Minnesota nonprofits have lost a major philanthropic funder this year after an under-the-radar Cargill heir’s foundation quietly closed.
The WEM Foundation sold its Cargill stock and gave away all of its money, totaling an unprecedented $500 million. For more than three decades, the private foundation set up by former Cargill CEO Whitney MacMillan and his wife, Betty MacMillan, kept a low public profile as it gave millions of dollars to nonprofits and schools across Minnesota and the nation.
Then, after Whitney MacMillan died in 2020 at the age of 90, the foundation boosted its charitable giving in 2022 and gave away all of its money last year before dissolving, closing its Minnetonka offices last December.
Several Twin Cities organizations landed record-breaking grants from the foundation as a result, boosting their finances for years to come.
WEM’s “transformational gift” of $25 million to Dunwoody College of Technology in 2022, for instance, is the largest single donation the college has received in more than a century, said Dunwoody President Scott Stallman, adding in a statement that it “has changed lives, enhanced opportunities and transformed the Dunwoody campus.”
Steve Paprocki of Access Philanthropy, a Minneapolis consulting firm that works with nonprofits on fundraising, said he worries the closure will leave a void in Minnesota philanthropy, especially for small nonprofits.
“A lot of those smaller organizations are no longer able to get that kind of money,” he said. “They [WEM] were really well-respected in the funding community.”
Jim Hield, the foundation’s president and a former Cargill manager, didn’t respond to interview requests but said in a statement that, “as planned, the foundation dissolved following Whitney’s passing.” He added that the couple had a “tremendous positive impact on their community by supporting local and national organizations that will continue that legacy for generations to come.”