By Marian Barcus, Blandin Foundation Board of Trustees Chair and 2000 BCLP alumnus

We’ve heard it all before.  “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”  “A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor.”  “When you get bucked off, get right back on the horse.”  Now, we are living in times where those clichés are all too applicable.

While the current economy affects some more than others, no one is unscathed by the hardship.  We are literally all in it together.

Rural leaders, particularly those who’ve earned the prestigious Blandin Community Leadership pinecone, are better prepared than most to deal with this adversity.  Our rural roots have equipped us with a strong sense of self-sufficiency, pride, and determination.  We value integrity, humility, and hard work.  Balancing our self-sufficiency, we have a strong tradition of helping others.  Woven into our fabric of core values are our BCLP competencies in framing opportunities, building social capital, mobilizing resources, and embracing diversity.

So what does this mean in the current extraordinary times in which we live?

During adversity – economic or otherwise – two universal, yet contrasting, behavioral patterns help us survive.  First, we turn to our familiar values, beliefs, and coping strategies to get us through. So as we struggle with reduced income, job loss, budget cuts, and business closures, we tend to retreat inward to the familiar and to those things that matter most.

However, humans are also most open to learning new behaviors in times of crisis. In these adverse times, we are most primed to learn new “survival” skills, refresh existing ones and creatively apply BCLP principles.

A struggling business owner collaborates with a competitor or supplier to keep both operations viable.  As rural leaders, we take the risk of building new social capital by including those who are different than us.  In our personal lives, we barter childcare services with reliable neighbors, carpool with coworkers, or take a new class for increased employability. Collectively, as communities, we partner with neighboring cities or counties to share expensive equipment and services.  We build new partnerships to position our communities for stimulus funds.

What we’ve learned, and reapply creatively about surviving and thriving, is the productive tension between turning inward and risky networking.  We’ve learned that we get the best outcomes from diverse input.  Our skills in framing issues so that diverse interests can identify their own self-interest in improving communities are critically important.

In The Rise of the Creative Class, author Richard Florida theorizes, with sturdy data analysis, that “regional economic growth is powered by creative people who prefer diverse, tolerant places open to new ideas.”   James Surowiecki, in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, makes a strong empirical case for “collective decisions being wise only when they incorporate lots of different information…cognitive diversity.”  Now is an excellent time to review the teachings in these resources, not only for personal leadership renewal, but also for scientific reassurance of our intuitive values and skills.

Because building healthy community seems an even steeper climb when funds are limited, now is the time to reach deep into our leadership training. Listen to your neighbors and learn about those who are different.  Welcome creative new approaches and develop partnerships for mutual gain and community growth. We must prepare ourselves, our communities, and our causes for at least three options:  What if I (we) succeed?  What if the worst happens?  What if nothing changes?

Now, in the fire of economic distress, we possess all the seeds of renewal. We are grounded in our core rural values.  We possess vital leadership skills.  We are motivated to sustain and grow our communities.  (That’s how you got to the last paragraph of this article!)  And with the economic lemons this episode of life has provided, we can choose to make lemonade.

Characteristic Clues to Healthy Community

While this issue focuses on the challenges rural communities face in an uncertain economy, we also must remember to celebrate the successes of our rural communities. The Heartland Center for Leadership Development has compiled a list of characteristics shared by healthy communities.

Following are five of the 20 key characteristics identified by the Heartland Center as being part of healthy community.

1 – Active Economic Development Program:
There is an organized, public/private approach to economic development.

2 – Celebration of Diversity in Leadership:
Women, minorities, youth and newcomers are welcomed into leadership circles where their ideas are treated as opportunities.

3 – Strong Belief in and Support for Education:
Good schools are the norm and centers of community activity.

4 -­ Strong Multi-Generational Family Orientation:
The definition of family is broad, and activities include younger as well as older generations.

5 -­ Sound and Well Maintained Infrastructure:
Leaders work hard to maintain and improve streets, sidewalks, water systems and sewage systems.

The complete listing of 20 Clues to Rural Community Survival can be found at the Heartland Center for Leadership Development web site: www.heartlandcenter.info/clues.htm

Copyright Heartland Center for Leadership Development. Reprinted with permission.

