Minnesota Association of Family and Consumer Sciences

MAFCS is a "scientific and educational association of family and consumer sciences professionals," which "acts through its members, and in cooperation with other organizations, to affect the optimum balance between families and their environments."

MAFCS is a "scientific and educational association of family and consumer sciences professionals," which "acts through its members, and in cooperation with other organizations, to affect the optimum balance between families and their environments." The American Home Economics Association was founded in 1909 by Ellen Swallow Richards and a group of home economics professionals. The Minnesota Home Economics Association (MHEA) became a state affiliate in 1923. It changed its name to the Minnesota Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (MAFCS) in 1995, following the decision in 1994 to change the name of the national organization to the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.

MHEA/MAFCS has maintained strong ties to the University of Minnesota through scholarships that benefitted numerous University of Minnesota students. With the closing of the College of Human Ecology (formerly Home Economics) in 2006, which had been the central college for family and consumer sciences disciplines, MAFCS's ties with the university dispersed to the Department of Family Social Science and the Family Education program in the College of Education and Human Development, the Department of Food Science and Nutrition in the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences, and the Department of Design, Housing and Apparel in the College of Design.