[Minnesota Rising Dispatch] November 2015

[#mnrising Dispatch] November 2015 In this season of giving thanks, Minnesota Rising is grateful for community leaders, partners, supporters, and colleagues in the work to impact the state's future - including you! This month, in particular, we were out and about: Meeting our Greater Minnesota Rising project sponsors, the Mary J. Page family, at the Green Lands Blue Waters Conference reception on November 3 at Coffman Memorial Union Tabling at the #stphello Welcome Hat event at the MN History Center on November 10 to warmly welcome folks new or returning to the region Facilitating the Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute (BCLI) Issue Series: Intersectionality on November 12 with our LOCUS initiative for emerging leaders of color Hosting the IDEA GENERATION on November 14 at Impact Hub MSP, sponsored by the Bush Foundation, and sparking 5 new calls to action! Launching #MakeItMSP planning for 2016 with other emerging leaders working collaboratively to make the Twin Cities region a more inclusive and attractive place to live, work, and play Minnesota Rising Founder, Diane Tran, spoke as part of Senator Amy Klobuchar's "Millennials and the On-Demand Economy" Summit at Sport Ngin on November 24 Gathering in gratitude with our Sounding Board Session members for a celebratory meal and game night to commemorate great work in 2015! See for yourself in the photos below, and thanks again for being a part of the network for what's next!   Friend on Facebook Follow on Twitter Forward to a Friend News from the Network Updates and events with our esteemed partners and collaborators! Special Screening of "Most Likely to Succeed" Young Education Professionals - Twin Cities Thursday, December 3 6:00pm - 9:00pm Pepito's Parkway Theatre Assumptions and Data Choices for Prospective Social Return on Investment Twin Cities Research Group Tuesday, December 9 12:00pm - 1:00pm Wilder Foundation "The Speakeasy" The Young Professionals of Minneapolis Saturday, December 12 6:00pm - 10:00pm Minnesota Transportation Museum CAAL Ignites: Education and Economics  Coalition of Asian American Leaders Monday, December 14 8:00am - 10:00am Metro State University Winter Warmer Break the Bubble Tuesday, December 15 6:00pm - 9:00pm LynLake Brewery #85: A Community Management Conversation with Kary Delaria SMBMSP Friday, December 18 8:00am - 10:00am 514 Studios   Making Our #MNRising Mark! Don't forget to tag your upcoming emerging leader events, thoughts, musings, and more,#mnrising, on Twitter and Facebook. Let's aggregate and organize ourselves for increased interaction and potential for collaboration!  Copyright © 2015 Minnesota Rising, All rights reserved.

"Millennials and the On-Demand Economy Summit" with Senator Amy Klobuchar

I'm excited to have been invited to participate in Senator Klobuchar's "Millennials and the On-Demand Economy Summit" tomorrow at Sport Ngin. Note that the event time has been revised to 11:30am. Join us for an engaging conversation about issues impacting Millennials across Minnesota!

Klobuchar To Host Millennial Summit

The event will highlight issues facing one of the nation’s largest generations that is currently entering the workforce.

by TCB Staff

November 23, 2015

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is hosting a summit on Tuesday that will focus on issues impacting millennials.

The event, which takes places at Sport Ngin’s headquarters in Northeast Minneapolis at 11:30 a.m., will focus on navigating the on-demand economy, managing student loan debt and participation in workforce development and apprenticeship programs.

Millennials are the generation born roughly from the early 1980s until 2000. The event is being hosted at Sport Ngin in part because the business was founded entirely by millennials.

Other prominent names at the event are Jen Mishory (executive director of Young Invincibles), Justin Kaufenberg (CEO of Sport Ngin), Merrill Irving (president of Hennepin Community & Technical College), Diane Tran (founder of Minnesota Rising) and Matt Lewis (strategy manager of Greater MSP).

Be inspired 11/14 by #ideagen Spark Stories Speakers!‏

Exchange ideas. Make connections. Inspire + be inspired. Saturday, November 14, 2015 10:00am - 2:00pm Impact Hub MSP

We're thrilled to have a great set of thinkers and doers to kick off our event with their Spark Stories of taking action. Read on for more about Ifrah Mansour, Jun-Li Wang, Amee McDonald, and Bryan Boyce and then register to save your seat at the IDEA GENERATION!

