2010 Reinventing Minnesota -- Minnesota Community Pride Competition!

Showcase Your Minnesota Community Pride This Summer!

Co-sponsored by the Minnesota State Fair, MinnPost.com, and Minnesota Rural Partners, Inc (MRP), the “2010 Reinventing Minnesota -- Minnesota Community Pride Competition” opened for nominations June 1, 2010, and winners will be announced and cash awards distributed August 29 at the Minnesota State Fair. The contest is part of MRP’s Reinventing Minnesota initiative to recognize communities statewide for their efforts to move beyond the current economic challenge with creative and proactive community and economic development innovations.

Minnesota Community Pride is an old-fashioned community improvement competition to reward, inspire, showcase and share the (re)inventive good work already going on in Minnesota towns and neighborhoods. Weaving through all submissions should be evidence of the Reinventing Minnesota motto: Connect, Create, Thrive -- citizen engagement, collaboration, innovation, creativity, imagination, problem solving, awareness, and information sharing. Special categories this year include Rural Urban Partnering and Youth-Led Community Engagement.

Applications are due July 16.To download the contest guidelines and applications, scroll down to the information below that describes the two areas of entry: Category-Specific, and Comprehensive.

• Category-Specific Awards are for existing or emerging projects that fall within specific categories such as arts, broadband, entrepreneurship and more and take place in a community or neighborhood. Communities of all sizes are invited to nominate a project, including neighborhood associations within larger towns or cities.
  
  
• Comprehensive, Community-Wide Awards are for existing or emerging efforts in a community or neighborhood. In this community-wide improvement recognition contest, communities compete with other communities based on population size. The criteria mirror the 1980s Community Pride Awards process, which included evidence of citizen engagement in problem-solving, community assessments and planning, and action plans. Communities can generate submissions based on other community engagement, assessment and action models (e.g., Horizons, Healthy Communities, Value-Added Communities, etc.) or community-wide efforts that don’t follow a prescribed model.