Grant-making: The longest-running program of the Blandin Foundation, grants and scholarships are focused on six focus areas:
- Strengthening economic opportunity in rural Minnesota communities
- Supporting the educational attainment of rural Minnesotans who may not have had the same advantage as others
- Stimulating promotion of fairness and opportunity
- Supporting specialized leadership development
- Promoting a stronger rural voice, and
- Stimulating intercultural competency
A minimum of 55 percent of grants are targeted to the Itasca County local giving area, with the balance used to support initiatives in other parts of rural Minnesota. Similarly the Foundation invests heavily in educational opportunity for its home communities, including scholarships and innovative early childhood programs such as Invest Early™.
Leadership Development: Over 23 years, 250 rural Minnesota communities have worked with the Blandin Foundation to support the development of their established and emerging community leaders. More than 5,000 rural Minnesotans have participated in the Blandin Foundation Community Leadership Programs. This nationally recognized program builds competencies in three major areas:
- Framing opportunities and challenges that lead to effective action
- Building social capital for collaboration and resource sharing, and
- Mobilizing a critical mass of resources to achieve specific outcomes.
These programs are designed for community teams that reflect the diversity of the community from all walks of life. The core program couplease intensive residential retreat with ongoing workshops and trains leaders in communications, conflict management, networking and stakeholder analysis. Additional programs focus on special needs or particular communities, such as persons living in poverty.
Public policy programs: These programs bring research, people and organizations together to address opportunities to strengthen rural Minnesota. The focus is on encouraging informed citizen action to assure that rural perspectives are well represented in public discourse.
In particular, the Foundation focuses initiatives on four critically important rural Minnesota policy issues: forest resources, broadband technology, inclusiveness and rural voice.
