Otto Bremer Foundation

The Otto Bremer Trust is a private charitable trust located in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded by Otto Bremer in 1944 and owns 92 percent of Bremer Bank. In 2016, the Trust made a record $47 million in grants and program-related investments.

The trust makes grants and program-related investments in Minnesota, North Dakota, and western Wisconsin in communities where there are Bremer banks. The organization changed its name from Otto Bremer Foundation in 2015.

Otto Bremer was a German-American immigrant who came to the United States in 1886. He worked in several jobs before becoming a bookkeeper at the German American National Bank, where over the next 36 years he rose to become chairman of the American National Bank. He was an investor in independent rural banks throughout the Upper Midwest and during the Great Depression used his own assets to help support many of these banks.

He partnered with his brother Adolph in the ownership and management of the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota. He served as treasurer of the City of St. Paul for more than a decade and became an advisor to Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Bremer established the Trust to perpetuate Bremer banks and help support the communities in which they are located.

The Trust invests in people, places and opportunities in the Upper Midwest, recognizing not only the individuals and communities of the region where the Trust operates but also the increasingly diverse needs of dynamic organizations throughout the region which present unique and compelling opportunities for the Trust’s investment.

The Trust accepts grant applications from organizations located in communities where there are Bremer banks. Highest priority is given to opportunities with the potential to move a community forward in meaningful, powerful and broad-based ways. This broadness of vision is intentional in order to encourage innovative responses to community opportunities and challenges.

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