Ifrah Mansour  Ifrah Mansour is an interdisciplinary mixed media artist, performer, and teacher, bridging cultures and generations. A Somali refugee artist who's recently gained an expanded audience through her "How to Grow up in a Civil War" piece performed at the 2015 Minnesota State Fair, she’s made a name for herself in the theater world, establishing herself as a formidable costume designer and actress in many staged productions. As an environmentally conscious performer, Ifrah’s performances almost always includes recycled fashions. Amee McDonald Amee is an entrepreneurial spirit guided by passion for marketing and dedication to the community. She is CEO and Co-Founder of jabber logic, which helps businesses and nonprofits communicate. Communication happens every time you have contact with your consumers. Every time you post on social media, every time your consumers see your logo, every time your staff interacts with consumers, your brand is communicating a message. jabber logic has created a simple formula that blends strategic direction, thoughtful execution and evaluation to ensure clients' brands are starting the right conversations. Jun-Li Wang Jun-Li connects people, places and ideas as founder of Saint Paul Helloand Board Repair. At Springboard for the Arts, she creates and delivers programs that organize communities of artists, build reciprocal relationships between communities and their artists, and train artists to address community interests – locally, regionally and nationally. Jun-Li serves on the St. Paul Planning Commission, manages a community-building art program Paint the Pavement and is on the board of Urban Boatbuilders, a metro non-profit serving at-risk youth. Bryan Boyce Bryan Boyce taught high school English in Lesotho and a Lakota reservation before serving as Assistant Director of Breakthrough San Juan Capistrano in California, which he led to the highest student reading and math growth in the nationwide Collaborative. He recently received Grinnell College's Wall Alumni Service Award to foundCow Tipping Press, a program dedicated to amplifying the written voices of adults with developmental disabilities. A Southern Minnesota native, he enjoys every single menu item at Taco John's and works hard to preserve a streak of having swum in outdoor bodies of water each of the past consecutive 106 months.

Copyright © 2015 Minnesota Rising, All rights reserved.

[Recommended reading] Workforce Development: Engaging Tomorrow’s Leaders in the Challenges of Today

As the work on our Greater Minnesota Rising project begins to wrap up, we're excited to share a blog post from team member, Chet Bodin, originally published on The Center for Small Towns blog in July. See below for Chet's initial insights and watch for more as the team prepares to share its final analysis and recommendations!

The Center for Small Towns: Reflections from

Rural Minnesota

The Center for Small Towns is a community outreach program of the University of Minnesota, Morris. The Center for Small Towns serves to connect small towns with the resources of the University, and can provide everything from hands on help with community projects, to data analysis and survey creation and distribution. The Center's efforts are directed by the wants and needs of small communities.

Workforce Development: Engaging Tomorrow’s Leaders in the Challenges of Today

By Chet Bodin, Central Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnership Board

As little as two years ago, I couldn’t tell you much about northwestern Minnesota.  The Brainerd Lakes area was the farthest I’d traveled, and people are quick to remind you there it’s only half way up the state.  I’d heard passing mention of the Red River Valley, the Red Lake Nation and We Fest in Detroit Lakes…but not much else.  My imagination filled the gaps with flyover shots of endless pines and firs, lakes and villages.  The last thing I expected was a bustling, diverse economic landscape driven by robust industry and numerous colleges.

What I did know was my friend and colleague Kelly Asche had been working at the Center for Small Towns in Morris for a couple years, and I was intrigued by the draw to rural communities.  Raised in Red Wing, just like so many others I left my hometown for a post-secondary education and new experiences.  After 15 years of life in the metro and two post-secondary degrees, how would rural Minnesota appear to me?  The gravel roads and open fields carry lots of sentimental value, but would I recognize a socioeconomic value that wasn’t as apparent growing up?  

After a year living in Nisswa, MN and traveling throughout northwestern Minnesota as a representative of the Department of Employment and Economic Development, the answer is an overwhelming yes.  In fact, having bought into the myth that there’s only one side of the urban-rural divide for young, educated persons to be, a part of me feels robbed that I didn’t get here sooner.  The summers are spectacular, the music is abundant and the people are passionate yet relatively care-free – and after living through the polar vortex of 2014, no amount of winter terror worries me anymore.  So why don’t more people like me choose to live here?

That’s one of the questions being asked by Greater Minnesota Rising (GMR), a research project funded by The Initiative Foundations in Little Falls and West Central: to seek out why people move here, why they don’t, and what strategies might facilitate migration as the state and nation faces its most challenging labor shortage since World War II.  An initiative of Minnesota Rising, a network of emerging leaders across the state focused on the future of Minnesota, Greater Minnesota Rising was developed on the heels of Ben Winchester’s landmark “Brain Gain” migration research. His findings showed most of rural Minnesota actually experienced an influx of people and talent ages 30-49 from 1990-2000 and 2000-2010.  Winchester goes on to exclaim “Imagine if we actually helped people move here!”  

