Northland Foundation awards $687,000 in quarterly grants; Lake County programs among recipients

The Northland Foundation awarded 22 grants totaling $687,000 through its Quarterly Grant program during October through December of 2025, directing major awards to regional nonprofits and service providers across northeastern Minnesota. Named recipients in the Oct–Dec list included United Way of Northeastern Minnesota in Chisholm at $50,000 and the Violence Prevention Center in Grand Marais at $50,000.

Quarterly grants from the foundation are generally $10,000 and up and are made to nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations, Tribal nations, and local governmental entities such as school districts, the announcement states. The Oct–Dec list grouped awards under program headings such as BASIC NEEDS - grants that address food security, housing, aging, homeless services and more - and EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION, described as support for prenatal to age five programming.

Several Oct–Dec recipients named in the release serve Lake County directly. First Witness Child Advocacy Center in Duluth received $50,000 to support ongoing child advocacy services, training, and abuse prevention education in Lake and Carlton Counties and the Fond du Lac Reservation. Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs in Duluth received $10,000 to support services for survivors of domestic violence in the Duluth community and prevention efforts. ServeMinnesota of Minneapolis was listed under early childhood awards at $30,000.

Tony Sertich, Northland Foundation President, highlighted emergency food-distribution capacity in the quarter and tied outside philanthropy to the foundation’s response. “McKnight’s Good Neighbor grant support is deeply appreciated. We were able to quickly deploy this generous funding to two trusted, longtime grantees who are on the front lines of food distribution in our rural northeastern Minnesota communities and working to keep up with increased need for their services,” Sertich stated in the Oct–Dec release.

Those Oct–Dec awards follow earlier quarterly totals across 2024–2025 that show variation in the foundation’s grantmaking by quarter. From April 1 through June 30, 2025 the foundation reported awarding $680,000 through the Quarterly Grant program; that April–June summary stated, “Six of the 23 grants awarded went toward out-of-school-time activities and programs for children and youth across the region,” with $185,000 targeted to summertime and after-school supports for thousands of children in Itasca, Koochiching, and northern St. Louis Counties and the sovereign Bois Forte Band of Chippewa nation. For July through September the foundation’s quarterly total was presented as 29 grants totaling $728,750, with a large share going to organizations addressing food insecurity.

The foundation’s third-quarter 2024 figures provide additional context: in that quarter it awarded 43 grants totaling $1,145,000, including a combined $135,000 across five grants for housing and supports for people experiencing homelessness in Carlton, Itasca, Lake, Northern St. Louis, and Southern St. Louis Counties. The Oct–Dec 2025 list and the April–June 2025 summary both identify Lake County among beneficiaries of child- and survivor-services grants. The Foundation’s fall application deadline had been extended to November 1, 2024, with the next deadline listed as January 5, 2025, in the materials provided; quarter-to-quarter grant counts and totals vary and are reported separately by quarter in the foundation’s grant summaries.