MANKATO — The Mankato area has an opportunity to take advantage of a high-quality community-building program that will cost its taxpayers nothing.

The Blandin Foundation of Grand Rapids is in the process of offering 48 community members a chance to participate in its highly regarded and long-standing community leadership program with all expenses paid by Blandin. The program offers community leaders a chance to get away from the office and just think a little more long term with five days at the beautiful Ruttger’s Sugar Lake Lodge in Grand Rapids.

Some 24 community leaders went through the program last year and in late May received their community leadership “diplomas.”

I was part of the recently graduated Mankato group that also included such community leaders as MSU Provost Scott Olson, business owner Todd Snell, YMCA Director John Kind, Voyageur Web owner Yvonne Cariveau, Barb Embacher, from GMG and Anna Thill from the Convention and Visitors Bureau as well as leaders from local government, the hospital, and other community organizations.

It was an impressive coming together in one room of a lot of people who help make Mankato what it is, and the conversation about the area’s strengths and weaknesses was fascinating. I expect great things will be achieved by this simple but important meeting of some of the brightest minds in the community.

The aim of the Blandin program is to help leaders identify the relative “health” of their community, as measured by eight dimensions of a healthy community, and to do something to improve the health of the community and solve problems.

The program helps leaders sharpen their tools to get things done and offers rare insight into how other community leaders think about the future of the place they live and work.

Blandin typically focuses on offering leadership training to communities much smaller than Mankato, but the results of the last cohort and a renewed commitment by Blandin that Mankato can achieve great things spurred two more programs this year.

Blandin had been conducting community leadership training programs for a couple decades and has helped train some 5,500 community leaders in Minnesota. The Blandin Foundation pays all expenses for the leaders and conducts what amounts to eight days of training, beginning with five days at Ruttger’s Sugar Lake Lodge in Grand Rapids in the fall.

It’s an unusual opportunity for Mankato, and there will be a town hall meeting next Wednesday for anyone interested. (See breakout). There is more information on the program at blandinfoundation.org.

Blandin’s efforts this year will bring the number of Mankato leaders going through the program up to 72, a critical mass that Blandin feels helps get things done in a community Mankato’s size. A similar program was established in Duluth a few years ago that gave birth to many success stories.

This is a chance for community leaders to discuss collectively the future of their community and how to make it better. I can’t think of a better way to improve the region as a great place to live.



Joe Spear is managing editor of The Free Press. Contact him at 344-6382 of jspear@mankatofreepress.com