy, community education, family liaison services, and systems change efforts that challenge punitive child protection practices. The organization brings lived experience, policy expertise, and community accountability into child welfare decision making to counter bias and reduce unnecessary family separation.

The nominated effort is Village Arms’ leadership in advancing and implementing the African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act (AAFPA) — a landmark, first in the nation policy signed into law in Minnesota in 2024. This initiative confronts racism embedded in child welfare systems by reframing “neglect” as a condition rooted in racialized poverty rather than parental failure, and by mandating culturally responsive, family preserving practices.

The initiative demonstrates a deep commitment to pluralism and inclusion by centering the voices and leadership of families most impacted by child welfare intervention. Village Arms’ approach is culturally grounded, strengths based, and community led—ensuring that families are not merely recipients of services, but active participants in shaping solutions.

By pairing policy reform with on the ground family liaison services and cross system collaboration, the organization bridges advocacy and implementation. The AAFPA initiative reframes child welfare from a surveillance-based system to one rooted in family preservation, racial equity, and healing — offering a replicable anti racism model for Minnesota and beyond.

Village Arms collaborates with a broad coalition of partners across Minnesota’s child welfare ecosystem. This includes county child protection agencies, county attorneys, family courts, community-based service providers, and parent advocates engaged in AAFPA pilots and implementation efforts. Key collaborators include Hennepin County and other jurisdictions participating in culturally responsive pilot programs that integrate Village Arms family liaisons into child welfare decision making from first contact. These partnerships enable joint consultations, early family group decision making, kinship first placement strategies, and bias-interrupting practices.

Village Arms’ anti racism work has produced measurable, community level impact across Minnesota. During AAFPA pilot efforts in Hennepin County, over 90% of participating families were able to keep their children safely in their homes. In the limited number of cases where removal was necessary, 100% of children were placed with kin. Among those whose children entered foster care, 100% were reunified within 12 months, with no cases of re-entry into foster care during the pilot period.

These outcomes demonstrate a direct reduction in the racial disproportionality that has long characterized Minnesota’s child welfare system. With support from Village Arms, families experienced fewer repeat maltreatment reports, reduced progression into formal case management, and increased placement with relatives when removal was unavoidable.

Beyond individual cases, Village Arms has influenced systemic change. The passage of AAFPA codified new standards that require acknowledgment of racial disparities, mandate earlier and culturally responsive interventions, and prioritize family preservation over removal. This legislative victory represents a structural shift toward anti racism in child welfare policy.

By aligning policy, practice, and community voice, Village Arms has created sustainable pathways for families to remain intact—and for Minnesota communities to move closer to racial equity and justice.