Generosity. For Good.
The Mankato Area Foundation provides a medium for people to make a difference by offering annual, lifetime and planned giving opportunities. After 40 years, the Mankato Area Foundation continues to help individuals and organizations achieve their charitable goals by offering a variety of giving strategies and funds.
As donors, you have the opportunity to shape your donation by choosing from flexible funding vehicles such as designated, unrestricted or donor advised funds. The Mankato Area Foundation currently manages funds that can provide donors with the benefits similar to a private foundation without the burden of start-up/management and brings to life their passions and charitable dreams.
BENEFITS OF A COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
Making your charitable contributions through the Mankato Area Foundation offers many advantages.
Simplicity
As a community foundation, we can serve as your “one-stop shop” for all of your charitable giving needs. We provide an easy and effective way to support the projects and issues you care about through a gift to a single organization.
Tax Benefits
Any gifts given to the Mankato Area Foundation receive the maximum tax advantages for income, gift and estate tax purposes.
Flexibility
As a community foundation, we can receive many kinds of gifts, including unique assets such as gifts of grain, land and stock. At the Mankato Area Foundation, we can help you and your financial advisor develop a personalized gift plan to meet your financial needs and all of your charitable intentions, now and in the future.

PLANNED GIVING
Giving Looks Good on Us
You can easily establish a charitable fund (or add to an existing fund) at the Mankato Area Foundation that speaks to your philanthropic intentions. A bequest can be for a specific dollar amount, a percentage of your estate or residue of the estate. MAF would be happy to provide you and your attorney with suggested language to include in your will or trust.
Telling Our Story
COMMUNITY RESPONSE FUND
Quaran–Team Effort
For the Mankato Area Foundation (MAF) and Greater Mankato Area United Way (GMAUW), a shared physical space spawned a partnership that would shape the Mankato area’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Nancy Zallek, MAF President and CEO, recalls, “One morning in mid-March of 2020, I was walking down the hallway of Shared Spaces in search of Barb Kaus, GMAUW CEO, and she was doing the same looking for me,” Zallek said. “We had each been reading the news about the governor’s upcoming announcement of a Stay-at-Home order, and we were both concerned about the dire situations our local nonprofits would soon be facing. We knew we had to do something, and we quickly realized it would be so much more powerful to do it together. Within days, our two organizations co-established the Community Response Fund. Learn More
News & Press
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Hockey Day Minnesota and JZ Cancer Fund “Show Us Your Mullet” Contest Comes to a Successful Conclusion, with MSU Hockey Player Brendan Furry on Top
Read moreMANKATO, MN (January 21, 2022) – Hockey Day Minnesota and the JZ Cancer Fund are pleased to announce the “Show Us Your Mullet”, a hockey
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Mulleteers, take your marks, get set, GROW
Read moreMankato Free Press (November 30, 2021) — Last winter and spring, when the Minnesota State University men’s hockey team made its historic run through the
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11 Nov
Down Syndrome Woman’s Dream of Playing Belle in Beauty and the Beast Comes True
Read moreMANKATO, MN (November 9, 2021) — Each holiday season Profinium Inc. seeks to learn about people’s dreams and to help them come true. The Achieving
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Shaving down for men’s health: growMANkato launches annual campaign
Read moreMankato Free Press (November 2, 2021) — In a year where delayed medical care is even more common than usual, Mankato’s annual push to promote
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Community comes together to raise awareness in the fight against men’s cancer
Read moreKEYC (November 1, 2021) — The annual Community Shave Down takes place at Mankato Brewery in North Mankato. Those in attendance watched as people line