By: Margie Andreason, Minnesota Chapter Co-chair
Once you’re part of AAPIP, that network will be there for you during moves, transitions, and time. At least, that’s what we saw at the Minnesota Chapter’s group dinner on February 6, 2013.
All it took was for Penny Snipper, one of the co-founders of the Minnesota chapter, to suggest that we get together since Mae Hong, past Chicago AAPIP chapter co-chair and now with Rockefeller Philanthropy Partners, would be in town. An email blast went out to our chapter listserv and a great group gathered for a dinner with Mae. We had past co-founders, past and current co-chairs of the MN chapter, members just beginning their careers in philanthropy, former and current AAPIP staff, and guests connected to the Chicago chapter. Ted Chen—formerly with W.K. Kellogg Foundation—was a key Chicago chapter member. He recently made the move to Minnesota and is now with the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation. Ted talked about how he and a couple of other people co-founded the Chicago chapter back in 1990 and now that he’s settled in the Twin Cities he looks forward to spending more time with AAPIP again.
The dinner followed a Minnesota Council on Foundations event that the Minnesota Chapter co-sponsored and organized, along with PFund Foundation, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, and AAPIP’s Queer Justice Fund. The topic of the event that brought 30 funders together was “Equity for All: Best Practices and Lessons from LGBTQ Grantmaking.” It was an example of how bringing us together also can impact the field.
As the Minnesota chapter continues to provide programming this year, we keep the lessons of building relationships and being connected in mind. Not only to promote research we think is important in moving the field, but to come together and give each other support regardless of where we are in our careers or where we are in the country. Mae Hong captured this part of our chapter’s role well when she reflected that the dinner “was like an AAPIP booster shot for me!” Please do learn more about the AAPIP-MN chapter and be a part of our network.