Giving

Josie Johnson views a portrait of her created for the dedication of the room at the Humphrey School that bears her name. Three people stand in the background smiling.
Office of Advancement
Humphrey School of Public Affairs

280 Humphrey School
301 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

Wish to speak to our Advancement team? Contact Kathleen Wilinski, Director of Advancement, at [email protected].

Driven to Create a Better World. Together.

The daunting challenges our communities face demand individuals who can lead across division and strife—the kind of leaders the Humphrey School of Public Affairs graduates. We believe we can change our world by influencing who has opportunities to lead, how they are prepared, and what evidence-based innovations they bring to bear on contentious, consequential issues.

Like its namesake, Hubert H. Humphrey, the School is driven by a passion for human welfare, abiding and boundless optimism, and a rare talent for inspiring people to work in concert toward common goals.

Through the Campaign for the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, donors and friends will invest in leaders who can skillfully align community needs and big ideas, the people who can advance solutions to the pressing challenges of our state, nation, and world. Learn about the many ways you can give to the Humphrey School.

Your support of the Humphrey School advances our vision to:

  • Broaden access for a wider array of future public affairs leaders
  • Promote hope, opportunity, democracy, and civic life through extraordinary research and teaching
  • Expand our global reach and impact through programs that bring the world to Minnesota and Minnesota to the world

 

A cohort from the CREATE Initiative poses in front of a colorful mural that says "North Minneapolis"

Student Support

Our world needs exceptional leaders who reflect the diversity of our evolving communities and who have the skills and networks to initiate change. We must ensure that all individuals who have the passion and desire, especially those from historically marginalized groups, have access to a world-class public affairs education.

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Learn more about supporting Humphrey School students

By broadening opportunity, we make it possible for promising leaders to pursue work that advances the common good, and we promote a better learning environment where creativity and passion can flourish. Funding also will introduce talented undergraduate students to career possibilities in public affairs.

How your gift will help

  • Increase access for talented and diverse future leaders through fellowships
  • Provide more students with career-enhancing professional internships
  • Expose hundreds of undergraduates to meaningful career opportunities in public affairs through summer residency programs 

Read about student achievements

  • A team of researchers from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs’ CREATE Initiative spent the summer examining the extent of green gentrification in Minneapolis and working to develop tools that can help cities address it. 
  • Kania Johnson, a first-year Master of Public Policy candidate, is the first recipient of the Josie Johnson Fellowship, named in honor of longtime civil rights activist and Humphrey School advocate Josie Johnson. 
  • Students from the Humphrey School and the broader University community have had a first-hand look at how cities in China are managing rapid population growth through a study abroad course developed by Humphrey School Professor Yingling Fan.

Faculty Support

Hope, opportunity, equity, and inclusion. Democracy and civic life. These ideals drive our work at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs to advance our collective well-being.

This campaign will strengthen and amplify the Humphrey School’s leadership in arenas that most strongly influence the common good.

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Learn more about supporting faculty research

Investment in the Humphrey School will bolster our capacity to attract top faculty in key areas and to grow our visibility as an institution where extraordinary research and teaching are strengthening democracy and civic life.

Your gift will help to sustain leading Humphrey School research in social policy that addresses disparities, inequity, and injustice; smart and sustainable urban and regional planning; and leadership and management of effective nonprofit organizations. We must build and retain faculty expertise in these areas to ensure our strong position and growing impact.

 

How your gift will help

  • Recruit and retain first-rate faculty who can advance the common good through field-shaping research and innovations
  • Support groundbreaking research in the pressing topics of our day, from climate change to sustainable cities, from economic inequality to human rights

Meet our endowed faculty chairs

Morris Kleiner, AFL-CIO Chair in Labor Policy

Samuel L. Myers Jr., Roy Wilkins Professor of Human Relations and Social Justice

Joe Soss, Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service

Four students and Professor Jerry Zhao look at a laptop screen

Two Humphrey School International Fellows pose in traditional clothing outside Cowles Auditorium

Global Focus

The Humphrey School must be internationally focused to influence and inform action on issues around the globe and to prepare students for challenging careers worldwide. 

New funding will make it possible for us to host game-changing international exchange programs, to send more of our graduate students around the world, and to be an international leader in sharing knowledge.

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Learn more about supporting our global focus

Boundaries are dissolving between domestic and global affairs. This is particularly true in Minneapolis–St. Paul, a community with 17 globally focused Fortune 500 companies, Federal Reserve Bank, one of the world’s major waterways, and dozens of thriving nonprofit organizations involved in global affairs. Our Minnesota communities are deeply connected to the world beyond our state.

With your support, we aim to expand our global reach and impact through programs that bring the world to Minnesota and Minnesota to the world.

How your gift will help

  • Increase career-enhancing global field experiences for our students
  • Bring world leaders and visiting scholars to the Humphrey School to work with faculty, students, and the broader community
  • Develop sustained research and teaching partnerships with innovative governments and institutions around the world
  • Employ state-of-the-art knowledge-sharing technology

Learn more about our global focus

What you do, what each of us does, has an effect on the country, the state, the nation, and the world.

Hubert H. Humphrey

Your support quite literally helps our students change the world—from providing a safe and reliable water system for a small city in Haiti to studying post-disaster energy resiliency amid unexpected earthquakes in Puerto Rico or examining the impact of urbanization in China.

We welcome students, scholars, and fellows from around the world to learn from our experts and, in turn, to share their expertise with us: during the 2019–2020 academic year, the International Fellows and Scholars Program office at the Humphrey School hosted 13 international fellows and six scholars from 15 countries.