About the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation

The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation was created in 2004 by Best Buy founder, Dick Schulze. He wanted to give back to the community in which he and his family grew up and gave him so much in return. It is Dick’s strong belief that a good education, supportive family and strong work ethic will prepare children for a successful future. To ensure families have the ability to be all they can be, the foundation focuses on the following areas: education programs, food, shelter, afterschool programs and camps.

In addition, the unthinkable could happen and cause a crisis in a family, hindering their ability to a successful future. The Schulze family has been impacted by cancer and type 1 diabetes and understands the challenges families endure while battling a disease. Because of this experience, another focus of the foundation is in supporting the medical human service agencies that assist families with their initial transitional needs when dealing with a new medical challenge.

The foundation focuses its work and grants in the following geographic areas: Hennepin, Dakota & Ramsey Counties of Minnesota; Collier, Lee and Hendry Counties of Florida and Napa County in California. Currently, we do not make grants outside of these areas.

Our vision is to connect in a significant way with chosen programs, making strategic contributions to achieve specific, measurable results enabling transformational change to benefit mankind.

Two Funds

The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation and the Richard M. and Sandra J. Schulze Family Fund are two separate foundations that work together. Each foundation is a separate legal entity with a shared governance process. The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation oversees the day-to-day operations and manages grants. One completed proposal serves as an application to both foundations.

 The foundation makes most of its grants to U.S. tax-exempt organizations that our staff independently identifies. A small percentage of grantmaking occurs through Requests for Proposals (RFPs). The foundation does not support programs or organizations that fall outside of our focus areas. We also do not support loans, event fundraisers or sponsorships, individuals, labor organizations, lobbying, political campaigns, organizations or work conducted outside of the United States. We do not accept unsolicited proposals.

To learn more about the types of grants we fund, please review our foundation focus areas.

Please note that the foundation does not accept proposals by mail.