Mobilizing Alumni to Engage and Empower Youth

“The American Indian Alumni Gathering has its roots in youth’s call to leadership,” said Valerie Shangreaux, Blandin Foundation’s director of leadership.

In 2006, the Mille Lacs Band spear-headed the first state-wide Indian Youth Summit, which was supported by the Blandin Reservation Community Leadership Program (BRCLP) Advisory Committee and the Blandin Foundation. The Youth Summit provided an opportunity for youth to analyze and speak to the health of their communities and to help develop new ideas for community initiatives that could enable youth to develop and live optimal lives. The recommendations from youth “gave American Indian leaders important information about youth perceptions and a forum for leaders to discuss ways to involve, interest and connect youth in building healthy community,” added Valerie Shangreaux.

During the summit the youth coined the phrase, “It was what it was, it is what it is and it will be what we make it.” This phrase helped set the stage for the 75 leadership alumni who attended the gathering.

It was what it was…
Participants began the event reflecting on their experience with the Blandin leadership programs. Individually they created personal pictographs documenting key life events. As reservation-based groups they also developed community pictographs representing key events in the history of their reservation. The pictographs created an “opportunity for people and communities to share their stories in ways that can help shape and build youth empowerment” stated one BRCLP alumni.

It is what it is…
Dr. Thomas Peacock, author and University of Minnesota Duluth educator, was the keynote speaker for the event. He shared his research on American Indian youth throughout the country and their struggle to choose hope even while being surrounded by despair.

The alumni then had a chance to compare their perceptions of what reinforces or restrains youth from achieving their full potential in their communities today with those perceptions generated by youth at the Youth Summit. This comparison allowed leaders to consider ways to engage and empower youth in building healthy community.  As Roxanne DeLille, a leadership trainer stated, “our work today is tomorrow coming.”

It will be what we make it…
Dr. Kathleen Annette, chair of the BRCLP Advisory Committee and trustee emeritus of the Blandin Foundation, charged the alumni by stating “we’re here to assist our youth.” Each reservation group developed at least one community-specific Youth Engagement Plan to be implemented through the collective efforts of adult leaders and youth. One participant stated, “It renewed my desire to see our youth become successful leaders in the future; to not cast them aside as a lost cause.”

Two native youth initiatives, which came forward through the alumni gathering, already have gained momentum and received funding through the Blandin Foundation’s Quickstart grants program.

• Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemakers received funding to
  support its area’s native youth by starting up a Native American drumming, singing, and dance program. Classes are intended to help youth make dance regalia, with the goals of providing role models, outlets for self-expression and fun physical activities.
•  Dakota Wicohan is a regional nonprofit with the mission of supporting
  the revitalization of the Dakota language and life ways. The organization received a grant to fund two fellows to work with approximately 50 youth over the course of a year on Dakota language and Dakota leadership and citizenry.

The American Indian alumni gathering helped to create a sense of optimism about working with young people to implement each community’s youth engagement plan. One participant stated it this way, “This gathering has created a cohesive group to carry out the mission and vision created.”

‘Nothing Is Going to Happen Here without Leadership’ 

There are more than a few parallels found between today’s economic hardship and the economic times in existence when the Blandin Foundation launched its leadership programs.

In the early 1980s, when the Foundation’s Board of Trustees first began to envision ways to help feed rural communities for lifetime, rather than giving them the proverbial fish for the day, the state was in economic crisis.

Southwestern Minnesota was gripped by agricultural crisis ­ foreclosures were at rates not seen since the 1930s, banks were closing and lives were in turmoil.  On Minnesota’s Iron Range, conditions weren’t any better. The mining industry, the region’s lifeblood, was in the midst of a severe downturn.

The Blandin Foundation and its trustees were well aware of the negative impact to rural communities, often already challenged even in the best of economic times. It was in these times during one meeting of the Board of Trustees that trustee Henry Doerr made a statement that changed the course of Foundation history: “You know I’ll just say one thing. Nothing, absolutely nothing is going to happen here without good leadership.”

