The collection includes minutes and scrapbooks from several predecessor organizations. Through a complicated series of name changes and mergers, these organizations eventually became the Minneapolis Church Federation, which changed its name to the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches in 1957.

The chronological archive was maintained by the Council office and has been retained as a separate series, rather than integrated with the rest of the collection. Unlike previous series, which are arranged primarily by division or other major organizational unit, the chronological archive is arranged first by date and then by division. Materials supplement and often overlap the rest of the collection for the years it covers (1940s-1970s, bulk 1970-1978). Records in this series are primarily administrative and finance-related, but also include clippings, program flyers, and minutes documenting other divisions of the organization.

The governance series contains records documenting the structure and governance of the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches including official bylaws and articles of incorporation, as well as minutes and reports of board meetings, delegate assemblies, and annual meetings. Also in this series are materials relating to board membership, the nominating committee for the board of directors, and the new programs committee, which evaluates proposals for new divisions, departments, or projects within the organization. The series includes a folder of background materials such as brochures, organization charts, and scripts for presentations on the history, structure, and mission of the Council.

The Administration series includes the records of the Administrative Division as well as other administrative departments and functions such as public relations and personnel. These records include committee minutes, correspondence, and policies. Of particular interest is a folder of materials documenting the search for a new executive secretary in 1941-1942, providing a fairly comprehensive picture of the search process, including considerable correspondence from and regarding individuals being considered for the position (some with candid comments on the merits of particular candidates) and minutes from meetings of the search committee. The largest part of the series, however, are financial records of the Council, including budgets, balance sheets, audit reports, and fund raising campaign materials. The fund raising campaign records are of particular interest as they document the manner in which financial support of the organization is divided between the annual commitments of the member churches and donations from individuals and other organizations supporting the Council's mission.

Materials in this series include the articles of incorporation and bylaws of the Church Women United and its predecessor organizations, correspondence, and subject files. The bulk of the series consists of a nearly complete run of minutes from 1927 through 1985. Other materials document group activities such as annual World Day of Prayer and May Fellowship Day.

One of the largest in the collection, this series documents activities that include the vacation church school program, the Life and Leadership Schools, and youth activities. Making up the largest part of the series are records documenting the weekday church school program, which organized interdenominational classes for Christian children released one hour per week from the public schools for religious instruction. The materials on this program, which include minutes, registrations, attendance records, teacher applications and training materials, as well as financial records, document the institution of organized, released time religious instruction in the Minneapolis area during the 1920s. The records describe the response to accusations that the program violated the separation of church and state, the ensuing court decisions, and the eventual demise of the program in 1968 due to these decisions and declining enrollment as community support of released time instruction waned. The series concludes with a large group of subject files, highlights of which include the Twin City Black Clergy Institutes, workshops on transactional analysis, the Environmental Program in Churches (EPIC), and the Institutes of Religious Studies.

Records of the Division of Indian Work include bylaws, minutes, correspondence, financial records, subject files, and grant proposals. The grant proposals, which make up a significant portion of the series, provide documentation on many of the major ongoing projects within the division during the 1980s, including the Family Violence Program and the Youth Leadership Development Program. The subject files include information on a number of other programs, such as Children and Youth in Crisis and employment counseling activities.

The Social Ministries series includes records from the unit known variously as the Public Affairs Department (through the early 1960s), the Christian Social Relations Department (early 1960s to 1966), and the Division of Social Ministries (1967 on). In addition to minutes and a small number of newsletters, this series consists primarily of subject files documenting the Council's activities and positions on issues related to human rights, especially race relations. Of particular interest are the files relating to the fair housing campaign of the early 1960s, which describe the then rampant discrimination faced by racial and religious minorities seeking housing in the Minneapolis area and the efforts to change attitudes and pass legislation to combat the problem.

The Ecumenical Relations Division, later renamed "Faith in Dialogue," focused on efforts to promote ecumenical attitudes and activities among the member churches and between all Christian denominations in general. Of particular interest in this series are materials relating to efforts to improve relations between Catholics and Protestants. Also included in this series are several folders on plans for the Council's participation in the bicentennial celebration (1974-1976).

The bulk of this series consists of chronological files of minutes, correspondence, budgets, reports, clippings, and other materials dating from the early 1950s through the 1980s. The series documents the Council's role in providing the services of spiritual counselors for prisoners, hospital patients, and other groups in need. Also included are materials related to fund raising activities and photographs of Council-sponsored chaplains at work in the community.

By the 1980s, the focus of GMCC had shifted from religious education to social services in the community. The records of Congregations Concerned for Children, Meals on Wheels, Minnesota FoodShare, and the Metro Paint-A-Thon represent, in addition to the Division of Indian Work, the major activities and programs of the organization in the 1980s and 1990s.

The subject files form the largest series in the collection. Arranged alphabetically by folder title, they include files for smaller departments, programs, or projects that could not be identified with any of the major divisions already represented by separate series, as well as materials relating to outside organizations in which the Council participated or was associated in some manner. Departments represented in this series include Church Planning and Location, Comity and Evangelism. Major programs documented include Circle F Club, Holy Week Observances, Partners in Ecumenism, and the Reformation Festival, the Minneapolis Ministerial Association, and Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church. Among the many outside organizations with which the Council worked that are represented here are the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Minneapolis, the Minnesota Inter religious Committee on Jewish-Christian Relations, and the Minnesota Protestant Center. A significant portion of these files concern the Twin Cities Metropolitan Church Commission, the organization that provides cooperative programming among the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches, the St. Paul Council of Churches, and the Minnesota Council of Churches. This subseries includes extensive documentation of the Viable Futures for Congregations program, which was administered through the Twin Cities Metropolitan Church Commission. Other major topics covered in the subject files include religion in the public schools and issues concerning liquor license laws in Minneapolis.

The remainder of the collection consists of printed materials, photographs, videocassettes, and scrapbooks. The printed materials include copies of the Council's newsletter, the Bulletin, a more complete run of which can be found as a separately cataloged item. Also of interest is a copy of H. Paul Doug lass' 1944 work, Minneapolis Churches: A Brief Study of Their Institutional Aspects, bound together with the surveys that were used as raw data for the research.