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Blandin to focus on economic development
January 20, 2003

Grand Rapids, Minn. — (AP) - The Blandin Foundation announced Monday that it is shifting the focus of its grantmaking toward economic development during the next few years.

The Grand Rapids-based foundation won't be making new grants to arts, education, the environment, youth or recreation programs outside of its hometown, unless they are part of an economic development strategy.

"The opportunity for rural communities to review their economy is where our attention needs to be," said foundation president Paul Olson. "Too many rural Minnesota communities are threatened."

Blandin, with assets of $350 million, is Minnesota's largest rural-based foundation.

The foundation wants to help out with Minnesota's economic troubles such as those seen in the agriculture, mining and timber industries.

Olson cited several recent trends that Blandin can help address with its new strategy. Minnesota's manufacturing sector lost 80 percent of the 46,000 jobs it gained in the 1990s. U.S. workers made a third less in rural areas than urban workers in 2000. Rural political power is diminishing.

And Minnesota's $4.65 billion projected budget deficit "will have a huge impact on rural schools, communities and health care," Olson said.

"Events in our home community, hit hard with layoffs of 298 paper workers and threats of more mining layoffs nearby, drive home the urgency and timeliness of our new approach," he said.

Grants will be split about 50-50 between economic development and other causes in the Grand Rapids area, which has received about 40 percent of the foundation's largess during the past few years. Elsewhere in Minnesota, new grants will go exclusively for economic development.

Blandin will honor grant commitments already made, but it has had "an exit strategy" for previous programs such as education and the environment, Olson said, and gave notice a year ago that it would stop making statewide arts grants.

Blandin's bedrock strategy will rest on its leadership programs, which have taught leadership and collaborative skills to 3,800 people from 210 communities in the past 18 years.

The foundation is also adding two new leadership programs - one for economic development and the other for community institutions such as schools and health care.

"There are no silver bullets or quick fixes," Kathryn Jensen, the foundation's senior vice president, told groups from Marshall, Worthington, New Ulm and rural Brown County at a meeting last week near Redwood Falls. The groups are acting as a pilot for the economic leadership programs.

The groups said they face many problems, including small markets, geographic isolation and fear of change.

Foundation trainers told them not to focus on problems because they limit ideas and breed pessimism. Focus on the assets of the communities and figure out how to capitalize on them.

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