Kathryn Jensen, former senior vice president of the Blandin Foundation, recalled that with Doerr’s words: “You could see the light bulbs go on around the room ­ everybody paused because we weren’t sure what to do in the middle of this downturn and that statement got us rolling on this idea of leadership.”

Jim Krile, who then worked in sociology at the University of Minnesota, was brought in to consult then later help design this new programming. The Greensboro, North Carolina, Center for Creative Leadership became the model for the new leadership initiative when it launched in 1985.

As with any new endeavor, there were numerous challenges. Jensen remembered that some trustees believed that leaders were born and not made ­ the old nature versus nurture argument.  And, there was soon the realization that the Center for Creative Leadership model would need some transformation from its corporate origins to fit rural leadership participants.

In those early days program designers hoped to rise to those challenges by placing emphasis on communities, not individuals.

Focusing on “together” yielded early dividends for the upstart program. One example was an early cohort from Bigfork, which collectively realized they couldn’t do it alone. Reaching out to neighboring communities, they started the “Edge of the Wilderness” golf course.  Twenty-plus years later, this collaborative concept lives on and has branched into a number of other endeavors.

It’s those kind of transformations, which have occurred in communities throughout the state that convince early founders of leadership programming that the decision to journey into community leadership more than two decades ago was on the mark.

There also is a strong sense among those who had deep connection to leadership’s early days that recognizing the opportunity that existed from hardship some 20-plus years ago has created networks of rural leaders who are better equipped to deal with the challenges of both today and tomorrow.

“I had the privilege of working in a place where we were invited to create a world-class program ­ to provide experiences for people who would get that no place else in their lives,” said Jim, who worked as the Foundation’s leadership director from 1986 to 2007. “They (BCLP participants) didn’t work for corporations that were going to send them to Harvard or the Center for Creative Leadership. These are the folks who ran barbershops and farmed and were managers at the elevator and school superintendents. They came and our job was to provide them with the best possible learning experience we were capable of.”

‘Leadership News and Notes’ is a regular feature of Community Leader celebrating the accomplishments and endeavors of Blandin Foundation Leadership Program alumni as well as the communities which have been served by its programs.  This issue features Colleen Landkamer and Greg Raymo.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Colleen Landkamer, 1998 BCLP alumnus and 2008 Academy for Advancing Community participant, Mankato, was recently named Minnesota state director of United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development.

Colleen has been a county commissioner for Blue Earth County since 1988. Her community involvement includes: chairing the Minnesota Counties Research Foundation and serving on the Rural Policy Center Board of Directors, Greater Minnesota Housing Fund Board, Minnesota Transportation Alliance Board, Minnesota Rural Partners Board and State Community Health Advisory Committee. Colleen also co-chaired the Minnesota Health Improvement Program and served on the Children, Families, and Learning Planning Committee and the Delivery of Correctional Services State Committee.

In 2000, Landkamer was named “County Leader of the Year” by American City & County magazine for her leadership.

Colleen and her husband, Jack, have three children.

Sources:  WCCO and the National Association of Counties

Greg Raymo, 1999 BCLP alumnus, Worthington, was named the 2009 recipient of the Southwest Initiative Foundation Award.

The SWIF Award is presented each year to individuals, businesses or organizations that exemplify the foundation’s mission – “to be a catalyst for economic and social growth by developing and challenging leaders to build on the region’s assets.” SWIF is headquartered in Hutchinson and focuses on leadership, relationship building program development and philanthropy in southwest Minnesota.

Greg, executive vice president of First State Bank Southwest, is active in community in a number of ways. He is a charter member of the Worthington Early Childhood Initiative, an SWIF ambassador and works with SWIF’s economic advancement and loan programs. He also is involved with: Community Advantage Leadership Program, Minnesota Bankers Association, Junior Achievement, Worthington High School business department, Worthington Regional Economic Development Corporation, Worthington Area Chamber of Commerce, Nobles County HRA/EDA, the Center of Rural Economics and Sanford Regional Hospital Worthington Advisory Board.

Greg and his wife, Barb, have three children and one grandchild.

