MINNEAPOLIS, MN—June 24, 2026—Too often, grantmaking asks Black communities to fit into priorities they did not define. STEAM Forward, now open from the African American Leadership Forum, does the opposite. The Forum spent months in intergenerational convenings with young people, families, and partners across North Minneapolis. The six ideas that came out of those rooms are now the blueprint for what the grant will fund.
The ideas are specific, grounded, and shaped by the dreams of Northside community members in ways traditional grantmaking rarely makes room for. A sports medicine training program to build the next generation of Black sports medicine innovators. The Black Nerd Hub, a paid summer camp where Black mentors run the room and 14-to-18-year-olds earn a stipend. Environmental justice internships that place students alongside advocates and officials working real cases. A centralized Big Explore Center for hands-on building. Campaigns that reframe who counts as a creator in STEAM, through Black-owned businesses and Black fashion and design.
What connects them is a premise The Forum has held from the start: the brilliance is already on the Northside. STEAM already lives in how young people here solve problems, build, question, and make beauty. Through STEAM Forward, The Forum is putting that truth into practice, using grantmaking to resource what is already alive in the community rather than importing outside assumptions about what Northside youth need.
“Black-centered design begins with the wisdom and lived expertise already present in our communities,” said Dr. Jessica Dixon-Thompson, lead design strategist at The Forum. “With STEAM Forward, we are not designing for community. We are designing with it. These six ideas came from Northside residents. Our job is to listen, resource what is already alive, and build pathways where our young people see themselves as leaders, creators, innovators, and future-makers in STEAM.”
STEAM Forward is one of the first direct investments to come out of Northside Forward, The Forum’s place-based plan for North Minneapolis, and it sits inside the plan’s cradle-to-career learning pillar. The Forum will award one $10,000 grant for work taking place between September 2026 and September 2027. Applicants can build on a single idea or combine pieces of several, and both planning and implementation proposals are welcome, from prototyping a curriculum to running a youth mentorship series.
Who can apply
Organizations must be a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, an educational institution, or operate under a fiscal sponsor. Applicants must be based in North Minneapolis (zip codes 55411 and 55412), or based in Minnesota and able to show that most proposed activities will serve Black-identifying youth, PreK through 12, who live in North Minneapolis. Each proposal must advance at least one of the six community-designed ideas and connect to a cradle-to-career learning strategy in the Northside Forward Plan.
Applications are open now through 11:59 p.m. CST on June 30, 2026; to apply, visit this link. Full descriptions of the six community-designed ideas can be viewed at this link. You can direct questions to Dr. Jessica Dixon-Thompson at design@aalftc.org.