Twin Cities nonprofits land funding from OpenAI’s new philanthropic arm

NINA MOINI The creator of ChatGPT, has promised to donate more than $40 million to nonprofits across the country. It's the first round of philanthropy from the rebranded nonprofit side of OpenAI. A portion of the new funding is coming to Minnesota.

Two Twin Cities focused organizations, COPAL and Merrick Community Services, are among the more than 200 recipients worldwide. Kate Kelly is development director of Merrick, which provides social services on St. Paul's East side. She joins me now. Thanks for being with us, Kate.

KATE KELLY: Thank you for having me today, Nina.

NINA MOINI: This is exciting good news to see folks getting access to some funding here. Could you tell us, for starters, though, Kate, just a little bit more about Merrick Community Services, what do you do, how long you've been around?

KATE KELLY: Sure. Merrick Community Services was founded in 1908 to serve the needs of the East Metro, newly arrived immigrants. We call ourselves MCS for short, but we serve low income and immigrant families with education, nutrition, human service focused on emergency needs.

We have a food shelf. We do meals on wheels. We have employment for adults and for youth. We have case managers in the St. Paul Public School system and in suburban Ramsey, working with teachers to help families and individuals access the support they need to overcome the challenges they're facing.

NINA MOINI: OK. So--

KATE KELLY: Big--

NINA MOINI: Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

KATE KELLY: I just said big-broad mission.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. And that's kind of-- it sounds what's nice about this funding that you didn't actually have to have experience with AI to get this money. I wonder, is AI anything that was kind of in the realm of planning ahead or anything for your organization or what led you to give this a shot to try to get this funding?

KATE KELLY: Well, first of all, it was definitely on the radar here at Merrick. Attending multiple conferences the last several years. There's always breakout sessions on AI. So it's been on the radar, but nothing that we had planned to execute against in 2026.

When we saw the opportunity, we're like a lot of nonprofits struggling to raise the funds we need to continue the operations. It's a tough year for that. So when we saw the opportunity and it was actually provided to us from leadership St. Paul, we jumped on it. Thinking, if it's a way for us to enhance our service delivery, focus on the people we serve, who are not represented necessarily in AI decision. So that was critical to us as well.

But it really accelerates our ability to work on our mission. It will minimize administrative burden, which is huge because the funder in this case is more interested in our reflections and our learning as opposed to numbers. And that's a breath of fresh air, because we're going to be able to expand what is possible for our people.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. I think sometimes--

KATE KELLY: And we'll do it in a responsible way.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. I think sometimes people don't realize that when people are getting grants or things, there are very specific constrictions really or rules around and there's reasons for that of how you can use it or where it can go. So this seems not the case here. There's more of a trend of people just saying, take what you need and make sure that you can keep operating, especially to your point with times being kind of tough and some funding being eliminated for folks.

But I understand that OpenAI Foundation received nearly 3,000 applications, and that you all will receive up to $450,000, which is a huge, amazing number. When do you expect to find out exactly what you're getting and to have access to that?

KATE KELLY: Well, first of all, the anticipated amount is $460,000. We were able, all the rest of the organizations, to apply for funding up to 10% of our annual budget. And we expect those funds to be with us by the end of this calendar year. And start planning for how we actually execute against it in 2026.

NINA MOINI: Do you think AI would have a place in ever streamlining some of your services or help? Is that something that you're brainstorming about or that you could envision?

KATE KELLY: Absolutely. We're looking at how does AI help us with training for our volunteers and for our staff. There's a lot of opportunity with really good training AI can help us with. We can reach more volunteers through that.

AI would really be helpful in our food pantry, our food shelf. In some cases, AI already out in food shelves. Families are ordering their groceries online through this service. So they get to pick what they want. So that's based on their needs, their wants, not just us handing out food.

It'll help us save staff time with data entry and reporting, which you can imagine when you have state or county or in this case, a national funder, that can get pretty daunting. So helping to free up the program service staff to really work with the people individually and not necessarily be all strung out on data.

NINA MOINI: Amazing. Kate, thank you so much for stopping by and telling us about this. And congratulations.

KATE KELLY: Thank you. Thanks for having us and have a great holiday.

NINA MOINI: You too. Kate Kelly is development director of Merrick Community Services in St. Paul.