Source:  Worthington Daily Globe

School districts in the rural Itasca County area already know how to cope with difficult times. Schools here have faced declining enrollment, and thus declining revenues from the state, for more than a decade.

While watching student enrollment numbers edge downward each fall has presented its challenges, it also offered opportunity to work together in ways that 20 years ago would have seemed unfathomable.

Rural school districts in this area, including Grand Rapids, Greenway, Nashwauk-Keewatin, Deer River, Remer, Floodwood and Hill City, began working together collectively in 1987 as the Quad County Telecommunications Project. Then the focus was simple: making interactive television studios a reality for rural education.

In 2005, the school districts, joined by Itasca Community College, reorganized as the Itasca Area Schools Collaborative (IASC). The group re-launched with a greatly expanded mission dealing with: declining enrollments, strained budgets, high poverty, stagnant or declining state aid funding, the need to maximize resources, the declining ability to provide recovery, remedial or elective classes, and the need for data-driven decisions. In short, IASC’s redefined focus dealt with many of the same issues that face rural communities as a whole.

Grand Rapids School District Superintendent Joe Silko, a 2004 alumnus of the Blandin Educational Leadership Program, said one of the main benefits of membership is that districts can choose whether to participate in any given initiative. “It’s a menu-driven approach,” he said.

The umbrella IASC is a pick-and-choose model for member educational institutions, but there is plenty on the menu. Some of the collaborations include: Project Lead the Way, a pre-engineering curriculum offered at the high school level, a shared fiber network, cost savings through combined staff development and textbook purchasing and combining resources to greatly expand community education offerings.  IASC also fed into northeastern Minnesota’s Applied Learning Institute, a workforce development collaboration of 16 school districts and five community colleges.

Rochelle Van Den Heuvel, a 2008 BCLP alum and former Greenway superintendent, said the greatest benefit of the collaboration has been to students. “I believe the value to Greenway is significant both in financial savings as well as being able to provide increased opportunities for students in the district,” she said. “As a district moving to get out of statutory operating debt, we were reducing core and elective courses as well as staff development options. Through IASC partnerships and programs, we were able to continue, or bring back, some of those opportunities.”

“The relationships that have been established through IASC have enabled changes to happen more quickly,” added Mike Johnson, a 2004 BCLP alumnus, ICC Provost and Blandin Foundation trustee. “The social capital that has developed has allowed a crisis to create opportunities. Reality is upon us and we have the trust and willingness to make bold moves to enhance educational opportunities for students.”

The collaborative approach has not only been successful but it also is beginning to expand. An IASC online learning collaborative, VITAL, merged with a Brainerd-based online learning group last year to become Infinity Online Learning. The new online learning group is comprised of 35 member school districts.

Through Infinity, about 900 students from IASC member districts were able to take courses from about 50 offerings during the 2008-2009 school year. There was a much wider spectrum of offerings available through Infinity than ever would have been possible for any small school district operating on its own.

“Through Infinity, we can offer everything from intermediate to advanced coursework in a number of areas,” said Joe.

“We have a responsibility to improve the quality of education for all students in the region, not just the pupils in our individual districts,” said Joe.

In this time of economic hardship, making the best use of resources, both human and financial, is more important than ever.

Analyzing community problems helps your community group clarify the causes, consequences and nature of a problem before you try to solve it.

A problem should be analyzed in the earliest stages of a project – before you develop priorities, set goals or mobilize action.  The way a problem is defined will determine the type of solutions that will be developed.  Also, remember that problems usually have more than one cause and there is a natural tendency to think of solutions before fully understanding the nature of the problem.

Keeping these key points in mind, the steps to analyzing community problems
include:

Step 1 – State the problem as you see it now
Step 2 – Describe why this is a problem
Step 3 – Describe the causes and consequences of this problem
Step 4 – Describe who is involved
Step 5 -­ Identify missing information
Step 6 -­ Define the problem briefly
Step 7 -­ Define the problem in manageable terms

The information above is excerpted from The Community Leadership Handbook, by James F. Krile with Gordy Curphy and Duane R. Lund (Fieldstone Alliance, 2006).