Northwest Minnesota may be the state’s best kept secret, but the times they are a changin’.  The 26 county region will need to fill almost 60,000 replacement openings by 2022 to maintain its current workforce, without which local industry will struggle to produce as much and compete on the world stage.  Greater Minnesota Rising is on a mission to figure out how professional networks and emerging leaders in the northwest can be activated in response to the challenge.  In April, our research capacity was increased significantly with the support of the Mary Page Community-University Partnership Fund, a fundraising effort to memorialize Mary Page, a trailblazing leader for RSDP and Greater Minnesota.  With their support, GMR was able to hire Brooke McManigal, a CURA student researcher, via the Community Assistantship Program.  Brooke will join Minnesota Rising volunteers and GMR Research Lead David Milavetz from Raising The Bar LLC on the project.

In three phases this summer, Greater Minnesota Rising is talking with emerging leader groups, junior chambers, and other community organizations to explore three basic questions:

The aim is to develop recommendations for ways individuals, organizations, and regional groups can be intentional resources in the critical workforce development issue.  Unlike corporate recruitment or other strategies based solely on work opportunities, GMR engages rural emerging leaders in an effort to reach their counterparts elsewhere, millennial to millennial.  I like happy hours as much as the next grad student, but the passion and energy of these networks is so attractive and contagious it needs to be shared.  With their extensive regional knowledge and experience, we hope that passion can be channeled to illuminate those imaginative black holes that city folk conjure up when thinking about northwestern Minnesota.  What’s it like to work in healthcare in northwest Minnesota?  I don’t know, but there are a lot of people that do – employing over 36,000 people it’s the largest employing industry here with wages that often exceed the state average.  GMR aims to find ways to share rich knowledge like this with those who have even a slight inclination (a dream, if you will) of living in vacation-land year-round.  The future of the state’s economy will be driven by the job seeker – here’s to empowering each and every one to finding a sustainable place to work and live.  Don’t be fooled – there’s far more than one (or twin) option(s).

You're Invited: #mnrising IDEA GENERATION on November 14!

Looking for a chance to be inspired or to inspire others? Join #mnrising at Impact Hub MSP for some give and take at the IDEA GENERATION. Get a gander at "Un/Conference 2.0" and help us keep innovating on how to connect and equip emerging doers and thinkers!

Minnesota Rising invites you to be a part of the IDEA GENERATION!   IDEA GENERATION | Impact Hub MSP Saturday, November 14, 2015 | 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM  What is an IDEA GENERATION event? It's a chance for you to get to know other emerging thinkers and doers to pitch and develop an idea or project, be a resource to one another, and help push forward innovative thoughts and intentional work. The IDEA GENERATION is a chance to get inspired and be someone else's inspiration. Why an IDEA GENERATION event? Because Minnesota Rising wants to build relationships, spark new ideas, and workshop others in a focused format. While our annual Un/Conference has traditionally been an energizing way to connect with others and inspire creative ventures, we want to keep innovating on how to help you and other emerging leaders to move even further and faster in your efforts to impact Minnesota's future! We're excited to hear about the great things rattling around your noggin that could benefit from an outside perspective, a little encouragement, or that one thing that would really get your dream flying. How does an IDEA GENERATION event work? After some open networking, event participants will hear Spark Stories from a few speakers about their experience of being in the midst of forming an idea or putting it into action in order to set the stage for attendees who will do the same during the event. Everyone will then begin a ProAction Café – a process that enables people to bring forward ideas, projects, and passions and in return receive questions, insights, and help from others. The process includes guiding questions that will direct the conversation and naturally introduce participants to one another. The event will also include a resource-share and an opportunity to network further. So bring your thoughts, blueprints, or projects and join us to meet some great people while working together to build Minnesota's future! Saturday, November 14, 2015 09:45am Registration + Networking 10:00am Opening Welcome 10:15am Spark Stories 10:35am Pro-Action Cafe Overview + Call for Inquiries 10:50am Caller + Responder Training 11:00am Round 1 11:35am Round 2 12:10pm Lunch Break 12:45pm Round 3 01:20pm Wrap-Up + Reportback 01:40pm Closing Wrap-Up Impact Hub MSP Parking + Directions. Impact Hub MSP is located in the Traffic Zone Building in the Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis, just south of Washington Ave. on 3rd Ave. N. [ a one-way street headed SE]. Metered on-street parking is available on 3rd Ave N., Washington Ave., and surrounding areas. To learn more about directions and parking, visit their website. Impact Hub MSP, an IDEA GENERATION event sponsor, is a coworking and event space for social entrepreneurs, activities, professionals, and change makers dedicated to addressing our community's most critical challenges. Copyright © 2015 Minnesota Rising, All rights reserved.